November 2011 – Expanded Animation

Forkbeard Fantasy: Theatre of Animation

November 29, 2011December 10, 2015ExpandedAnimationLeave a comment

Forkbeard Fantasy are a British theatre company who have been creating intermedial work since 1974. Their theatre work combines animation, video, puppets, animatronics and live actors with a sense of humour reminiscent of Monty Python. They specialise in an imaginative blurring of the boundaries between what is live and what is pre-recorded using a technique that they call ‘crossing the celluloid divide’. I was fortunate enough to do residential summer school with them a few years ago and totally recommend their work!

Their latest show, The Colour of Nonsense, is a satire on the art world and will be at the Southbank Centre from Monday 19 December 2011 – Friday 30 December 2011. Here is a review from last year. Book tickets now! Not only do they sell out fast, but this could be Forkbeard Fantasy’s last show since they lost their Arts Council Funding.

Alongside The Colour of Nonsense, the Southbank is also running a retrospective exhibition of their work, the Theatre of Animation. This is free and totally recommended.

My Giant Colouring Book

November 26, 2011ExpandedAnimation1 Comment

The V&A Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green is a treasure trove of weird toys from creepy dolls to retro computer games. Jake and Dinos Chapman’s exhibition ‘My Giant Colouring Book’ illustrates the horrors lurking within the pages children’s dot-to-dot, colouring books. Using these books as the basis for a series of etchings, they actualise the potential for the uncanny and the terrifying that haunts the world of children’s stories.

Free-Time

November 25, 2011ExpandedAnimationLeave a comment

To work with animation is to work with time: in the present we create images at author-time that will be viewed as from the past in the future run-time.

In our performance at the Parasol Unit on Friday 2nd December 2011, MK Palomar and Birgitta Hosea will explore issues of time. Combining spontaneous and pre-recorded sound, we will attempt to inhabit various temporal dimensions simultaneously.

MA Character Animation Week 1 2011

November 14, 2011ExpandedAnimationLeave a comment

A new building opens, a new course starts and a new group of students start on their journey towards an MA in Character Animation. Here is Day 1: everyone is a little shy on the first day in the brand, spanking new animation studio.

We are all a little overwhelmed by the new building.

Day 2. Shadow puppets workshops. We started to make a mess and use the windows of the studios for screens to make shadow puppets on.

Day 3: By the third day we had started to own the space and took over lots of different areas all over the building in order to make films with found objects.

Onedotzero: Adventures in Motion 2011

November 7, 2011December 10, 2015ExpandedAnimationLeave a comment

Tickets are on sale for the next Onedotzero festival at London’s BFI, which runs from 23-27 November 2011. Featuring a feast of innovative, contemporary animation and motion graphics from around the world this festival is a must-see! It’s particularly important to support the festival since it lost its government funding in the recent cuts and may not be so ambitious in scale in future years.

For more information check out the Onedotzero website.

onedotzero_adventures in motion 2011 preview from onedotzero on Vimeo.

Animating Buildings

November 6, 2011December 10, 2015ExpandedAnimationLeave a comment

A compilation of different examples of animation projected onto the exterior of buildings.

LG Optimus Projections by Facade Mapping Image Show, Berlin, 2010

Technically extremely impressive, yet somehow vacuous, these 3D projections distort, explode and transform the Kulturbrauerei building in Berlin.

Contrex Commercial

In this commercial, female pedal power is used to generate the electricity to power a giant projection of an animated male stripper.

Hollywood in Cambodia sessions, Buenos Aires, 2007

Using the Tagtool, an instrument for drawing and animating with light in real time, artists create ephemeral graffitti out of projected light.

Shared Space and Light’s Tower of Dreams, Brighton, 2011.

Animated projections are used to activate a popular local building, which is falling into disrepair. Developed with the local community, the projections include ideas for how the building could be used in the future.