The Persistence of Animation

Watch and Listen! Animated audiovisual language stimulation in kindergarten.

Abstract: This is the title of a new research project financed by the Norwegian Research Council’s VRI-programme. Its aim is to stimulate the development of regional cultural industries in close collaborations with universities and other research institutions.

The main goal of the research project is to find out how small films and animations can be used to stimulate kindergarten children and teachers to use/learn New Norwegian, the minority written language in Norway used by app. 20% of the total population. The project started in November 2008 but we have already started the production of small animations. At the SAS conference I would like to present the work we have done by July 2009.

Biographical Statement: Gunnar Strøm (born 1955), Associate Professor at Volda University College, Norway, has published books and articles on animation, documentaries and music videos. He is a former Secretary General and Vice President of ASIFA International. In addition, he has programmed and served on juries for film festivals worldwide.

Vision On to Stay Tooned: Animated Pedagogy in British Children’s Broadcasting 1966-1996

Abstract: This paper will look at the ways animation was promoted and “taught” in a range of British children’s television programmes, from the mid-1960s to the mid-1990s. While Britain has a rich tradition of animated TV series, principally made for children, from the emergence of television in the 1950s through to the present day, it was series like Vision On, Clapperboard, Rolf’s Cartoon Time and Stay Tooned which offered a practical, critical and progressive discourse about the effectiveness of animation as an art, educating children (and adults) about the meaning and affect of cartoons, influencing many later practitioners and critics.

Biographical Statement: I am an established animation studies scholar, seeking to extend my work as a cultural historian, theorist and screenwriter/director, by establishing new areas of enquiry to research and promote. This paper emerges from research in two related areas — firstly, the continuing work in recovering and writing about various aspects of British animation, and secondly, engaging with the importance of archives and archival materials as part of a development to create a national animation archive in Britain. This paper will form parts of two forthcoming publications, and informs an on-going government enquiry about animation education and visual literacy.