animated documentary

ET X: Animating Hope

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An overview of Ecstatic Truth X: Animating Hope which was part of the UNDER_the_RADAR 2026 festival in Vienna.

Day 1: 26.04.26 Opening events

Events started in Q21 Museum Quarter with UNDER_the_RADAR’s exhibition launch for Juergen Hagler and co’s interactive project in the ASIFAKEIL gallery that responded to the movements of passers by. There was also screenings and presentations in Raum D.

Day 2: 27.04.26 Keynote 1: Juergen Hagler

The symposium took place at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. In his keynote, Hagler presented a critical overview of the development of AI animation and outlined the details of his team’s ethical use of AI to animate the archives of Austrian artist Clemens Brosch for a forthcoming centenary exhibition. Whilst acknowledging the limitations of AI, he argued for the hope that it can be a useful tool in the hand of trained experts, but should not be used to offload the process of creativity to or as a substitute for learning and deep engagement with the disciplines of animation, storytelling and visual communication. 

PANEL 1 Ecstatic Truth: Uncertainty, Speculation and the Not-Yet

In the first panel, Bahar Kiamoghaddam, Isaac Parkinson, X. (aka Xavier Gorgol) and Andrijana Ružić gave presentations that wove together themes of animation’s potential for active hope, for what can we believe in at this post digital moment when there is no longer faith in the indexical truth of photography as evidence. What is the truth? Manipulated animated images can be used to falsify the representation of current events (BK), but they can also be used to present different forms of reality, other forms of ‘ecstatic truth’ as Werner Herzog termed it. So animation can be based on clearly authored and positioned witness statements; it can distill complex arguments into powerful memes or create computational assemblages of multimodal forms of data, such as Forensic Architecture, who use the tools of animation to argue for interpretations of events based on diagrammatic representations pieced together with mass collective testimonies formed out of cross referenced personal archives on social media and publicly available open source information that provide evidence and material support for campaigning investigations (IP). Animation can also be used to re-narrate and re-assemble traumatic events, providing the opportunity for close examination and propositions for alternative endings (BK). This might involve the re-animation of personal archives of images and objects to change the story and come to terms with the past. Animation can go beyond the indexical to present many subjective ways of being in the world such as queer, gender nonconforming and intersex epistemologies and, thus, act as a form of resistance to prejudiced ways of thinking (X). This brings to mind the ethics of philosopher Emmanuel Levinas who argued for authentic encounter with the Other. An example of this is the work of William Kentridge whose charcoal smudges give a space to the ghosts of past injustice. Kentridge’s embodied studio practice becomes a moment of thick time in which the process of drawing and animating becomes a process of contemplation and sense making, a safe space for uncertainty, failure and the ‘less good idea’, a praxis of hope in which insight emerges from the activity of making. Kentridge’s collective projects in his Centre for the Less Good Idea in Johannesburg were also considered as a hopeful symbol of collective creativity (AR). Finally, we were reminded of Herzog in his new book saying that the truth may be fragile but we must never stop searching for it (TS). 

Keynote 2: Pedro Serrazina

In his retrospective screening at RAUM D, Pedro Serrazina presented his interest in space and the built environment, raising issues about gentrification and how animation might unify and connect people. His installation, ‘Shadows of Ourselves’ re-storied the venue into a space of wonder through abstract patterns of light and shade, because ‘when we forget empathy and acceptance of the other, we become shadows of ourselves’. 

Day 3: 28.04.26 Keynote 3: Gabrielle Jutz

Gabrielle Jutz’s keynote ‘How to Film a Forest in the Anthropocene’ contrasted two approaches to animated documentary and a dilemma – is the filmmaker’s own personal viewpoint the only strategy or could it ever possible to capture some kind of posthuman viewpoint in which nature is in the forefront and the anthropocentric human bias removed. 

PANEL 2 Changing perspectives: On Hope and Recovery

In Panel 2, Osi Wald, Virgilio Vasconcelos and Rares Augustin Craiut presented perspectives on the use of animation for shifting paradigms. OW showed animated loops of protest and quiet domestic moments created as a methodology for survival, persistence and resistance in a time of war. In an interesting discussion, the loop was variously considered as the therapeutic holding onto a comforting moment or perhaps a permanent imprisonment  within a situation that never changes and you can’t break out of or perhaps even, when conceived of as a spiral or in three dimensions, it could be viewed from different angles. Does technology trap us into particular modes of thinking or worldviews? Can the core methods of animation resist this? In traditional frame-by-frame animation, we continually flip between views of the past and the present in order to make the future. VV connected this with the anthropophagia art movement of 1920s Brazil. In an attempt to decolonise their artworks, Brazilian artists of this period looked to the autophagy rituals of their ancestors as a metaphor. Condemned as cannibalism by the colonisers, these were not about eating other humans for food but a ritual to digest and assimilate the powers of noble enemies, a process of synthesis and reflection. These artists considered themselves to be collectively digesting and synthesising the art forms of their colonisers. Gen-AI was proposed as a form of commodified cannibalism in which the ideas of others are extracted and sold. Continuing the theme of digestion, we were all invited by RAC to eat chocolate as a form of sensory participation in his story from a childhood in communist Romania. With reference to Suzanne Buchan on pervasive animation, through the symbolic action of eating chocolate, animation was proposed as a form of material transformation and sensory, affective encounter. 

Keynote 4: Tereza Violet Stehlikova

In her presentation, ‘Radical Hope – Art and the Space of the Not-Yet’, Tereza Violet Stehlikova drew on ideas from her book Exiled from Our Bodies: How to Come Back to Our Senses to explore radical hope as something that emerges not through technological optimisation, innovation or the promise of ever-greater control, but through our capacity to remain open to the unresolved, the ambiguous and the not-yet-formed. Reflecting on art’s ability to create liminal spaces in which habitual ways of seeing begin to dissolve, she considers how both art and nature can open up new possibilities for perception, meaning and transformation. 

Panel 3: Ecstatic Truth @ 10 years discussion with Birgitta Hosea, Tereza Violet Stehlikova, Pedro Serrazina, Natalie Woolf, Holger Lang

At the intersection of experimental practices in expanded animation and post documentary, for over 10 years we have organised symposia with multiple approaches and perspectives. Our concern has never been to restrict, to categorise or to propose narrow definitions of animated documentary, but to open it out by considering the many intersecting issues on the fringes of this concept. Using Werner Herzog’s notion of ecstatic truth as a stratum of truth that exceeds the merely factual, we have sought to promote discussion of innovative approaches to animation that are socially engaged and based in lived, embodied experience. As a small, voluntary, international collective, we have been able to be agile in our choice of themes and ours were the first symposia in animation studies on niche topics such as colonialism, absurdity, embodiment, AI, decoloniality and practice-based research. The discussion concluded with a call for new collaborators to join us and invigorate future versions of Ecstatic Truth.

Our final thought was that hope can be practised: it is both a verb as well as a noun.

Day 4: 29.04.26

The final day featured a workshop, ‘Co-Designing Participatory Animation: Exploring Collaborative Approaches to Animation Making’ by Nairy Eivazy and Natalie Woolf.

This workshop examines how animation’s narrative, visual strategies, and unique language can function as a collaborative framework for bringing diverse voices together. Centering collaboration within the animation-making process, it explores participatory approaches that invite public engagement into creative and hands-on production. Working in small groups, participants will collectively develop methods through mapping, discussion, and prototyping, fostering shared authorship, dialogue, and meaningful exchange across diverse backgrounds. The co-designed methods will then be tested and activated through the collective creation of short stop-motion animation prototypes.

The workshop is led by Nairy Eivazy and Natalie Woolf, members of Animating Together, a FilmEU dynamic cluster that explores the transformative potential of collective storytelling through participatory animation.https://www.filmeu.eu/research/dynamic-clusters/animating-together FilmEU is a European university alliance that brings together leading institutions across Europe to collaborate on education, research, and innovation in film and media arts.

This was all complemented by screenings at the UNDER_the_RADAR festival

Ecstatic Truth X was organised by Birgitta Hosea, Tereza Violet Stehlikova, Pedro Serrazina and Natalie Woolf in collaboration with Holger Lang and the UNDER_the_RADAR festival. The team are all grateful to Nikolaus Jantsch from University of the Applied Arts Vienna for generously hosting our events.

Pictures by Birgitta Hosea, Tereza Violet Stehlikova, Pedro Serrazina, Holger Lang and Juergen Hagler

CFP – Ecstatic Truth X: Animating Hope

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Ecstatic Truth X: Animating Hope: Utopias, Uncertainties, Simulation, and Documentary Possibility

In association with UNDER_the_RADAR Festival and University of Applied Arts, Vienna, we are calling for papers for our next symposium on April 27th and 28th, which will take place at the University for the Applied Arts in Vienna

Deadline for proposals is 14th Feb 2026
Submit proposals here via Oxford Abstracts:  https://tinyurl.com/3tm6dkc3.

Image by Holger Lang


Ecstatic Truth is an annual symposium on themes arising from documentary animation as framed by Werner Herzog’s notion of a stratum of truth that exceeds the merely factual. In the 1999 Minnesota Declaration, Herzog contrasted the norm-making force of facts with an ‘ecstatic truth’, a deeper illumination, arguing that artifice can be a legitimate pathway to truth.

Documentary animation is uniquely positioned to operate in that register. By design it can render what live-action cannot—memories and dreams, internal states and dispersed timescales—expanding the range and depth of what documentary can show us about the world. In other words, animation openly declares its artifice while still aiming at the real, turning representational constraint into epistemic advantage. Our contemporary situation complicates this task. As Yuval Noah Harari observes, we live in a world ‘deluged by irrelevant information’ and where censorship often means flooding publics with distraction rather than blocking data outright. Animated Documentary’s contribution, then, could be to gain power through clarity, not to mimic the torrent but to compose it—to convert data into meaning, and information into felt knowledge.

Our tenth-anniversary theme – Animating Hope – treats hope, through Ernst Bloch’s perspective; not as naïve uplift but as a resistant orientation toward the “not-yet,” a wager that transformation remains possible even when the present seems unlivable. In this spirit, we welcome work that engages speculative traditions where imagining other worlds is itself a critical method, Afrofuturism reimagines and reclaims past and present through a Black cultural lens to prototype liberatory futures; queer futurity, following José Esteban Muñoz, directs attention to what could be, rather than only what is—treating the horizon of possibility as a guide for both practice and understanding. Alongside situated work from Serbia and Ukraine and Gaza-based initiatives such as Letters to Gaza and animator Haneen’s workshops, bringing hope to communities in practical ways. We also recognise emergent symbolic practices—such as the Gen Z protesters adoption of the One Piece Jolly Roger, as visual tactics of solidarity and hope.

Under the sign of ecstatic truth, we therefore invite practice-based, theoretical, and historical contributions that test how animated documentary can make hope operational—stylistically, ethically, and politically. What techniques (abstraction, rotoscope, collage, data-driven or hand-drawn worlds) help transmute ‘information’ into clarity without forfeiting complexity? How might artists signal invention while safeguarding participants and contexts? In what ways do speculative prototypes—challenges to the rule of AI and technological presets—and the situated practices above—function as forms of research, resistance, and survival? And above all: how can documentary animation shine “hope in the darkest places,” converting the seen and the unseeable into the kind of truth that moves us to act?

References: 

Harari, Yuval Noah. (2018). 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. Spiegel & Grau
Bloch, Ernst. (1995). The Principle of Hope. Cambridge, Mass. :MIT Press,

Themes

We invite practitioners and theorists working in non-fictional animation to consider the following questions:

Animating Hope: Utopias, Resistance, and Futures

  • How can animation embody hope as a form of resistance in times of political, social, or ecological crisis?
  • Is hope enough, or how might it be leveraged against overwhelming powers? (cf. Tolkien’s notion of fighting even when the ‘dragon’ is stronger).
  • What lessons can be drawn from past moments of collective hope, such as 1968, for today’s political and artistic futures?
  • How do Afrofuturism, queer futurity, and speculative practices (e.g., Octavia Butler, José Esteban Muñoz) expand the documentary imagination?

Methods, Media, and Resistance

  • What new methodologies can artists and scholars develop in the age of global capitalism to imagine and document alternative futures?
  • How might animation serve as a counter to despair, protest fatigue, and media-political control?
  • In what ways does the act of creating art itself constitute a conscious form of resistance?

Hope, Politics, and the Public Sphere

  • How does hope function as dialogue, as an antidote to blame culture, and as a means of standing against state or corporate control?
  • What role do economic structures play in shaping, restricting, or enabling documentary animation as a resistant practice?
  • How can language and translation (e.g., English as a dominant mode) shape or constrain documentary storytelling?

Technology, AI, and Documentary Uncertainty

  • How do deepfakes, AI, and algorithmic media complicate questions of authenticity, indexicality, and truth in documentary animation?
  • Can AI meaningfully contribute to documentary practices, or does it collapse difference and risk reducing meaning-making to economic pressures?
  • How do we negotiate between the personal, affective touch of human-made documentary and the commercial, automated logics of AI?

Ecstatic Truth in Dark Times

  • How can documentary animation shine “hope in the darkest places” (John Berger)?
  • What does it mean to create ecstatic truth in the face of apocalypse, collapse, or uncertainty?
  • How might acts of celebration, gathering, or even “partying in the face of the apocalypse” offer alternative modes of resistance, memory, or testimony?

Submission Details

We call for papers, presentations and responses on our themes of animating hope, in all its different manifestations, in relation to non-fiction manipulated moving image and animated documentary, in their most expanded forms. 

Submission is via Oxford Abstracts at this link: https://tinyurl.com/3tm6dkc3. You will be prompted to create a free account with Oxford Abstracts.

Your submission should include:

  • Title of your presentation
  • Abstract Please enter a brief summary of your proposed presentation with at least 2-3 references (max 500 words including bibliographic references)
  • Biography – a short bio of max 200 words, including relevant links to moving image work/websites etc.

If the paper is practice-based, it should include reflection and contextualisation in addition to presenting the practice. We will not accept papers that propose to show the practice only.

Finally, we are unable to provide feedback on individual submissions.

About Ecstatic Truth

Ecstatic Truth is an annual symposium on animated documentary founded in 2016 that explores issues arising from the interface between notions of animation and of documentary (conceptualised very broadly as non-fiction), with a particular interest in questions raised by experimental and practitioner perspectives. 

This year, we are in collaboration with UNDER_the_RADAR Festival and University of Applied Arts, Vienna and are open to proposals for future collaboration with other organisations.

Contact: ecstatic.truth.symposium{at}gmail.com

Ecstatic Truth collective: 

Birgitta Hosea, Animation Research Centre, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham;
Pedro Serrazina, Universidade Lusófona, Lisboa; 
Tereza Stehliková, University of Creative Communication (VŠKK), Prague; 
Natalie Woolf,  Universidade Lusófona, Lisboa.

Ecstatic Truth is supported by: 

CALL FOR PAPERS – Ecstatic Truth VIII

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Ecstatic Truth VIII: Animation and Documentary in Times of Artificial Intelligence
19th April 2024, Auditório José Araújo, Universidade Lusófona de Lisboa, Portugal

Close up of little Nemo and Mickey Mouse, walking side by side with Lara Croft in Lisbon City (image generated in collaboration with Deepai.com)

Submission deadline 23-02-2024
Outcome notification 08-03-2024
Submit proposals here: https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/9932/submitter

About Ecstatic Truth

Ecstatic Truth is an annual symposium on animated documentary founded in 2016 that explores issues arising from the interface between notions of animation and of documentary (conceptualised very broadly as non-fiction), with a particular interest in questions raised by experimental and practitioner perspectives. 

An AI Call For Papers

The 8th edition of Ecstatic Truth will be dedicated to the impact of AI in image making, animation and documentary processes. 

To fully immerse us into the context, we worked with an AI interface to produce this year’s Call For Papers: we used a previous description of the Ecstatic Truth symposium framework and had it “improved” by AI; we gave AI the general topics that concern us and would like to address and, through an interesting “dialogue”, came to the following result. The text below is the result of that interaction, between the Ecstatic Truth team and AI. If this is the future, we may face it sooner rather than later:

A generic AI description of Ecstatic Truth:

“In an age where mere facts often give way to the accountant’s reality, the influence of artificial intelligence and manipulated imagery has opened new frontiers in the realm of image-making and documentary practices. As Werner Herzog insightfully stated, it is the ecstatic truth – a poetic reality – that can more faithfully capture the nuanced depths of human experiences. As we navigate this landscape marked by the proliferation of artificial intelligence and the deliberate manipulation of visual content, we find ourselves at the heart of a transformative era in documentary filmmaking. As a reaction to that, we instructed AI to write the following CFP and invite you to join us in Lisbon for a symposium focused on the theme of “Animation and Documentary Practices in times of Artificial Intelligence.”

Animation and Documentary in Times of Artificial Intelligence – CALL FOR PAPERS

“In a world where any image can be artificially generated, questions abound regarding the evolving role of the animator and the definition of the animated image in contemporary filmmaking. Furthermore, how do we navigate the discourse surrounding documentary, especially animation documentary, in the age of AI? Are we witnessing the gradual replacement of the animator by AI? Is AI-driven animation merely an escape from reality, or can it be harnessed to address pressing societal issues? How can animation, especially in the documentary context, grapple with the veracity of the image and the challenges posed by deepfake technology? How do we navigate notions of truth and authenticity in the digital age? 

This symposium, guided by an intersectional perspective, seeks to explore the profound impact of AI and digital manipulation on our understanding of the human experience and the possibilities for alternate realities. Just as colonialism disrupted local and indigenous knowledge systems, AI challenges our perceptions of reality and truth. How can we articulate and navigate the complexities of AI’s influence on our visual culture and society? Can animation, in its various forms, liberate us from the distorted realities created by artificial intelligence? We invite and encourage discussions on form, strategy, and the ethical considerations surrounding AI-generated imagery in our quest to explore “Animation in times of Artificial Intelligence.” 

Call for Papers

The “Animation and Documentary in Times of Artificial Intelligence Symposium” invites scholars, filmmakers, animators, and artists to submit papers and proposals that delve into the multifaceted realm of animation in the age of artificial intelligence. We welcome contributions that explore but are not limited to the following themes:

  • The evolving role of the animator in the context of AI.
  • The definition and significance of the animated image in contemporary filmmaking.
  • Documentary practices and animation in the era of AI.
  • The ethical implications of AI-driven animation and deepfake technology.
  • Narratives and storytelling in AI-generated animation.
  • The challenges and opportunities presented by AI in animation production.
  • The impact of AI on the veracity of the image in documentary practices.
  • Discussions on the intersection of truth, authenticity, and AI in the digital age.
  • Case studies, artistic projects, and innovative approaches related to animation and AI.

Submission Guidelines

Authors are invited to submit their paper abstracts (up to 300 words) along with a brief bio (up to 150 words) via our online submission platform. Deadline for abstract submission is 23 February, 2024.

Important Dates

  • Abstract Submission Deadline: 23-02-2024
  • Notification of Acceptance: 08-03-2024
  • Symposium Date: 19-04-2024

Join us in Lisbon for a symposium that promises to explore the frontiers of animation, documentary, and artificial intelligence. We look forward to engaging in vibrant discussions, sharing insights, and advancing our understanding of “Animation in Times of Artificial Intelligence.”

This comprehensive call for papers [has been created by AI and hopefully it should highlight] the 

symposium’s theme, key topics of interest, submission guidelines, and important dates, offering a clear and engaging invitation to potential contributors.

Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

—

Submission Details

We call for papers, presentations and responses on our themes of artificial intelligence, in all its different manifestations, in relation to non-fiction manipulated moving image and animated documentary, in their most expanded forms.

Submission should be completed via Oxford Abstracts, at this link: https://app.oxfordabstracts.com/stages/9932/submitter

You will be prompted to create a free account with Oxford Abstracts.

Your submission should include:

  • Title of your presentation
  • Abstract (brief summary of your proposed presentation) 500 words (including bibliographic references)
  • Short Biography – 200 words
  • Relevant links to moving image work/websites etc.

If the paper is practice-based, it should include reflection and contextualisation in addition to presenting the practice. We will not accept papers that propose to show the practice only.

Finally, we are unable to provide feedback on individual submissions.

Ecstatic Truth VII: Decolonising Animation

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To view a live streamed webcast from Thurs 18th May of all presentations – click here

Birgitta Hosea, Pedro Serrazina, Helen Starr, Tereza Stehlikova and Natalie Woolf are currently editing a guest edition of the the Animation Practice, Process and Production journal (AP3) for IntellectBooks with written versions of the papers given at this symposium.

09:30 – 19:00 (GMT), 18 May 2023 

 UCA Farnham Campus, Room RG21, Falkner Road, Farnham, Surrey, GU9 7DS

Ecstatic Truth is an annual symposium on animated documentary that takes place in a different country every year. We are interested in what animators and artists have to say about the work they make. This year, in conjunction with the Animation programme, it’s coming to Farnham! We have a different topic every year and this year’s theme is decolonisation. 

What is decolonisation? In a nutshell, it is the idea that it might be possible to ‘unplug from the Matrix’ and find new ways to learn, think and act that are not imposed by dominant power structures. 

How does that apply to animation? Our speakers will look at issues such as how to work collaboratively to tell stories of conflict or underrepresented peoples, how to counter bias in technology and whether animation can be used to express the voice and culture of indigenous peoples. There will be a range of approaches to making animation shown – from traditional drawn animation to the use of VR, AR, game engines, data and motion capture. 

For more info about the schedule and to book: https://www.uca.ac.uk/events/research/ecstatictruthvii/

Farnham is a short train ride of one hour from London. Although there will be industrial action on the rail network 15-20th May, SW Rail trains should have no cancellations, although there may be minor delays.


Ecstatic Truth VI: To Attend

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International symposium in which expanded animation and experimental moving image intersect with documentary, 22nd April 2022, University of Creative Communication, Prague, Czech Republic 

Symposium programme

View the presentations here:

Etymologically “to attend” comes from Middle English (in the sense ‘apply one’s mind or energies to’): from Old French atendre, from Latin attendere, from ad- ‘to’ + tendere ‘stretch’.

At a time when attending an event can mean two things: being present in person or virtually, new questions are raised about what attendance means. If attendance and attention have the same etymological roots, can we consider attending as a form of attention rather than requiring physical presence? And if the essence of attention is its elasticity, can we argue that attention is able to stretch to overcome physical distance? That our shared attention (as well as time and virtual platforms) allows us to be in attendance, together, no matter how physically displaced we are.  

According to philosopher and cognitive scientist Lucas Battich (TT journal 3) shared attention not only helps us learn better, it is also multi-sensory. Is therefore watching a film together more illuminating than watching it alone, in separate spaces? What effect our new, so called “hybrid reality” has on our attention? Which role do the so-called proximity senses play in being attentive, attending to presence?

Attention is a precious and limited human resource which is under pressure: multiple forces constantly fight for our attention. Not just every day demands but social media, advertising and various other inventions of our late capitalist world, which understand that attention and money are intertwined. Attention is what makes us present, attention is learning, attention is the fabric of our experience, attention is being conscious, being conscientious, it is our future memory: we remember what we pay attention to, the rest becomes an unconscious assimilation of facts. And as we know from advertising methods, subliminal messaging can affect us on a level where we are unable to rationalise its effect, hence are more vulnerable.

Film (and moving image) as a medium has long been associated with memory: Like the mind it records and edits, what it deems significant. It can capture moments in time, make them conscious and preserve them for the future. It enables us, the viewers, to attend to the presence of those that came before us, even if they no longer share our everyday reality… Temporal and physical distances are bridged.

In association with Animation Research Centre, University for the Creative Arts, UK; Lusafona University, Portugal and Tangible Territory journal

Call for Papers: Ecstatic Truth VI

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The next Ecstatic Truth symposium on experimental and expanded approaches to animated documentary will be held in Prague on April 8th. It will take place at Vysoká škola kreativní komunikace (University of Creative Communication) in conjunction with the Tangible Territory journal. It will be a hybrid event – both in person and online.

The deadline for proposals for papers is 10th January 2022. For more information, go here: https://tangibleterritory.art/2021/11/14/ecstatic-truth-vi-to-attend.

Ecstatic Truth V: The Age of the Absurd

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[Image: George Grosz, ‘The Voice of the People is the Voice of God from The Face of the Ruling Class’ (1920)]

Well it has certainly been one crazy year! We planned this symposium to happen in April 2020, but it had to be postponed because of the pandemic. Despite many obstacles, we have decided to go ahead with a series of 3 webinars on Tues 15th – Weds 16th December 2020 in conjunction with our partners Under_the_Radar festival Vienna and the University of the Applied Arts Vienna.

Ecstatic Truth V: The Age of the Absurd

Ecstatic Truth is an annual symposium that explores issues arising from the interface between animation (in all its forms) and documentary (conceptualised very broadly as non-fiction), with a particular interest in the questions raised by experimental and practitioner perspectives. According to Werner Herzog, mere facts constitute an accountant’s reality, but it is the ecstatic truth (a poetic reality) that can capture more faithfully the nuances and depths of human experiences. Given that animation (or manipulated moving image in all of its expanded forms) has the freedom to represent, stylize or reimagine the world, it lends itself well to this aspirational form of documentary filmmaking.

For this, our 5th symposium, held in collaboration with the Under_the_Radar Festival, Vienna, our theme is the Absurd. George Monbiot has described our contemporary age of increasing social and economic inequality, mass extinction and impending climate breakdown as deliberate disaster capitalism in which the ultra-rich benefit as institutions, systems of taxation and democratic processes implode. Everywhere the killer clowns and kleptocrats are taking over, he argues, with ludicrous strongmen dominating nations that would once have laughed them off stage. Absurdity is what they seek in order to take advantage. Chaos becomes the profit multiplier for the disaster capitalism on which they thrive. Every rupture is used to seize more of the assets on which our lives depend.[1]

So how can we imaginatively and creatively respond to these killer clowns and the absurdity of a world being run to continuously make profit regardless of its sustainability? What is there to stand for if the world is perceived as meaningless and how to fight this complacency ? Can we use animation for activism, to re-animate our conscience?  How can we creatively challenge all this doom and gloom, and use our creative practice to navigate and challenge the absurd of our everyday lives? What is the role of humour, surrealism, the historic strategies of the Absurd and Central European Existentialism? Why does animation matter?

[1] George Monbiot, ‘From Trump to Johnson, nationalists are the rise – backed by billionaire oligarchs’, The. Guardian, 26/07/19

Schedule

For more details about the speakers and to watch recordings of the different Webinars: https://2020.under-radar.com/the-age-of-the-absurd.

DAY 1 Tues 15th December

Webinar 1: The Many Forms of Censorship 
19.00 – 20.30 [Central European time]

  • Andrijana Ruzic: Recurring Elements of Absurd in Several Films of Zagreb School of Animation (1958-1969)
  • Gabriella Jutz: Animating Truth(s): Surveillance, Censorship and Journalistic Ethics
  • Susan Young: Who is, or Was, Ms A

Presentations followed by discussion and Q&A hosted by Birgitta Hosea

DAY2 Weds 16th December

Webinar 2: Subversion and Resistance: Defying Oppressive Structures
10.30 – 12.00 [Central European time]

  • Chunning Guo: Rethinking Injustice in the Age of Absurd: Re-Constructing Prisons as Narrative Spaces through Animated Memories
  • Max Hattler: Abstract Animated Documentary? Moving-Image Abstraction and Meaning-Making in Hong Kong’s Age of the Absurd.
  • Zeynep Akcay: Dance, drawing and repetition: an absurd manifesto about female body

Presentations followed by discussion and Q&A hosted by Birgitta Hosea

Webinar 3: Hidden Force: Celebrating the Invisible Labours
19.00 – 20.30 [Central European time]

  • Orla McHardy: x‘C: Maintenance Animation is a drag: it takes all the fucking time’ 
  • Sally Pearce: Shades of Invisibility. A case study in animation activism.
  • Oliver Gingrich / Sara Choudhrey: AYAH – Sign: Collaborative Digital Art with the Grenfell Communities

Presentations followed by discussion and Q&A hosted by Tereza Stehlikova.

Ecstatic Truth is organised by: Birgitta Hosea, Animation Research Centre, UCA Farnham, UK; Pedro Serrazina, Universidade Lusófona, Lisbon, Portugal; Tereza Stehlikova, CREAM, University of Westminster, UK

With thanks to Under_the_Radar: Barnaby Dicker, Martina Tritthart, Holger Lang

Ecstatic Truth V: A Journal and A Postponement

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Dear All,

we wanted to share the good news that selected papers from Ecstatic Truth IV – Truth of Matter: process and perception in expanded animation practice (2019) have now been published in The International Journal of Film and Media Arts, Vol 4 No 2 and are available here: https://revistas.ulusofona.pt/index.php/ijfma/issue/view/746.

We are looking forward to compiling a new issue of the journal with papers from the next Ecstatic Truth at a future date, however, as it stands, Ecstatic Truth V: The Age of the Absurd will no longer be taking place in Vienna in April 2020 nor will the Under_the_Radar Festival that is hosting it. We were so excited about the quality of the proposals that we received this year and the cross currents and dialogue that could be generated from the programme that we are determined for the event to still go ahead at a later date and are working at finding an alternative time once international travel has normalised.

Best wishes for good health to you and your loved ones

Birgitta Hosea, Pedro Serrazina, Tereza Stehlikova (on behalf of Ecstatic Truth)

Holger Lang (on behalf of Under_the_Radar)

Call for papers: Ecstatic Truth V

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We are extremely happy to confirm our first guest speakers for this year’s Ecstatic Truth: Dr. Lilly Husbands, animation lecturer and researcher, and Marcin Gizycki, art historian, critic and filmmaker.

Ecstatic Truth is the annual symposium dedicated to the intersections of animation and documentary in its multiple formats. The Call for Papers is open until Friday the 16th of February – please read below for more info. The next one will take place in Vienna, 27-28 April, in conjunction with Under_the_Radar 2020.

This year we invite speakers to respond to the age of the absurd we seem to be living in:
How can we respond to the absurdity of a world being run to continuously make profit regardless of its sustainability? How can we use animation and filmmaking for activism? How can we creatively challenge the current assault on reliable information? What is the role of humour, surrealism, the historic strategies of the Absurd and Central European Existentialism, to respond to these contemporary issues?

We welcome proposals for 20-minute presentations, speculations, poetic reflections, rigorous questioning, even fierce creative opposition, from both academic and practitioner-led perspectives. Selected papers will be published in a specially themed issue of the International Journal of Film and Media Arts.

The proposal should include an abstract of not more than 500 words and a short biography of no more than 200 words.

Please send it to: ecstatic.truth.symposium@gmail.com
Call for papers deadline: 16th February 2020

For more information about the call for papers go to: https://ecstatictruth5.eventbrite.co.uk

[Image: George Grosz, ‘The Voice of the People is the Voice of God from The Face of the Ruling Class’ (1920)]

Call for Papers – Ecstatic Truth V: The Age of the Absurd

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George Grosz - The Voice of the People is the Voice of God from The Face of the Ruling Class

Ecstatic Truth V: The Age of the Absurd
27-28th April 2020 (in conjunction with Under_the_Radar, Vienna)

plus 29th  April – Under_the_Radar symposium, Vienna

Call for papers deadline: 16th February 2020

Ecstatic Truth is an annual symposium that explores issues arising from the interface between animation (in all its forms) and documentary (conceptualised very broadly as non-fiction), with a particular interest in the questions raised by experimental and practitioner perspectives. According to Werner Herzog, mere facts constitute an accountant’s reality, but it is the ecstatic truth (a poetic reality) that can capture more faithfully the nuances and depths of human experiences. Given that animation (or manipulated moving image in all of its expanded forms) has the freedom to represent, stylize or reimagine the world, it lends itself well to this aspirational form of documentary filmmaking.

For this, our 5th symposium, held in collaboration with the Under_the_Radar Festival, Vienna, our theme is the Absurd. George Monbiot has described our contemporary age of increasing social and economic inequality, mass extinction and impending climate breakdown as deliberate disaster capitalism in which the ultra-rich benefit as institutions, systems of taxation and democratic processes implode. Everywhere the killer clowns and kleptocrats are taking over, he argues, with ludicrous strongmen dominating nations that would once have laughed them off stage. Absurdity is what they seek in order to take advantage. Chaos becomes the profit multiplier for the disaster capitalism on which they thrive. Every rupture is used to seize more of the assets on which our lives depend.[1]

So how can we imaginatively and creatively respond to these killer clowns and the absurdity of a world being run to continuously make profit regardless of its sustainability? What is there to stand for if the world is perceived as meaningless and how to fight this complacency ? Can we use animation for activism, to re-animate our conscience?  How can we creatively challenge all this doom and gloom, and use our creative practice to navigate and challenge the absurd of our everyday lives? What is the role of humour, surrealism, the historic strategies of the Absurd and Central European Existentialism? Why does animation matter?

We invite speakers to respond to these ideas in order to reflect, speculate and imagine how the animated (or expanded manipulated image) form might elicit different facets of poetic truth through its unique language. We welcome proposals for 20-minute presentations, speculations, poetic reflections, rigorous questioning, even fierce creative opposition from both academic and practitioner-led perspectives. Selected papers will be published in a themed issue of the International Journal of Film and Media Arts.

The proposal should include an abstract of not more than 500 words and a short biography of no more than 200 words. Please send it to: ecstatic.truth.symposium@gmail.com

Further details of the Under_the_Radar Festival 2020 will be released in January.

Call for papers deadline: 16th February 2020

Ecstatic Truth is organised by: Birgitta Hosea, Animation Research Centre, UCA Farnham, UK; Pedro Serrazina, Universidade Lusófona, Lisbon, Portugal; Tereza Stehlikova, CREAM, University of Westminster, UK

With thanks to Under_the_Radar: Barnaby Dicker, Martina Tritthart, Holger Lang

[Image: George Grosz, ‘The Voice of the People is the Voice of God from The Face of the Ruling Class’ (1920)]

[1] George Monbiot, ‘From Trump to Johnson, nationalists are the rise – backed by billionaire oligarchs’, The. Guardian, 26/07/19