Animation conference at Penn

ENCHANTED DRAWING II: 
ANIMATION ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES

Sept. 21-22, 2012
University of Pennsylvania

a collaborative conference organized by KAREN BECKMAN (University of Pennsylvania), and ERNA FIORENTINI (Humboldt Universität), and OLIVER GAYCKEN (University of Maryland). 

Following up on the dynamic conversation that began in Berlin in March 2012 at ENCHANTED DRAWING I, this conference continues to explore a series of intersecting concerns that emerge through an engagement with animation history. The conference will feature the work of scholars and practitioners from a variety of fields, including cinema and media studies, the history of science, art history, animation design in the fields of science, gaming, engineering, medicine, and journalism.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2012
@ INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART, University of Pennsylvania
Followed by screenings @ INTERNATIONAL HOUSE PHILADELPHIA

2:30-3:30 PM | Attendees are encouraged to visit ICA and see their new exhibition Jeremy Deller: Joy in People

3:30–5:30 PM | Keynote address by Vivian Sobchack, "Stop + Motion: On Animation, Inertia, and Innervation"

 5:30–6:30 PM | Reception at Institute of Contemporary Art 7:00 PM | Screening of animation at International House Philadelphia

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2012
 @ INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART, University of Pennsylvania

8:15–9:15 AM | BREAKFAST

9:15–9:30 AM | OPENING REMARKS by Erna Fiorentini

 9:30-11:00 AM | PANEL ONE DIGITAL AND DATA DRIVEN ANIMATION | Moderator: Orkan Telhan (Penn, Fine Arts) • Norman Badler, "Digital Animation From a Technical Perspective" • Oliver Gaycken, "With Particle Swarms and Bad Hair: Animating Material Digitally" • Peggy Weil, "Immersive Journalism, Immersive Data"

11:00AM-12:30PM | PANEL TWO HISTORY OF SCIENCE | Moderator: Karen Beckman (Penn, History of Art and Cinema Studies) • Jimena Canales, "Animating Einstein: 'The final days of my Zurich stay resemble a runaway motion picture projector'" • Scott Curtis, "Rough and Smooth: Toward a Rhetoric of Animated Scientific Images" • Hanna Rose Shell, "The Animation of Evanescence: Camouflage in Motion"

 12:30–2:00 PM | LUNCH

 2:00–3:30 PM | PANEL THREE TRANSMEDIALITY | Moderator: Peter Decherney (Penn, English and Cinema Studies) • Alexander R. Galloway, "Polygraphic Photography and the Origins of 3D Animation" • Bob Rehak, "Graphic Engines: Videogame Animation as Transmedia Bridge" • Melissa Ragona, "Algorithmic Aesthetics vs. Punk De'collage: From Animation to Live Performance" 3.30–

4:00 PM | COFFEE BREAK

 4:00-5:30 PM | PANEL FOUR BODY | Moderator: Beth Linker (Penn, History and Sociology of Science) • Kirsten Ostherr, "From Health Films to Healthy Games: Interventionist Animation" • Donald Crafton, "Inside and Outside the Toon Body: Challenging Somatic Integrity through Animation History"

5:30–6:00 PM | ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION with Erna Fiorentini + speakers to conclude the day; CLOSING COMMENTS Registration is free and open to the public.

David Laderman on the European road movie

David Laderman
"Arresting Mobility: Crossing Borders and Going Nowhere in the Films of the Dardenne Brothers"

Tuesday, March 20, 2012
5:30pm
401 Fisher-Bennett Hall
University of Pennsylvania

This talk will explore some of the distinctive road movie elements found in selected films by the Dardenne brothers. Beginning with their breakout film of 1996, La Promesse, we will situate their work in the broader context of contemporary European road movie trends. We will consider how and why urban mobility becomes a pressing motif throughout much of their oeuvre, where bodies forced into frenetic motion become circumscribed by various socio-economic conditions. Usually revealed through a fragile yet insistent mobile camera, the desperate instincts driving many Dardenne characters articulate the moral quagmires around human trafficking. Their tightly focused documentary style captures the fits and starts of the Belgian underclass, which in turn speaks to and for some of the darker features of transnational, neo-liberal Europe.

David Laderman is a Professor of Film Studies at the College of San Mateo. He also teaches for the Film and Media Studies program at Stanford University. He is the author of Driving Visions: Exploring the Road Movie (University of Texas Press) and Punk Slash! Musicals: Tracking Slip-Sync on Film (University of Texas Press).

This program is made possible thanks to the support of University of Pennsylvania's Cinema Studies Program and Department of French Studies, and Temple University's Department of Film and Media Arts.

Rey Chow on Documentary Realism

Rey Chow will be a keynote speaker at this Friday's Graduate Humanities Forum at Penn. The entire forum is an interesting series of talks on adaptation. Rey Chow will be speaking on "Documentary Realism Between Cultures," addressing the effect of new media on global nonfiction forms. It begins at 5:00pm at the Harrison Auditorium at Penn Museum. The event is free and open to the public but requires advance registration.

Penn symposium on Comics

Graphic Exchanges: Comics Without Borders
Presented by the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pennsylvania, in conjunction with the College of Arts and Sciences and Brave New Worlds Comics

Friday, April 15th, 2011
2:30PM-9:30PM
Registration required

2:30 – 5:00

Panel
Van Pelt Library, Meyerson Conference Room (Rm. 223)

“Olivier Schrauwen: Carrying on the Legacy of Winsor McCay” ~ Nele Bemong,
K.U. Leuven; Breughel Chair Visiting Professor at University of Pennsylvania

“Sharing a Common Language: Woodcut Novels and Wordless Comics in Belgium and
the United States”~ David Berona, Plymouth State University

“’Too Many Pictures:’ The Rise of the German Graphic Novel” ~ Paul M. Malone,
University of Waterloo

5:00 – 6:00
Exhibition of UPenn’s Rare Comics Material
Van Pelt, Special Collections Reading Room (Rm. 501)

7:00 – 9:30
Author Presentations

David Rittenhouse Lab, Room A8

by Charles Burns and Marc Legendre, two prominent graphic novelists.