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The ninth edition of Cartoombria further expands the boundaries of the New Animated Images in a trans-disciplinary acceleration. Interactive installations, video environments, synchronized sound-spaces, audiovisual performances, net art, digital visual effects, 3D computer animation, non-narrative, abstract film, flash and web animation, thematic seminars and lectures, previews and trailers of films still in the development stage, first time ever screenings of Italian and international productions Ð all of these are part of Cartoombria 2003. In addition, this year's exhibition is host to a trans-media project created by a young regional artist, suspended between on-line and off-line space, in the hope that the Cartoombria portal will be an effective promotional vehicle as it was for the short subject produced during last year's workshop. Yet the 2003 edition, though deliberately eclectic, is no less rigorous in demonstrating its hold on the overall trends in the world of animation today. It moves, in fact, from the two and three dimensional geometries of contemporary radical minimalism to the synthesis of figurative and abstract techniques visible in many of the exhibition's experimental works, and on to the tromp l'oeil of digital effects and the visual power of 3D, both realistic and non-realistic. All things considered, this year's edition of Cartoombria offers a complex and varied agenda whose logical future development, as has been said before, calls for the elaboration of a project for its permanent, ongoing activity in an institutional structure. Moreno Barboni, director. Program The exhibition opens with an all new multimedia show, housed in the Trebisonda Center for Contemporary Art, dedicated to both real and virtual urban space and to the relationships between natural and digital forms. The show is composed of eight interactive installations and video environments by as many international artists: Lia from Austria, Oblong from Great Britain, Adriaan Lokman from Holland, Thorsten Fleisch from Germany, Andrea Ackerman and Muriel Magenta from the United States, Kazuhiro Goshima from Japan and Stefano Marinacci from Italy (MarinacciÕs interactive project , IRIS, will also be viewable in advance starting 21 November on the portal www.cartoombria.com). The evening of Wednesday 3 December will also host, as an inaugural event, a refined synchronized sound space of the two levels of the show Ð the ÒposturbanÓ room and the ÒpostnatureÓ room Ð under the direction of DJ Fofo, DJ in residence at the Norman Club and curator of the Drop anthologies for the Materiali Sonori label. The Auditorium Santa Cecilia will be the site for all of the projections, afternoon encounters and evening audiovisual performances. The program of projections, ranging over all of the horizons of contemporary animation and new forms of audiovisual narration, focuses on the latest international experimental short subjects, with special attention for the emerging and surprising Korean artistic school. It will also present, in world premiere, the curious experimental project on the theme of illness ÒSoprattutto era fastidioÓ (ÒAbove all it was annoyingÓ) created especially for Cartoombria by the artistic collective Inguine.net and composed of six shorts of Òreinvented comix" signed by Davide Catania, Davide Saraceno & Davide Ragona, Squaz, Gianluca Costantini & Leonardo Guardigli, Ericailcane, Paper Resistance & Minimalab & Manfred Regen. Audiovisual performances will include, for starters, the two most interesting projects present on the Italian scene today: Elec and Otolab, which have already obtained important awards and recognition for their international level experimentation. Both projects were born as affinity groups between music, web design, videoart, DJ/VJ and they work using the vectorial graphics of Flash, sometimes integrated with other animation techniques. Their performances are executed live with audio and video manipulations carried out in real time. The closing night performance promises to be an event in itself: for the first time in Italy one of the rare vj/dj exhibitions of British animator Run Wrake (who CARTOOMBRIA presented for the first time in Italy in 1999), eclectic visual artist of the stage sets for U2Õs Popmart Tour and director of music videos for Manu Chao, Howie B., Spacer, Future Sound of London, Stereo MCs. Finally, consolidating its own tradition of the open workshop, CARTOOMBRIA again this year continues its practice of putting the public in direct contact with the experiments of the most creative inventors of images on an international level, protagonists of the afternoon encounters at the Santa Cecilia Auditorium. Our first guest will be Philip Hunt, director and founder of Studio aka of London (always in the avantgarde in the field of advertising and interactive animation), who as executive producer will also present the world premiere of the short subject Jo Jo In The Stars, by Marc Craste. Another presentation will be given by Paolo Zeccara, chief special effects supervisor of Proxima, the first Italian company to be hired as special effects supervisor for a U.S. production (the prequel The Exorcist: The Beginning), and which has also realized special effects and 3D animations for over 100 films. A third encounter will involve the Paris-based company Sparx*, now EuropeÕs largest digital visual effects and 3D animation company, whose foreign activities in charge, Alan Portillo, will present a retrospective show of recent works (music videos, commercial spots, 3d shorts, etc.) and the making of the award-winning trailer of the feature-film project Robota directed by Doug Chiang, design director of the last two episodes of Star Wars. ANIMUTATIONS With the beginning of a new millenium the the cult of image and the way of telling things are completely changing in a costant evolution thanks to the extraordinary global diffusion of Internet: the design stays but always moving and with a huge and new incision. In Italy the phenomenon of a new creativity, for animated cartoons on web, has been analysed with a special attention by Cartoombria. To the web animation (called by Cartoombria "Animutations" mutation of animated images -) there is an updating every year curated by Ferruccio Giromini. To be connected to the links before mentioned go to www.cartoombria.com. PARTNERS Cartoombria 2003 Ð International Exhibition of New Animated Images is organized by Fondazione Umbria Spettacolo and the Regione dellÕUmbria, with the Provincia di Perugia, the Comune di Perugia, Universitˆ per Stranieri di Perugia - Centro Sociale, Agenzia per il Diritto allo Studio Universitario, CittˆinInternet and Promovideo - Multimedia & Communications. With the patronage of the Accademia di Belle Arti Pietro Vannucci di Perugia, of the Interdepartmental degree programs of the Faculty of Communication Sciences of the University of Perugia and with the support of Asifa Italia Ð Italian Animated Cinema Association.
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