Global Animation Theory: International Perspectives at Animafest Zagreb

by Franziska Bruckner (Editor), Holger Lang (Editor), Nikica Gilic (Editor), Daniel Suljic (Editor), Hrvoje Turkovic (Editor)

Overview

This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched.

Scanning historical and current trends in animation through different perspectives including art history, film, media and cultural studies is a prominent facet of today's theoretical and historical approaches in this rapidly evolving field. Global Animation Theory offers detailed and diverse insights into the methodologies of contemporary animation studies, as well as the topics relevant for today's study of animation. The contact between practical and theoretical approaches to animation at Animafest Scanner, is closely connected to host of this event, the World Festival of Animated Film Animafest Zagreb. It has given way to academic writing that is very open to practical aspects of animation, with several contributors being established not only as animation scholars, but also as artists. This anthology presents, alongside an introduction by the editors and a preface by well known animation scholar Giannalberto Bendazzi, 15 selected essays from the first three Animafest Scanner editions. They explore various significant aspects of animation studies, some of them still unknown to the English speaking communities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501365010
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/28/2020
Series:	Criminal Practice Series
Pages:	265
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.59(d)

About the Author

Franziska Bruckner is a senior researcher at the Research Group Media Creation at St. Poelten University of Applied Sciences, Austria. Her research focuses on animation history and analysis, animation in AR/VR environments, and climate change communication. Currently, she is the head of the projects VRinMotion (FWF), AniVision (FWF), and Climate Media Frames (GFF Nö). She has co-edited several books, including Global Animation Theory: International Perspectives at Animafest Zagreb (Bloomsbury 2019) and Filmfestivals, in Theory (2019).

Holger Lang is an Austrian researcher, artist and filmmaker, living and working in Vienna, Austria. For over 20 years he has been teaching animation, media arts and aesthetics for an American university at one of their satellite locations in Austria and also their main campus in St. Louis, USA. His artistic focus reaches from abstract and conceptual work to experimental and interdisciplinary projects. Traveling extensively he has been invited to numerous lectures, presentations, conferences and festivals in Europe, the United States and Japan. Holger Lang is organising academic symposia in Vienna and Zagreb and he is curating programs of European and Austrian animation and experimental films for various venues. In addition he is managing and curating an independent gallery in Vienna and for several years he is one of the board members of ASIFA AUSTRIA where he is supporting, promoting and distributing contemporary Austrian animation. His own artistic output in film, experimental animation and fine arts has been shown in solo and group screenings and exhibitions for more than 25 years.

Nikica Gilic is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb, Croatia, where he teaches history and theory of cinema. He also teaches film theory at Academy of Drama Art in Zagreb and often gives guest lectures in post-yugoslav contemporary cinema and history of cinema, most recently in Regensburg, Germany and Brno, Czech republic. He is editor in chief of Hrvatski filmski ljetopis journal and a member of the editorial boards of online journals Images (Croatia) and Apparatus (Germany). He wrote books Uvod u povijest hrvatskog igranog filma (Introduction to the History of Croatian Film, Zagreb 2010 and 2011), Uvod u teoriju filmske price (Introduction to Theory of Narration in Cinema, Zagreb, 2007) and Filmske vrste i rodovi (Film Genres and Types, Zagreb, 2007, second, online edition 2013). He is the coordinator of Doctoral program in literature, performance arts, film and culture in Zagreb since 2013 and in 2015 he became an Associate Research Fellow at the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, University of Regensburg). He worked on juries and sellection comittees of several festivals, such as Pula Film Festival, Dani hrvatskog filma, ZagrebDox and Animafest Zagreb. He also studied comparative literature and English in Zagreb, Croatia, where he got his PhD in film studies in 2005.

Daniel Šuljic is an animation film director and a musician in Zagreb, Croatia and Vienna, Austria. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, and from 1992 to 1998 painting and animation at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Masterclass C.L.Attersee. From 2005 to 2008 he was a lecturer of classical animation at the Institute for Media Design at the University of Art and Design in Linz, and in 2006 he was given the title of honorary professor at Jilin College of the Arts Animation School in Changchun, China. In the years 2009-2012 he was a lecturer of animation at the Academy of Fine Arts, Zagreb, and 2010-2012 he served as an artistic consultant for animated film at the Croatian Audiovisual Cente. Since 2011 he has been the artistic director of the World Festival of Animated Film Animafest Zagreb. Since 2013 he is a member of the Film Council at the Zagreb's City Office for Education, Culture and Sports. His films Evening Star (1993), Waltz (1994), Leckdonalds (1995), Highway 59 (1996), The Cake (1997), Sun, Salt and Sea (1997), Film With a Girl (2000), Ich kann es mir sehr gut vorstellen (I Can Imagine It Very Well,2004), Kurzes Leben (Short Life, 2007, co-dir. Johanna Freise), In Chains (2011) were shown at numerous international and national (animation) film festivals, different TV stations across Europe and earned 20 awards so far.

Hrvoje Turkovic is a Croatian film theorist, film critic and university professor. He received a B.A. degree in philosophy and sociology from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb in 1972, and an M.A. in film studies from the New York University Graduate School of Arts and Science in 1976, on a Fulbright Program grant. Turkovic obtained his Ph.D. in film theory from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb in 1991. Since 1977, Turkovic taught at the Academy of Dramatic Art, University of Zagreb, retiring in 2009 as full professor. From 2006, Turkovic teaches Ph.D. courses at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb. Since 1998, Turkovic is the president of the Croatian Film Association. He was the founding president of the Croatian Society of Film Critics (1992–1994). Turkovic served as an editor in a number of journals and magazines, published 12 books about film and television, and a book about visual arts theory (Understanding Perspective, 2002). He wrote more than 700 articles about film, and contributed entries for Film Encyclopedia and Film Lexicon, published by the Miroslav Krleža Institute of Lexicography.

Table of Contents

Giannalberto Bendazzi (Independent Scholar, Genoa, Italy)
Foreword

Anthology Editors
Introduction

Section 1: Historical and Theoretical Approaches from International Animation Studies

1. Marcin Gizycki (Academy of Information Technology, Warsaw, Poland / Rhode Island School of Design, USA)
Animation Since 1980: A Personal Journey

2. Paul Wells (Animation Academy at Loughborough University, UK)
Animation in the Gallery and the Gestalt: György Kovásznai and William Kentridge

3. Mareike Sera (Humboldt University Berlin, Germany)
On Analogical Thinking: Jan Švankmajer and Franco “Bifo” Beradi

4. Chunning Guo (Maggie) (Renmin University of China, Beijing, China)
The Successful Chorus of “The Second Wave”: An examination of Feminism's "Manifesto" of Digital Art

5. Olga Bobrowska (Jagiellonian University, Poland)
Seeking Truth in Facts. Historicizing Chinese Animation.

6. Holger Lang (Webster Vienna Private University, Austria)
Austria Unlimited. Limitations and Chances within a Small Production Environment

7. Mihat Ajanovic-Ajan (University West, Trollhättan, Sweden)
Beyond the self-images: The Context and Development of Animated Documentaries, the Cornerstones of Modern Animation in Sweden


Section 2: Case Studies from Around the World

8. Edwin Carels (School of Arts KASK/HoGent, Belgium)
Short Circuits. On the Impact of the Flipbook in the Work of Robert Breer

9. Mikhail Gurevich (Independent Scholar, Chicago, USA)
“…The film is not about that”. Notes on (re)reading Tale of Tales

10. Andrijana Ružic (Independent Scholar, Milan, Italy)
The Importance of Ranko Munitic´s Work on Zagreb School of Animation.

11. Irena Paulus (Independent Scholar, Zagreb, Croatia)
Animation Experienced through Music: Tomislav Simovic and Zagreb School of Animation

12. Fatemeh Hosseini-Shakib (Tehran Art University, Iran)
Puppet as Not-Puppet: the Notion of 'Puppet' and its Many Connotations in the Works of Barry Purves (the case of Screen Play)

13. Michal Bobrowski (UMCS University, Poland)
Subversive Machinery: DIY Philosophy in Films of Julian Antonisz

14. Dirk de Bruyn (Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia)
Lynsey Martin: A Case study in 1970s Australian Experimental Animation

List of Contributors
Abstracts

Editorial Reviews

We have in Global Animation Theory a welcome expansion of the recent scholarship that has focused on the international development of animation practices. The editors and authors delve deeply into genres, techniques, and national cultures to reveal the complex and contested world of animation analysis, critical thinking, and new theoretical approaches. Often the discussions bring personal and artistic perspectives to the subject, enlivening this liveliest medium all the more.” —Donald Crafton, Professor Emeritus, University of Notre Dame, USA

“In this book, through case studies that deals with great number of historically important animated films from all over the world, authors are unveiling, interpreting and defining many hidden and complex elements that make the art of animation so fascinating.” —Frano Dulibic, Professor of Art History, University of Zagreb, Croatia

“For me, as an animation artist and scholar, the symposium Animafest Scanner represents the best of both worlds: An academic conference with high-calibre international speakers, which is embedded into one of the world's most important artistic animation festivals, Animafest Zagreb. In the reader Global Animation Theory, this combined spirit is finally transferred into a book that will no doubt have a substantial impact on the steadily growing field of animation studies.” —Dr. Max Hattler, Assistant Professor, School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

From the Publisher