Imagine the Unheard. The Radical Aesthetic of Electronic Music in the History of Animation - Jens Meinrenken

PANEL 4: MUSIC IN ANIMATION Srijeda, 10. lipnja, 14:35-15:05

Imagine the Unheard. The Radical Aesthetic of Electronic Music in the History of Animation.
Jens Meinrenken (freelancer, Humboldt University of Berlin)

From the early beginnings of synthetic sound in the 1930s to the digital interfaces of modern sound design, electronic music plays a key role in animation history. The alienated, often strange sounds that were first created through the paintings on a paper and then later by synthesizers and other new invented electronic instruments are nothing less than the discovery of an unheard musical universe within the world of animation. An outstanding example for that development are the films of the polish animator Piotr Kamler. In many of his films from the 1960s to the 1980s he used compositions from famous avant-garde musicians that are or were members of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM) in Paris. The so-called „musique concrète“ or acousmatic music by composers like Iannis Xennakis, Beatriz Ferreyra or Luc Ferrari provides an aesthetical experience that is based on a radical new understanding of sound and music. The tradition of absolute film and visual music of the 1920s is here transformed into a new world of animation and electronic music. With the advent of the computer and the rapid evolution of electronic music, this radical aesthetic ushered in a new era of animation unlike anything seen before. The tendency of experimental animation to create surreal and sometimes psychedelic worlds has, through MTV and the art of the music video, evolved into a mainstream form of entertainment. This lecture aims to trace the development outlined here using selected works from the history of animation, while exploring the extent to which contemporary animation still radically combines music and imagery.

Jens Meinrenken is a freelance art historian, lecturer and curator. He studied art history, philosophy and German language, as well as literature in Bamberg and Berlin. He is the co-founder of Deutscher Comicverein and has published numerous articles on a wide range of subjects including animated movies, computer games, and comics. His work as a curator includes for example Heroes, Freaks, and Super-Rabbis. Jewish Dimension of Comic Art, Jewish Museum Berlin (2010) and Comics from Berlin. Pictures of a City, Haus der Berliner Festspiele (2013). He also curated a film programme about the intersection of comics and animation for Animafest Zagreb 2017.