An open discussion event on Saturday, 6 April 2013 during the 3rd Be there! Corfu Animation Festival.
Description:
From educational applications to medical imaging to the omnipresent CGI, the art of animation has formed a singular culture, while at the same time remaining on the research background. However, the interpenetration of animation into different fields has started from its inception (end of the 19th century), when it was connected to the visual arts, literature and the comic strip.
The one-day open discussion event "Animation in the 21st century. It's everywhere!" attempts to detect types of old and more recent penetration of animation into both artistic facets and the more comprehensive cultural environment. It aims to map, at least preliminary, the structures that make animation so malleable in its interaction with different forms of culture.
Programme:
12:00 Welcome talk: Vassilis Kroustallis, artistic director, Be there! Corfu Animation Festival
12:10 Animation: Synthesis of arts, Panagiotis Rappas, director, scriptwriter, producer
12:30 'Experimental' animation and visual arts, Elena Hamalidi, Assistant Professor of History of Art, Department of Audio & Visual Arts, Ionian University
12:50 Digital fairy tales and games: Αll time animation, Dalila Honorato, Lecturer, Department of Audio & Visual Arts, Ionian University
13:10 After Disney, Vassilis Paschalis, Assistant Professor, Department of Plastic Arts and Art Sciences, University of Ioannina.
13:30-14:00 Discussion – Closing comments
14:00-14:15 Film screening: The Fountain of Youth (Panagiotis Rappas, 2012).
Abstracts:
Animation: Synthesis of arts (P. Rappas)
Arguably the term Gesamtkunstwerk, that the composer Richard Wagner first used and has been accepted in English and internationally to describe an artistic work which is the result of the use of all or many arts simultaneously or a synthesis of the arts, finds in the art of animation his ideal example. The dialogue of the art of animation with the literature, sometimes successful some not, is perhaps the best known but actually a good animated movie is always the result of a series of dialogues with other arts forms such as music, painting, dance, sculpture or architecture.
‘Εxperimental’ animation and visual arts (E. Hamalidi)
The roots of animation are in visual arts and theater. Already in the early 20th century avant-garde artists, filmmakers or animators developed an experimental kind of animation in the context of -or influenced by- art movements or experimental film. In this lecture it will be mainly attempted to outline the animation by independent artists, and highlight its multiplicity and its relation to other media.
Digital fairy tales and games: all time animation (D. Honorato)
Once considered childish and marginal, animation is presently everywhere. As a whole or a part, animated forms lead in audiovisual content such as television and web ads, cinematic documentary, interactive books and digital games. With the spread of digital technology into the domestic environment and the introduction of multi-touch in the exploration of a medium that, until recently, was defined by audio and visual senses experience, it is understandable the development of interactive children's books. As a logical extension of the illustrated and activity book, the interactive children's books has contributed to the evolution of the narrative structure through animation.
Besides its role as a complement of the written code, animation can contribute perceptually to the concentration of the reader's attention, though movement in addition to color and shape. It gives the creator the possibility to conduct a dialogue with the reader, as an invitation to actively participate in the narrative, to experience the story widely, to take part either in the unrolling of the narrative, by deciding the hero's next step, or in the increase of the reading experience, by slowing page turn speed. The study of animation applications in more complex communication media is for this reason important in particular due to its potential in the development of synaesthetic educational platforms.
After Disney (V. Paschalis)
Although his mortal coil was led to earth in 1966,according to the company he established he remained alive and kicking,enjoying an eternal return in the motto: "Walt Disney Presents".
The paper focuses upon certain crucial characteristics that are associated with the development of Disney's animation studio, the flagship of his Empire, and considers how far these characteristics are still considerable factors of the mainstream animation world of today:
i)What has remained of his multi- disciplinarian and over-centralized approach and activity, which, although it was not limited to his personality, acquired its strongest force with him.
ii) What has remained of his studio, and its concept of production and work methods, which reached pharaonic grandiose, and was based on an almost medieval , over-hierarchical organization of the work force as animation- 'artisants' of various kinds.
