Animating Realities: Animation, Documentary and the Moving Image

Thursday June 23rd and Friday June 24th, 2011

University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh College of Art and the Edinburgh International Film Festival

Keynote Speakers: Sheila Sofian (University of Southern California) and Paul Ward (Arts University College, Bournemouth)

CALL FOR PAPERS

Recent years have witnessed increasing interest in the use of animation aesthetics and production techniques to explore subject matter traditionally deemed to be the preserve of live-action documentary cinema. The developing and changing nature of documentation moves away from established forms of documentary representation and blurs boundaries between fact and fiction, perceived indexical authority and subjective interpretation, the virtual and the physical, childhood and adulthood.

Animated Realities aims to bring together practitioners and theoreticians from a diverse range of disciplines in order to discuss and debate this hybrid and rapidly expanding area of contemporary visual culture. The event comprises a two-day conference jointly hosted by the University of Edinburgh and Edinburgh College of Art with a concurrent screening programme of contemporary animated documentary work as part of the 65th Edinburgh International Film Festival.

We invite proposals for 20-minute papers (or themed panels of 3 presentations) on all aspects of animated documentary art and filmmaking past and present. Proposals for papers may include (but are not limited to) the following areas:

·         Mapping the field: the history of animated documentary filmmaking