Animation Breakdown: Drawn to Life

The Animation Breakdown Weekend at Tate Modern has now been and gone. If you missed it never fear - the films from the Computer Baroque programme will be on animateprojects.org from mid-April and the Study Day presentations and Q&As will be online soon...

In the meantime, you can read the transcript of the presentation that Belgian curators María Palacios Cruz and Stoffel Debuysere gave at the Study Day, here on Stoffel's blog Diagonal Thoughts. The presentation focused on the Drawn to Life programme that Stoffel and Maria had previously shown at the Maison des Cultures Saint-Gilles, Brussels, in November 2008.

Image: i've got a guy running, Jonathon Kirk

Animation Breakdown - "waging war for territory on information media"

Vital London lister kultureflash has posted a great write up on the Animation Breakdown weekend..witty, informed and astute...(scroll down to the Friday 20 March listing...)

One conspicuous region where negotiations are still taking place, borders are drawn and redrawn, boundaries blurred and sharpened, is that occupied by animation -- a field still reaching wildly off in all directions but with a unique capacity to both captivate and criticize. And you don't need an art degree (or three) to know when you like what you see.

We couldn't have put it better ourselves.

more here...(scroll down to the Friday 20 March listing...)

image: Eggy, Yoichiro Kawaguchi (showing in the Computer Baroque programme on Friday 20th)

Animation Breakdown Weekend at Tate Modern - confirmed line up

It is getting close and we are getting very excited. Though of course there's Flatpack before then.

All the Animation Breakdown speakers are confirmed. And we've posted biogs to show how impressive the line up is. The day starts with a talk by Belgian curators Stoffel Debuysere and Maria Palacios Cruz, and they'll be interspersing words with films, including Kota Ezawa's The Simpson Verdict and Ken Jacobs' Capitalism : slavery.

BOOK ONLINE NOW

The tapes and discs for the Computer Baroque screening programme are nearly all here - and John Witney's Victory Sausage is on its way from the Academy of Film Arts and Sciences no less...  And if you've never seen David Blair's seminar WAX or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees, now's the opportunity to rectify and even ask him a few questions.

Image: The City is No Longer Safe (Butler Brothers), showing in the Computer Baroque programme.

transmediale 09 prize...

We are thrilled to report that Tantalum Memorial, by Graham Harwood, Richard Wright and Matsuko Yokokoji, has deservedly won first prize at this year's transmediale festival in Berlin.

A "telephony-based memorial to the people who have died as a result of the “coltan wars” in the Congo", the installation was shown at the Science Museum in London last year. It is very powerful stuff.

We're also very pleased to be working with Richard on the Computer Baroque programme that we're showing as part of the Animation Breakdown weekend - and it looks likely that we'll be able to present some of the films online too later this year.

Animation Breakdown Weekend at Tate Modern

We are very excited to be working with Tate Modern on a weekend of screenings and discussion that will" explore the relationships between drawing, moving image, and the influence of digital technologies". Though I keep on calling it 'Animate Breakdown', which isn't sending out the right signals at all...

On 21 March, the Animation Breakdown Study Day will kick off with an illustrated talk by Brussels based curators Stoffel Debuysere and Maria Palacio Cruz. Artist panels will focus on drawing, photographic and digital practice. Confirmed participants include: Simon Faithfull, Ann Course, Dryden Goodwin and Emily Richardson. International artists attending include Joshua Mosley (USA) and Samba Fall (Senegal/Norway). The sessions will be chaired by curator Angela Kingston, Steven Bode (Director, Film and Video Umbrella) and David Chandler (Director, Photoworks).

On Friday 20 and Saturday 21 there are two 'Computer Baroque' screenings, curated by Richard Wright. Short Films on the Friday - a selection of defining works in the history of artists’ digital moving image that represent a period in which computer animation was the focus for the most audacious and exuberant experiments across all areas of new media, art and technology. The programme includes rarely seen works by Karl Sims, William Latham, Paul Garrin, Tamas Waliczky, Ruth Linford, Shelley Lake and James Duesing.

And on Saturday, a rare screening of WAX, or The Discovery of Television Among the Bees (David Blair, USA/Germany, 1991) - one of the earliest examples of how to use inexpensive, digital production methods, including computer animation by the now well-known media theorist Lev Manovich. Blair constructs a long-form, hallucinatory narrative that ties together the first Gulf War, flight simulators, psychic research...and bee keeping. Followed by a Q&A with David Blair.

Booking information and online booking here.

We'll be updating the programme here.

Organised by Animate Projects and Tate Modern in association with the Animation Department at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London and The Drawing Room Gallery. Supported by Arts Council England.


The image is from Time Tear by Sebastian Buerkner.