The Persistence of Animation

Drawing Itself

Abstract:Australian Experimental Animator Neil Taylor’s (1945-) animated gestures repetitively inscribe the surfaces of flipbooks or note pads (Short Lives [1980-90]) and cash register rolls (Roll Film 1990 and Copy Copy 1998) and are often enhanced by ‘machines’ designed to facilitate such activity. These animations are informed by Taylor’s successful wire-based sculptural practice and his 20 years experience of teaching animation to tertiary students. For Taylor ‘the subject of the films was drawing, itself, and how animating over extended periods affects us.’ (Taylor, 1990: 15 in Cantrills Filmnotes).

Biographical Statement: Dirk de Bruyn teaches animation and digital culture at Deakin University. As well as sustaining his own creative experimental animation and multi-screen performance practice for over 25 years he has written about this area in Cantrills Filmnotes and Senses of Cinema. He is committed to documenting, promoting and presenting Australian animation in his teaching practice and national and international forums. More information on his practice and research is available at: http://www.innersense.com.au/mif/debruyn.html.

Primitive Movers: Live Performance in Digital Animation

Abstract: This paper focuses on the developing contemporary genre of live animation performances, which include the body of the animator alongside projected images of his or her making. I examine these live performances within the context of the self-figurative animation tradition, but also within the context of current digital cinema debates and practices. As I argue in the paper, corporeal expression remains an important feature of traditional animation — one that insists on maintaining an embodied creative presence within moving image representations. Although the paper touches on the works of numerous contemporary artists, the paper focuses on the works of Kathy Rose and Pierre Hebert.

Biographical Statement: Alla Gadassik conducts research on hybrids of live-action and animation, early animation history, and digital cinema theory. She is particularly interested in animation as a form of embodied filmmaking — one that resonates with other filmmaking practices, but also suggests distinctive transformative possibilities within digital cinema. Alla holds an MA in Communication and Culture from York/Ryerson Universities (Toronto), and is currently pursuing her PhD in Screen Cultures at Northwestern University (Chicago). In addition to pursuing an academic career, Alla is a digital filmmaker/animator. She has taught digital media in the Radio and Television program at Ryerson University (Toronto), and hopes to combine theory and practice in her future teaching projects.

Bestowing Persistence: An Eclipsed Birth Meets An Eclipsed Death
(Preconstituted Panel: At Death’s Insistence: Theorising Animation and Death)

Abstract: Taking inspiration from George Bataille’s statement, “A dictionary begins when it no longer gives the meaning of words, but their tasks,” this paper is a questioning look at the early birth and seeming death of critical histories for experimental film and experimental animation. Insisting upon the persistence of experimental animation as a uniquely distinct aesthetic, this scholar distinguishes the art form while simultaneously reaching across the disciplines of art history, cinema history and philosophical inquiry. While this paper does not analyze Bataille per se, its author is inspired by the quote.

Biographical Statement: Founder-Director of the virtual Think Tank, Institute for Interdisciplinary Art and Creative Intelligence, Janeann Dill reaches across the creative disciplines to inhabit a critical landscape at a four-point intersect of experimental animation, cinema, fine art, and philosophy. Dr. Dill’s global research examines experimental animation as an inherently interdisciplinary and neo-aesthetic experimental fine arts practice per se. Imbuing a praxis in experimental animation with a praxis in painting and drawing, her scholarship and research largely takes its critical cues from Eisenstein, Eggeling, Krauss, Adams-Sitney, Moritz, Deleuze and Heidegger. In doing so, she tentatively joins thought to the unthought. (Dr. Dill is also Visiting Faculty and Experimental Animation Artist, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa.)