Animation Avantgarde Academy 2011

Many international Art or Film Academies are offering intensive courses or even full studies in animation to their students, with obvious positive effects. Numerous prestigious film awards are the work of art students, like e.g. the "Oscars for animated short film" to art students in Germany: "Balance" (1989, Gebrüder Lauenstein, University of Kassel - Art College), "Quest" (1996, Tyron Montgomery und Thomas Stellmach, University of Kassel - Art College), or the Oscar nomination "Das Rad" (2002, Stenner, Uibel & Wittlinger, Filmacademy Baden-Würtemberg). etc. etc.

But animation is not only produced for the cinema, a growing number of artists are regarding animation as a discipline more independent from cinematography, and more strongly rooted in the traditions of all kinds of Fine Arts disciplines. E.g. South African artist William Kentridge is an outstanding example for it, his films are very rarely to be seen at film festivals but most extensively at the major art shows of this world. Animation has emancipated from cinema, merges with all kinds of digital technologies and today plays an important role in Fine Arts.

The Animation Avantgarde Academy 2011 is organised in collaboration with the Vienna Independent Shorts Filmfestival, which - under the leadership of Thomas Renoldner, Wiktoria Pelzer and Daniel Ebner - in 2010 has started the "ANIMATION AVANTGARDE" showcase: a stage for presentation and dialogue for experimental animation, avantgarde film and digital media arts.

International guests from Animation Avantgarde Academy 2011 programmes come to the Academy to talk about key issues of animation as a contemporary art form. Highlight of the A. A. Academy is the audio-visual live performance "49 Flies" by famous Canadian filmmaker & performer Pierre Hebert.

Programme:

14:00 Opening

14:30 Thomas Renoldner - Simon von Stampfer, forseeing animation genres - lecture

15:00 Karin Wehn - Animation is Art - lecture

15:30-15:45 Break
15:45 Andrea Martignoni - Sound in Animation - lecture

16:15 Max Hattler - Animation Performances - lecture

16:45-17:00 Break

17:00 Small Talk with Pierre Hebert

17:15 Pierre Hebert - "49 FLIES" - Live Animation Performance

18:00 Closing

Lectures:

Mag. Thomas Renoldner - Simon von Stampfer, forseeing animation genres

Simon von Stampfer invented in Vienna in 1832 the "Stroboscopic Wheel", an animation device to show (between 8 - 12) drawings in fluent movement. Renoldner explores the diversity of film genres to come and already represented on Stampfers "Zauberrädern".

Karin Wehn - Animation is Art

Animation it is often considered as "cartoony", as something for children or associated with Disney. This greatly underestimates the specifity of animation - no matter what technique - to create the illusion of life in potentially infinite ways. Much older than live-action film, it is an artform with a long and outstanding history that has emcompassed and inspired all other artforms alike.

Andrea Martignoni - Sound in Animation

Sound in animation is something special: composer/sound-designer is free in finding the right sounds and the right music for the film without "realistic" constraints (that is always one of the choices). But what happened when the sound-design is made before the film? The soundtrack for the Blu's film FINO (2006), as well as many sound-track for workshops, has been made prior to any idea related to the film.

Max Hattler - Animation Performances

Max Hattler looks at recent developments in audiovisual live performance and their relation to the wider history of abstract animation.

Small Talk with Pierre Hebert

Pierre Hebert has been working for the Animation Dept. of the NFB (National Filmboard of Canada), one of the internationally most profiled universitary institutions in support of the art of animation. In a short interview we would like to find out, which conditions allowed the foundation and governmental support of such an institution in Canada and why they are missing in Austria.

Performance:

Pierre Hebert: "49 Flies" - Live Animation Performance

49 Flies is a live animation performance by Pierre Hébert based on the recording (made by my friend Claude Beaugrand, a well known sound editor in Montreal) of flies trapped between two window panes. I edited the noise of the enervated flies buzzing and bumping on the panes and on the microphone to make a 32 minutes long sound scape. After building into an intense sound construction, it quietly dissolves within the sound of falling rain. It begins with quite realist and amusing depictions of flies and slowly develops into a more abstract and oppressive rendering.

At this date, the piece was performed in a duet form in Roberts Creek, B.C., at Kinemateka Ljubljana and at the Vancouver New Music Festival with viola player Stefan Smulaovitz, and as a solo piece, at the BanjaLuka Animation Film Festival, in Bosnia, and at the Holland Animation Film Festival, in Utrecht. There are project of more duets with other musicians.

Biographies:

Mag. Thomas Renoldner
Studied Animation at the Academy of Fine Arts (Maria Lassnig / C.L. Attersee), diploma film "RHYTMUS 94" (1994) was a homage to Hans Richter and abstract animation / visual music. Besides being a filmmaker (experimental film, animation, music videos, commercials) he is producer (for Martin Anibas, Heimo Wallner, Nicolas Mahler, etc.), teacher (numerous workshops with young people and adults since 1990, studio for animation at the Academy of Fine Arts since 2005), theorist ("Die Kunst des Einzelbildes - Animation in Österreich, 1832 bis heute" project coordination and main article in the book published by Filmarchiv Austria), and curator of film programmes at international festivals and in Austria.

Dr. Karin Wehn
Karin Wehn is a media scholar and press referee at the interdisciplinary computer games research centre 'gameslab' at the University of Applied Sciences, Berlin. Her research interests include the history and theory of independent animated film and digital media as well as the multiple developments which result from the dialogue between "old"  analogue and "new" digital media and technologies. Besides teaching she shares her observations in publications, lectures, masterclasse and curates film programmes for several international film festivals.
www.karin-wehn.de

Dr. Andrea Martignoni
Musician, performer, sound designer, expert of the history of animation film.
Andrea Martignoni is known for his soundtracks for Blu's films ( Muto, Big Bang Big Boom ). He studied the relationship between sound and images at the University of Bologna and at the Cinémathèque Quebécoise in Montréal. He realizes workshops on sound and animation with Associazione OTTOmani and Basmati a.c. , collaborating with many cultural centers and international film festivals.

Max Hattler, MA (RCA)
Experimental animator and audiovisual artist Max Hattler studied at Goldsmiths College, Escuela de Cine de Madrid, and the Royal College of Art. He has presented his work in film festivals, museums and galleries around the world. Max teaches at Goldsmiths College in London, and he is represented worldwide by Partizan for commercial work and by Cimatics agency for audiovisual performances. He is currently doing his Professional Doctorate in Fine Art at the University of East London. www.maxhattler.com

Pierre Hebert
Filmmaker, performer, theorist. Formerly an employee of the National film board of Canada where he directed over twenty shorts and a feature, Pierre Hébert is now an independent artist involved in filmmaking, live animation performances and video installations. He has been on stage all over the world with many different musicians. He also worked with dance companies and wrote books and articles about cinema and animation. In 2005, he received the "Albert Tessier" cinema award from the Quebec government for lifetime achievement.
www.pierrehebert.com