Animation and Contemporary Media Culture. Challenges and Potentials of Animation Studies in the Digital Era

In-person Workshop of the DFG-funded Network «Animation and Contemporary Media Culture. Challenges and Potentials of Animation Studies in the Digital Era»

Registration required by Friday, September 13

PROGRAM

Wednesday, September 18 | Room 2017

15:00 Arrival @ Filmuni

15:15 Jannik Müller, Maike Sarah Reinerth, Jana Rogoff
Welcome

15:30 Alisi Telengut | online
Exploring the Idea of Zoe in Under-Camera Animation

BREAK

16:45 Jana Rogoff
Green Storytelling as a Historical Practice: Spotlighting Shifts in Style and Agendas

17:15 Joanna Kożuch
My Story of the Aral Sea

19:30 Dinner

Thursday, September 19 | Room 2017

10:00 Maike Sarah Reinerth
Aesthetics and Pragmatics of Green Storytelling in Animation

10:30 Clara Schulze
Eco Stop Motion: How to Find and Work With Biobased Materials

BREAK

11:45 Adrien Roche | online
A Green Production Guide for Animation

LUNCH BREAK

13:45 Cristina Formenti
Hidden in Plain Sight: The Environmental Cost of Digital Animation and the Route to Sustainability

14:15 Paul Dolan
Rendering Nature: Digital Images and Their Environmental Cost

BREAK

15:30 Chris Pallant
Studying Animation and Sustainability: Sharing Challenges, Successes, and Opportunities – A Workshop Discussion Group

[Social Program for speakers and network members]

19:00 Dinner

Speakers

• Paul Dolan is an artist and assistant professor at Northumbria University, UK. His work adopts a critical approach to digital technologies and environment, using a combination of practice-based, social science and fieldwork-based methods. He is part of the Cultural Negotiation of Science research group and Cosmotechnics artists group. Recent exhibitions include Post Territory Ujeongguk, Seoul, The Photographer's Gallery, London and The Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne.
• Cristina Formenti currently researches the environmental implications of both documentary and animation’s filmmaking. She is the author of Il mockumentary: la fiction si maschera da documentario (Mimesis 2013) and The classical animated documentary and its contemporary evolution (Bloomsbury 2022). Her work appeared in various national and international journals, including Studies in Documentary Film, Alphaville, NECSUS and Horror Studies. She serves as President of the Society for Animation Studies, sits in the Governing Council of Visible Evidence and is co-editor of the journal Animation Studies and of the book series Animation: Key films/filmmakers (Bloomsbury). 
• Joanna Kozuch is a director, visual artist, and animator. She graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Arts in Poznan and University of Silesia in Katowice. She is also a teacher at the Animation Department of the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava where she completed her doctoral studies. Her filmography includes Game (2004), Fongopolis (2014, which won the Slovak National Film Award, among others), 39 Weeks, 6 Days (2017), Music Box (2019, part of the Happiness Machine project) and the award-winning Once There Was a Sea... (2021, which was long-listed for an Academy Award in 2023). She is currently working on another animated short, Last Minute, and an animated documentary Once There Was a Town...
• Jannik Müller is a PhD-candidate and research associate in media studies and media education at the University of Osnabrück. His PhD-thesis explores the hybrid aesthetic of realism and stylization in computer-animated films. Other research interests include the aesthetics, technology and history of film, animation and visual effects. He is a member of the special interest group AG Animation and was part of the DFG-funded research network Animation and Contemporary Media Culture (2020-2024) of which he co-organises the concluding workshop Animation, Green Storytelling, and Sustainable Production. His most recent paper is called "Is it future or is it past?" Visual effects in Twin Peaks: The Return (2023).
• Chris Pallant is Head of the School of Design at University of Greenwich, UK. He is the author of Demystifying Disney (2011), Storyboarding: A Critical History (2015), Beyond Bagpuss: A History of Smallfilms Animation Studio (2022), and editor of Animated Landscapes: History, Form and Function (2015) and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: New Perspectives on Production, Reception, Legacy (2021). Between 2018 and 2023, he served as President of the Society for Animation Studies.
• Maike Sarah Reinerth is a postdoctoral researcher in media aesthetics and dramaturgy and runs the sustainability office at Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF. Her current research focuses on green storytelling in audiovisual media and political animation. Academic publications include the monograph Erinnerung und Imagination im Spielfilm (2022), edited volumes, chapters, and a video essay. Since she started working at Film University, Maike’s research and teaching have become more and more entangled with film practice and she now frequently collaborates with artists and filmmakers. Over the last few years, she has worked towards greening film education in Germany and, together with the Green Storytelling Initiative, developed recommendations for sustainable storytelling.
• Adrien Roche is the international project manager at the French non-profit association Ecoprod, working in collaboration with other stakeholders in the transition of the film and TV industry across Europe and the whole world. He also conducted a study on the transition of the European film industry through the association Nausicä, pour un cinéma durable, documented with interviews, analysis, and an overview of the current situation.
• Jana Rogoff is an assistant professor at the Department of Film Studies at the Charles University in Prague. She conducts research in theory and history of animation, Eastern European film, film sound, and ecocinema studies. Rogoff has published in international book collaborations and in peer-reviewed journals, such as Animation Studies Journal, Apparatus, International Journal for Film and Media Art, and Iluminace. She has been a member of the Society for Animation Studies since 2017; a member of the scientific network Animation and Contemporary Media Culture since 2020; and a member of the research group Environmental Humanities Prague since 2023.
• Clara Schulze, an animator born and raised in Frankfurt (Oder), had a rather unusual childcare arrangement: instead of hiring a babysitter, her father simply took her to work in veterinary pathology. Between microscopic adventures and obscure specimens, Clara discovered her passion for nature at an early age. But instead of becoming a vet or biologist, she preferred to take up pen and brush and bring animals to life on paper. After a few creative detours, she finally ended up at the Babelsberg Film University, where she is currently completing her B.A. degree in animation. Today she is busy researching sustainable production for stop motion film – because even puppets have to reduce their carbon footprint.
• Alisi Telengut is a Canadian artist of Mongolian roots, living between Berlin, Germany and Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, Canada. Her work has been screened and exhibited internationally, such as at the Whitney Biennial (USA), Academy Museum of Motion Pictures (USA), Sundance Film Festival (USA), TIFF (Canada), Annecy International Animation Festival (France), Biennial VIDEONALE at Kunstmuseum Bonn (Germany), OSTRALE Biennale (Germany), Anthology Film Archives (USA), UNESCO World Heritage Site Zollverein (Germany), among others. Telengut is currently an assistant professor in cinema at Concordia University (Canada) and a PhD candidate at Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF (Germany).