ANIMAFEST SCANNER X | SYMPOSIUM FOR CONTEMPORARY ANIMATION STUDIES

Animafest Scanner X: Symposium for Contemporary Animation Studies

Theatre &TD, Savska 25
06-07/06, 09:30 – 16:40 h
In English, open to public.

The 10th edition of the Symposium for Contemporary Animation Studies Animafest Scanner X aims again to create synergy of practice and theoretical
discourses, and stimulate exchange between filmmakers and scholars. As the worldwide animation studies have been rapidly growing and evolving in recent years, catching up with the expanding field of animated films, Animafest Scanner symposium is again at the frontline of the discourse and the interaction of theoretical and practical approaches to animation.

The symposium is held in association with the World Festival of Animated Film - Animafest Zagreb. Over the course of its fifty-one-year history, the festival has given a stage to different animation forms and formats in competition and non-competition environments, presenting a worldwide selection of auteur, experimental and mainstream animated films in various programs. 

The speakers will focus on the following subjects: What Does ‘Animation’ Mean Now?, Digital Technologies and Originality, Animation Assisting Other Art Forms, Sci-Fi in Animation.

Suzanne Buchan is this year’s keynote speaker and the recipient of the Animafest Zagreb Award for Outstanding Contribution to Animation Studies. As currently professor and Head of MA Animation at the Royal College of Art, and previously director of the Art and Design Research Institute (ADRI) and professor of animation aesthetics at the University of Middlesex in London, she set the highest standards in animation teaching. In terms of research of this dynamic field, her development of the Animation Research Centre in 2000, which she also was director of, is of utmost importance. She taught animation in Zurich, where she also obtained her PhD in film studies, and indebted animation studies as the founder and Editor of the scholarly Animation. An Interdisciplinary Journal, and she was one of the founders and directors of the Fantoche animation festival. In her research she has particularly focused on manipulated moving image aesthetics and theory, with a special accent on digital culture and experimental cinema in relation to animation, always using interdisciplinary approaches and setting animation in the context of culture, arts, technology and moving images as such. The books of particular importance in her work are The Quay Brothers: Into a Metaphysical Playroom (2011), Pervasive Animation: An AFI Film Reader (2013) and Animated ‘Worlds’ (2006), but she also mentors doctoral researchers. In these research papers she studies, for example, contemporary tendencies in portraying the life of the Inuit in Canadian animation, a feminist vision of the body in animation, the comical in animation, theoretical models of animation studies and other intriguing topics, and her curatorial work on the exhibition Animierte Wunderwelten / Animated Wonderworlds in Zurich (2015-2016) is considered particularly important. (Nikica Gilić)

Historical and current trends, numerous perspectives, new findings in the fast-growing field of animation studies, paired with exciting speakers – all this and more awaits you at the Animafest Scanner X symposium, in the context of screenings and other events organised by Animafest Zagreb 2023.

Organisers:
World Festival of Animated film – Animafest Zagreb
ASIFA Austria
Hulahop Film & Art Production

Organising committee:
Daniel Šuljić, MA, World Festival of Animated Film - Animafest Zagreb
Franziska Bruckner, PhD St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences / AG Animation Vienna
Nikica Gilić, PhD, Prof., Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb
Prof. Holger Lang, Webster University
Prof. Hrvoje Turković, PhD, Prof. in retirement, Academy of Dramatic Arts, University of Zagreb
Andrijana Ružić, Independent Scholar, Università Statale di Milano

With support of:
Croatian Audiovisual Centre
Zagreb Tourist Board
City of Zagreb
The Croatian Film Directors’ Guild
AG Animation / Society for Media Studies
St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences

06/06 TUESDAY

09:30                Welcome & Introduction
09:40 – 10:25    KEYNOTE: Animation Matters - Suzanne Buchan (Animafest Award for Outstanding Contribution to Animation Studies)  

PANEL 1 – WHAT DOES ‘ANIMATION’ MEAN NOW?

Moderator: Nikica Gilić
10:30 – 11:00 Why Do We Need to Define (Auteur) Animation Again? - Mina Sablić Papajić (Serbia)
11:15 – 11:45 Does Animatronics Resemble Animation More Than Puppetry? - Farzaneh Omidvarnia (Denmark)
11:50 – 12:20 Redefining Animated Frames for Virtual Environments - Franziska Bruckner, Julian Salhofer (Austria)

PANEL 2 – DIGITAL TECHONOLOGIES AND ORIGINALITY

Moderator: Franziska Bruckner
14:15 – 14:45 Ghosts in the Celluloid: AI Video Dubbing and TrueSync - Christopher Holliday (UK)
14:50 – 15:20 Converting Video Lectures into Effective and Inclusive Animated Presentations - Nicoletta Adamo, Christos Mousas (USA)
15:35 – 16:05 AI on the Way to Animated Film Storyboarding - António Manuel Dias Costa Valente (Portugal)
16:10 – 16:40 Modular, Dynamic, Multicursal and Nonlinear Narrative Structures Applied in Animated Storytelling - Charalambos Margaritis (Cyprus)

07/06 WEDNESDAY

09:30                Introduction

PANEL 3 – ANIMATION ASSISTING OTHER ART FORMS

Moderator: Andrijana Ružić
09:40 – 10:10 Hans Richter vs Viking Eggeling: Definitely No Best Friends Forever - Ingo Petzke (Germany)
10:15 – 10:45 Animation Making Language Visible: Creating Animated Poetry - Georg Diederik (Diek) Grobler (South Africa)
11:00 – 11:30 Workshopping Art/Science Activities for a Travelling Astro-Animation STEAM Exhibition - Laurence Arcadias, Robin Corbet (USA)
11:35 – 12:05 Type E-motion - Poetics of Animated Typography in Motion - João Paulo Schlittler (Brazil)

PANEL 4 – SCI-FI IN ANIMATION

Moderator: Holger Lang    
14:15 – 14:45 Animated Dystopian Worlds - Svjetlana Sumpor (Croatia)
14:50 – 15:20 Dušan Vukotić and Sci-Fi - Midhat Ajanović (Sweden)
15:35 – 16:05 Warning Shots: Reverberating Sci-Fi Tropes in the Films of the 1970-80s - Mikhail Gurevich (USA)
16:10 – 16:40 Dancing on the Moon. The Beautiful and Sometimes Weird and Strange History of Science Fiction in Animation - Jens Meinrenken (Germany)