Playing with the symbolic:
Cultural/historical mythologies in the imagery of Russian animation, from Perestroika to the present Wednesday, 28 August 2013, 12.30pm - 2.00pm ADM Library Cinema Room, Mezzanine Level
Mikhail Gurevich Born in Moscow in 1953, Mikhail Gurevich graduated with a MA with honours from the Moscow State Pedagogical University in 1976 where he specialized in teaching Russian language and literature. Since the late 1970s, he had published numerous works on history of literature, contemporary criticism, sociology of culture, pedagogical and social issues. He was a board member of a leading animation studio Soiuzmultfilm, he has also cooperated with the first independent animated film studio – Pilot. In 1992 he moved to the USA, where he completed his Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Film Studies (at University of Wisconsin). In years 2003-2004 he organized and prepared the program for the animated film festival “Cineme” in Chicago.
Russian animation of the stormy years and beyond isn’t especially known for open and direct political expression. Yet, at close look, certain (maybe overlooked) films and projects give an intriguing insight into public sentiments and tensions, translating them in rather bold and witty imagery. Playing with formerly sacred symbols or emblematic conventions, animators reveal, deliberately or not, complicated issues of cultural and historical identity – and visualize underlying mythologies. In early Pilot studio productions, almanacs Lift, we find exercises in the genre of visual joke (‘anecdote’), often loaded with indirect ideological connotations, with typical Perestroika-style ironic sentiment, but also some broader cultural sensitivity. In mid-late 1990s, so called Moscow Animation Project, gives a panorama of genres and styles, presenting in sketches and parables not only portrait of the city through its long history but also, perhaps, patterns of historical mentality itself. In 2000s, retro-nostalgic motifs become visibly noticeable, along with attempts to de- and re-construct old myths while extending them into new territories.
To register for this talk, scan the QR code or go to this link:
http://bit.ly/mgurevich
From the classic to rule-breaking: Modes of animation storytelling
Hassan Muthalib Hassan Muthalib (born 1945) is a self-taught artist, designer, animator, film director and writer. He is a pioneer in the Malaysian animation industry and among his most popular works is Mousedeer (Sang Kancil), a series for television in the 1980s.
Wednesday, 11 September 2013, 12.30pm - 2.00pm ADM Library Cinema Room, Mezzanine Level
Mr Hassan Muthalib will discuss the narrative strategies of films which use the classic 3-act structure and the expressionist structure by screening a diverse range of 2D and 3D animation shorts and video installations made by students and professionals from all over the world.
He has directed documentaries and animated public service films and commercials for TV and cinema.
Almost all of the films refer to cultural traditions of ancient days and are interpreted by using the medium of animation.
In 1984 he made the longest animated opening title sequence for a feature film (Mekanik) and pioneered the inclusion of animated characters in a feature film in 1990 (Mat Gelap), which also combined animation with live action.
This aspect will be discussed to show the continued relevance of myth for today as well as the effectiveness of the filmmakers in presenting their ideas through visual storytelling.
He is currently attached to the Faculty of Artistic & Creative Technology, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam as a Resident Artist where he is completing his book on the history of Malaysian animation titled From Mousedeer to Mouse: 60 Years of Malaysian Animation.
To register for this talk, scan the QR code or go to this link: http://bit.ly/hmuthalib
An Artistic Odyssey with Professor Jerzy Kucia
SESSION ONE
SESSION TWO
Tuesday, 22 October 2013
Wednesday, 23 October 2013
12.30pm - 2.00pm 3D Projection Lab, Level II, Room 215
12.30pm - 2.00pm 3D Projection Lab, Level II, Room 215
Professor Jerzy Kucia will share with the audience on the themes which inspire him throughout his career and the stylistic links between the films which will be presented at the talk.
About the speaker Born in 1942, Professor Jerzy Kucia is an animated film director, graphics designer and painter. He was artistically active in the painting and graphics profession after his university education, having taken part in more than 150 exhibitions and the recipient of several awards. Professor Jerzy Kucia made his debut with his an animated film titled “Return” in 1972. From then on, his artistic work had been mainly concentrated around animated films which have a very personal approach, searching for his own original formula of penetrating the surrounding world and communicating with the audience. His films took part in many competitions, during displays at international film festivals. Retrospective reviews of his creativeness were presented in over 80 art and animated film centers worldwide. Professor Jerzy Kucia is an academic at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Poland. He is also the head of the Animated Film Studio at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts since the year of 1980. He has been invited to lecture in Vancouver, London, Munster, Lublana, Bombay, Vienna, Lisbon etc. He has been running the annual International Krakow Animated Film Workshops organized for young artists from all over the world since 1996.
To register for this talk, scan the QR code or go to this link:
http://bit.ly/jkucia
Critical Cartography and Spatial Ethnography Wednesday, 20 November 2013, 12.30pm - 2.00pm ADM Library Cinema Room, Mezzanine Level
About the speaker: Dr. Annette Kim Annette M. Kim is associate professor in MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning. She directs SLAB (http://mit.edu/slab) which is developing methods of spatial ethnography and critical cartography in order to re-conceptualize urban space and find more inclusive and humane ways to shape the 21st century city. She received a Ph.D. in city and regional planning and a M.A. in visual studies from the University of California, Berkeley, a Master in public policy from Harvard University, and a bachelor's degree in studio art and architecture from Wellesley College.
Maps both conceal and reveal. Dr. Kim presents the latest experimental maps of SLAB, her research group that analyzes ubiquitous and overlooked urban phenomena such as how street vendors negotiate sidewalk space in Ho Chi Minh City and how 2 million working class people live in bomb shelter apartments in Beijing. She discusses the potential role and limitations for art and visualizations in social change.
To register for this talk, scan the QR code or go to this link: http://bit.ly/annettekim
THE EMOTIONS OF A LENS An interdisciplinary approach to the study on the perception of cinematography and its influence on film language Wednesday, 5 February 2014, 12.30pm - 2.00pm
About the speaker: M a r i j k e Van Kets Marijke Van Kets is an assistant professor at ADM, NTU, Singapore where she teaches cinematography, cultural cinema and 16mm film. As a member of the Belgian cinematographer society, S.B.C., Marijke Van Kets is an internationally acclaimed Director of Photography. Her body of work includes prize-winning feature films, commercials, video clips and her specialty is in stop motion animation films. She lives and works in Singapore and in Brussels, Belgium where she works as freelancer for different film production houses. All of her latest projects were nominated for awards at several film festivals. Her research interest is cinematography and its perception by the audience.
ADM Library Cinema Room, Mezzanine Level The focus of this research is on the use of cinematographic tools by the Director of Photography when creating images and its effect on film language. Cinematography is more than the art of photography, it is the entire range of methods and tools that we use to create a part of the film language. The term ‘cinematic technique’ means the methods and practices we use to add additional layers of meaning, nuance and emotional context to shots and scenes in addition to their objective content. (Brown, 2002, Pg 46) This study researches on how the creative use of the cinematographic differential: lens language influences the film language of a movie and the affective response of its audience. Via interdisciplinary methods, I aim for scientifically grounded understandings of cinematic tools while raising awareness of the value of cinematography. A key objective is to make use of cinematic tools to explore lens language and produce two experimental films for a case study on emotional response of audiences. A second key dimension of the project is to generate conversations within the international cinematographers societies and beyond. In this talk the experimental films and the results will be presented.
To register for this talk, scan the QR code or go to this link: http://bit.ly/marijkevankets
Taking Photographs with Mindfulness Thursday, 13 February 2014, 12.30pm - 2.00pm ADM Library Cinema Room, Mezzanine Level
During his twenty-five years at the National Film Board of Canada, in Montreal, Ishu Patel produced and directed a remarkable collection of animated short films. His many international awards include the British Academy Award, two Oscar nominations, the Silver Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival, Grand Prix at Annecy and Grand Prix at the World Film Festival in Montreal. Ishu Patel co-produced animation films with NHK of Japan, and Channel Four of Britain. A former Tenured Professor at the School of Cinema and Television, Division of Animation and Digital Arts, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, Ishu Patel is a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Although these early years in Animation consumed most of his time and energy, he never lost interest in Photography. As a young man Ishu Patel got a lifetime opportunity to assist Henri Cartier Bresson in his photographic journey in Gujarat and in Rajasthan. The inspiration and influence remained very much with him and today he continues photography with renewed passion. The digital world of photography adds new freedom, dimension and challenges to his process. After acquiring Leica M9 Digital Camera with 35 mm and 50mm fast lenses, Ishu Patel has widen the scope of his subject matter during his Photographic travel to fast changing Asian countries such as India, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and China. For more details: www.ishupatel.com www.ishupatelphoto.com www.nfb.ca/explore-all-directors/ishu-patel Wikipedia/ishupatel
Without using the word “mindfulness,“ many of the great masters talk about photography as awareness of the present moment in which we let go our goals, desires, techniques and strategies. The internal chatter of recognition, praise and desire to capture some outstanding image clouds our vision. Often, we are more aware of what’s going on in our head and not much of what’s going on around us. Mindfulness is both an attitude and a process that has had a powerful effect on philosophy, psychology, medicine and art. In the world of photography it is described as “mindful seeing” – the active, watchful mind. It is a state of mind that is welcoming, receptive that enables us to see those passing moments of life through the lens in it’s true form. Mindfulness is a strong component of Buddhism but the term mindfulness originates in Sanskrit as “Smriti,” in Tibetan “Dran Pa” and “Nian” in Chinese. For the last three years travelling throughout South East Asia photographing - Unmediated Moments of Unchanging Asia, while scouring alleyways, side streets and country side, I have used “mindful seeing” to focus on the content and esthetics. The talk will cover some of these photographs, discuss the step-by-step process of “mindful seeing” and use of basic elements of geometry to compose a photograph, which is artistic and emotionally engaging.
To register for this talk, scan the QR code or go to this link: http://bit.ly/ishupatel
Concrete Animation and Independent Media
About the speaker:
George Griffin Animator, independent filmmaker, writer, flipbook artist, film producer, George Griffin studied political science at Dartmouth and came to New York City in 1967 to be a cartoon animator. He apprenticed in animation studios and was inspired by the films of Robert Breer, Stan Vanderbeek, and John Hubley. Since 1969, he has made over 30 personal films, from 1 to 30 minutes long (collected as Griffiti Archive). The latest, The Bather, was shown at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival and Film Forum. He directed commercials at Colossal Pictures; line-produced l’Histoire du Soldat for Great Performances, and continues to produce commissioned animation and public service spots at his studio, Metropolis Graphics. He has taught at Harvard, Pratt, Parsons and elsewhere; has exhibited in and juried numerous international film festivals; has written articles and reviews for Cartoons, EnterText, Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, and other journals. Griffin's publishing projects have included Frames: Drawings and Statements by Independent Animators, Flip-Pack, and limited editions of his own flipbooks. Viewmaster, a digital mutoscope, was exhibited at the 2010 Site Santa Fe Biennial. He received a Guggenheim fellowship and numerous grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council for the Arts, and his work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Griffin is a member of ASIFA International and AMPAS.
Wednesday, 26 February 2014, 12.30pm - 2.00pm ADM Library Cinema Room, Mezzanine Level
The talk would contrast the emerging contemporary genres of animation installation, machines, toys, and performance with the independent film animation activities of the 1970s-90s. The focus will be on works created by artists in North America, illustrated with photographs and films, including some of the speaker’s own.
To register for this talk, scan the QR code or go to this link: http://bit.ly/georgegriffin
Indian Design Scene & Historical Review: From Aesthetic Design to Social Design About the speaker:
Professor Kishorilal Munshi Prof Munshi has offered Masters level courses in Design Management, Design Communication, Product Ergonomics, New Product Development and Design Methods. His research includes the area of Design Policy, R&D Management, Design Integration, Interactivity, New Product development and Pedagogy. He has lectured on the above subjects at various universities in India & abroad.
To view his full bio, visit bit.ly/biokmunshi
Wednesday, 26 March 2014, 12.30pm - 2.00pm ADM Library Cinema Room, Mezzanine Level The talk reviews history of modern design in post-independence India, beginning with the establishment of schools for design education in fifties and sixties at Ahmedabad and in Mumbai, and the philosophical premise on which these were based. These schools besides developing the design man-power also spearheaded the professional practice in the country. The talk will touch upon the cultural, geographic and economic diversity of the country and try to relate the progress of design and design thinking through the decades. It will also touch upon the emergence of new middle class and how it has affected the design scene particularly in the automotive sector. The talk is illustrated with various examples from different decades since mid-twentieth century.
To register for this talk, scan the QR code or go to this link:
bit.ly/kmunshi
India’s Independent Documentary and Video – A Tour About the speaker:
Wednesday, 2 April 2014, 12.30pm - 2.00pm ADM Library Cinema Room, Mezzanine Level
Ashish Rajadhyaksha Ashish Rajadhyaksha, presently a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, has written and published widely on the area of Indian cinema, India’s cultural policy, and on the visual arts. He is the co-editor of the Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema (published in 1999 and 2001 by the British Film Institute). His books include The Last Cultural Mile: An Inquiry into Technology and Governance in India (2011) and Indian Cinema in the Time of Celluloid: From Bollywood to the Emergency (2009). He has curated a number of film and art events, e.g. You Don’t Belong (a film package that toured several cities in China in 2011, commissioned by West Heavens, Hong Kong), and Bombay/Mumbai 19912001 (for the exhibition Century City: Art & Culture in the Modern Metropolis, Tate Modern, London, 2002, with Geeta Kapur).
In India, until as recently as the early 1980s, documentaries were only being made by its government. The Films Division, of the Government of India, was one of the world’s largest documentary producers, making several hundred films which had to be compulsorily screened in India’s movie theatres. Independent documentary cinema takes off only from the early 1980s. In the 2000s, India has become one of the world’s most vibrant spaces for documentary, and it now includes numerous filmmakers working in forms that move from classical observational documentary to deeply personal, inward-looking films; films that engage in human rights movement, to films that work on the edge of fiction. In the last five years, such documentary has increasingly worked closely with social media, video art, and in some recent instances reality-television. This presentation will introduce, with several examples, a brief history of Indian documentary and its experimental video. It will include clips of films made over the past 40 years, including films by Anand Patwardhan, Deepa Dhanraj, Sanjay Kak, Amar Kanwar, Paromita Vohra, and video experiments by the Raqs Media Collective, CAMP, Ranbir Singh Kaleka, and many others.
To register for this talk, scan the QR code or go to this link:
bit.ly/ashishr
Eden in Iraq About the speaker:
Wednesday, 9 April 2014, 12.30pm - 2.00pm ADM Library Cinema Room, Mezzanine Level
Meridel Rubenstein Meridel Rubenstein’s professional career begins in the early 1970s, evolving from photographer of single photographic images to artist of extended works and multi-media installations. She studied with noted photographer Minor White at MIT and received her MA and MFA in photography from the University of New Mexico. From the beginning, Meridel’s art has urged an awareness of how we are connected to place. Her works are known for their unusual combinations of materials and ideas. Meridel has been an active arts educator for over 30 years, having headed the Photography/ MFA Program at San Francisco University. She has exhibited widely, including most recently at the Brian Gross Fine Art in San Francisco, Chan Hampe Gallery Singapore, and the Louvre in Paris. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Bunting Institute at Harvard University, awards from the National Endowment of the Arts, as well as the Pollock Krasner and the Rockefeller Foundations. At ADM Meridel teaches The Extended Image (from image to installation) and Art and Ecology. In 2004, Meridel’s twenty year monograph Belonging: Los Alamos to Vietnam was published and can be found in the ADM library. Visit www.meridelrubenstein.com for more information.
Belonging: From Los Alamos to Vietnam TR650.R895 More details at b i t . l y / b e l o n g i n g - l a t v
Eden in Iraq, is an environmental art project set in the marshes of Southern Iraq, a site said to be very near to the historic Garden of Eden. I’m co-designing a wastewater garden/memorial site that aims to transform relics of war and human destruction into art. Ongoing photographs and video are being created to make a new record of the transformation of this land and people. Among these images, we find a new Eden. The dominant thread connecting the wastewater system and artwork is Regenesis - of a devastated homeland and waterway, of a 7000 year old Mesopotamian culture, of lost flora and fauna. After millennia of destruction, can an artist help to restore Eden? Focus now is on design of the first wastewater art garden in the village of Al Mannar adjacent to the marshes. Construction will begin within the year. This work is being supported by a NTU Tier 1 award with future funding to come from the Thi Qar Province of S. Iraq. Art works for this project, including photographs, drawings, models, and video, eventually will be presented as an installation. Eden in Iraq is the third part of EDEN TURNED ON ITS SIDE. Intersections of nature and culture across time are examined in relation to ecological and social imbalance. The three parts are Photosynthesis, The Volcano Cycle, and Eden in Iraq. The first part, Photosynthesis, includes images of trees and people exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide throughout the seasons, in a post-Edenic and threatened relationship. The Volcano Cycle: Between Heaven and Earth explores deep time with images of volcanoes from Indonesia’s Ring of Fire that evoke earth, climate change and human co-evolution. Here the destructive forces of Nature are observed to be regenerative. A future Museum installation and publication will bring together the three parts.
To register for this talk, scan the QR code or go to this link:
bit.ly/meridel-r
Open Source Studio: Collaborative Learning in the 3rd Space A B O U T
Friday, 11 April 2014, 12.30pm - 2.00pm ADM Library Cinema Room, Mezzanine
R a n d a l l
Packer is an artist educator at the Museum of Modern Art, teaching online for MoMA’s Digital Learning, as well as serving on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins University Museum Studies Program, where he teaches the history, theory and practice of multimedia. Packer works and teaches remotely from his studio in Washington, DC. http://www.randallpacker.com
D r .
K r i s t y
K a n g
Dr. Kristy H.A. Kang is an award winning media artist and scholar whose work explores narratives of identity formation and cultural memory. She received her Ph.D. in Media Arts and Practice at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts and is currently Visiting Assistant Professor at the School of Art, Design and Media at NTU. Her research interests include histories and theories of digital media arts, database cinema, animation, spatial and mobile narrative, and transnational media and ethnic studies between the U.S. and Asia. She is a founding member of The Labyrinth Project—a research initiative on interactive narrative and digital scholarship at the University of Southern California that has produced a range of interactive cultural histories using new media. These works have been published and presented both internationally and nationally at conferences and museums including the Getty Research Institute, The ZKM Center for Art and Media, the Society for Cinema and Media Studies and received numerous awards including the Jury Award for New Forms at the 2004 Sundance Online Film Festival.
It is our intent to both summarize the current accomplishments of the OSS project, as well as point to new opportunities for cross-cultural and inter-institutional collaboration via the network.
bit.ly/opensourcestudio
P a c k e r
He holds an MFA and PhD in music composition and has taught multimedia at the University of California, Berkeley, Maryland Institute College of Art, and American University in Washington, DC. Most recently, he developed Open Source Studio (OSS), an international project exploring collaboration and distance learning in the media arts. He has taught OSS online at the California Institute of the Arts, the Danube University Media Art Histories Program in Austria, and the School of Art, Design, and Media at NTU in Singapore.
The presentation will explore additional online initiatives including FemTechNet's Distributed Open Collaborative Course (DOOC), which served as an inspiration for designing a multi-nodal course taught collaboratively this year between faculty in ADM and The New School for Social Research in New York.
To register for this talk, scan the QR code or go to
S P E A K E R S
Since the 1980s, multimedia artist, composer, and educator Randall Packer has worked at the intersection of interactive media and live performance. He has received international acclaim for his social and politically infused works, and has performed and exhibited at museums, theaters, and festivals throughout the world. Packer is also a writer and scholar in new media, most notably the co-editor of Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality.
While online learning has captured the attention of educational institutions worldwide, pedagogical techniques for encouraging innovative forms of collaborative learning remain an emerging area of academic investigation. This joint presentation focuses on the Open Source Studio (OSS) project, which over the past two years has been in development at the California Institute of the Arts and ADM. OSS addresses how online education can be implemented in the media arts to create a virtual studio environment that encourages transparency and collaboration in online research, writing, and the artistic process.
T H E
http://www.kristykang.com
J u a n
C a m i l o
G o n z á l e z
Juan Camilo González studied Visual Arts at the Javeriana University of Bogotá. With the support of the Annenberg Fellowship, he finished in 2011 his MFA in Animation & Digital Arts from the University of Southern California. He is also the director and co-founder of the group Moebius Animación, dedicated to exhibit artists, films and research around experimental animation in Latin America and Spain. González is currently a PhD candidate at the School of Art Design & Media in Singapore where his thesis focuses on the theoretical and practical research of data-driven hand drawn animations. http://www.juancgonzalez.com/
Visual Effects: The Processes & Strategies Creating Visual Effects for movies or short films is a complex process. The lecture will showcase and investigate different strategies; from extensive and elaborated planning to improvised on-set problem solving. Wednesday, 16 April 2014, 12.30pm - 2.00pm ADM Library Cinema Room, Mezzanine Level
B e n j a m i n S e i d e
B i j u D h a n a p a l a n
A B O U T Benjamin Seide and Biju Dhanpalan are associate professors at ADM, NTU Singapore, teaching Visual Effects, 3D Production and Digital Compositing.
T H E
S P E A K E R S
Benjamin worked for 15 years in the Visual Effects industry, contributing to films such as Martin Scorsese’s Hugo.
Biju worked for 20 years in the Visual Effects industry, supervising and contributing to dozens of films including Rajkumar Hirani’s 3 Idiots.
To register for this talk, scan the QR code or go to this link:
bit.ly/benbiju