A handful of top-class artists who have been greatly influenced by the animated film genre will be present at the Galerienhaus during the upcoming 16th Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film (May 5-10, 2009). In addition to specially chosen multimedia artists from the region, the Japanese designer Keiichi Tanaami and the internationally popular German-Japanese Kota Ezawa will be presenting their works. German-Japanese Kota Ezawa (born 1969) is considered a shooting star in the contemporary multimedia art scene. In 2006/2007 his works were shown in the exhibition "Out of Time: Contemporary Art from the Collection" at the MoMA -- The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Further recent highlights were the exhibition "Photography on Photography: Reflections on the Medium since 1960" in 2008 in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art and in the same year "The Geopolitics of Animations" at the MARCO -- Museo de Arte Contemporanea de Vigo in Spain. Ezawa draws on well-known elements and source material from art, culture, science and media which he reworks and stylizes on a computer. According to the 14-1 Galerie in Stuttgart "The result is reminiscent of old-fashioned comics shown as digital projections, film, slide shows or etchings". The gallery will be showing his animated 16 mm short film BRAWL from May 3 onwards, throughout the Festival of Animated Film. The film is an original interpretation of a brawl involving fans and players during a basketball game between the US teams Detroit Pistons and the Indiana Pacers in November 2004. At the same time the 14-1 Galerie will be presenting the newest animated music film by Rock & Bluse under the title "wenn der rock brennt" ("When Rock Burns"). Well-known throughout the region, Rock & Bluse is a group of experimental artists, (Anke Bauer, Julia Finkbeiner, Pia Maria Martin and Monika Nuber) who animate felt-tip drawings with abstract and figured elements and combine images and sound to create a new musical entity. A further highlight in the artistic supporting program at the Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film '09 is the Japanese design doyen Keiichi Tanaami (born 1936), who in expert circles is looked upon as a creator of the experimental animated film. During 40 years of creativity, Tanaami, who amongst other things was employed as the first Art Director at the Japanese branch of the PLAYBOY, has created almost 60 films and continues to regularly produce films and pictures. An important characteristic of this visual artist's work -- who also produces sculptures and performance events -- is the speed with which he visualizes his ideas and thoughts on paper. The Galerie Merkle also located in the Galerienhaus will not only be showing Taanami's psychedelic-touched animated drawings but also his silk screen prints and sketches. At the same time as the works by Ezawa, Rock & Bluse and Tanaami are on show, the Galerie Naumann, the third gallery located in the Galerienhaus, will be showing creations from five contemporary international animation artists under the title PARTITUREN FUR ZEICHERINNEN UND ZEICHNER (Scores for Artists). Works by Sarah Jane Lapp (USA, born 1972) and Eva Koberstein (Munich, born 1969) will be shown as well as works by Jorg Mandernach (born 1963), Kirsten Lampert (born 1959), and Andreas Opiolka (born 1962), all three of whom are from Stuttgart. All of the exhibitions will open May 3, at 11 o'clock in the Galerienhaus Stuttgart (www.galerienhaus-stuttgart.de) as part of the supporting program of the 16th Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film '09.

This special media event puts the spotlight on the soundtrack. First held in 1998, it has featured creatives working at the highest levels of media and the arts including Walter Murch, Ren Klyce, Lynne Ramsay, Graham Hartstone, Christina Kubisch, Ken Loach, Carter Burwell, Tom Holman, Lucrecia Martel, Gabriel Yared, Richard Leacock, the Brothers Quay, Manfred Eicher and many others. This year's program features director Mike Figgis, multi-talented composer and dj Nitin Sawhney, documentary directors Kim Longinotto, Gideon Koppel and Michael Grigsby, and US avant garde filmmaker Phil Solomon. Three gifted sound designers -- Pat Jackson, Steve Munro and Daniel Deshays -- will explore film sound design in detail. They will be joined by sound artists Akio Suzuki - speaking with composer and writer David Toop - and Hildegard Westerkamp; neurologists Tim Griffiths and Lauren Stewart in discussion with Peter Howell (member of the former BBC Radiophonic Workshop), radio producer Piers Plowright and film educators Roger Crittenden and Stephen Deutsch. Peter Strickland will reflect on the production of the soundtrack for his first feature, KATALIN VARGA, whose sound team won "Outstanding Artistic Contribution for Sound Design" at the Berlin Film Festival. And Chris Petit, director of RADIO ON and a speaker at the 2005 SOS, will close out the event with a personal perspective on the use of song and music with image. This is a special opportunity to tune yourself in to how soundtracks are created and, more importantly, how they affect your audience. The SOS has gained a worldwide reputation by raising the profile of creative screen sound production. It now attracts an international audience of leading sound and music practitioners from over twenty-five countries who are drawn to its distinctive program revealing the soundtrack from unexpected perspectives. It is a truly international meeting - the only event of its kind in the world. Biographies of all the speakers can be found on the website, http://www.schoolofsound.co.uk/. Registrations are still being accepted. Contact them to assure your place before sending payment. For information about the program, fees and registering: www.schoolofsound.co.uk, sos@schoolofsound.co.uk, +44 (0)20 7724 6616.

The MFA Computer Art Department at School of Visual Arts, the New York Digital Salon and the Department of Music and Multimedia Studies at Northeastern University present the New York premiere of the Visual Music Marathon, a 12-hour festival showcasing 120 works by contemporary digital artists and composers from around the world. The event offers an encyclopedic look into the burgeoning practice of visual music, which combines animation and musical composition. The roots of the genre date back more than two hundred years to the ocular harpsichords and color-music scales of the 18th century; the current art form came to fruition following the emergence of film and video in the 20th century.

This event is free and open to the public.

The Visual Music Marathon presents a remarkable array of artistic strategies and sensibilities. Some of the selected works consist of abstract visual interpretations of pieces of music, while others apply structural concepts of music to create moving images, or explore the overlap between visual and musical languages. The artists make use of a range of media and technologies, including found footage, hand-drawn animation, stop-motion photography, digitally processed video, computer-generated imagery, and paintings made directly on film. Works include audio tracks ranging from computer-generated scores, to sampled sounds from nature, to both classical and contemporary musical compositions.

Northeastern University faculty member Dennis Miller , artistic director and curator for the festival, explains, "With the Visual Music Marathon, we have put together the largest and most historically representative selection of work in this field. It is a unique opportunity to see the best of cutting-edge digital art from around the world as well as rarely screened historical gems in the field of visual music." Bruce Wands , chair of the MFA Computer Art Department at SVA and curator of the New York Digital Salon hour of the Marathon, remarked, "We are excited to share all of these works with the city of New York -- the majority of which have never been seen here before. It is a wonderfully diverse group of films, which gives a sense of the creativity and momentum in this field right now."

The program includes works by established figures in the field, such as Canadian/Belgian artist Jean Detheux (DAYDREAM MECHANICS V SKETCH 3, RUPTURE AND LIAISONS), Icelandic artist Steina Vasulka (TREVOR), Austrian artist Tina Frank (CHRONOMOPS, PITBUDP) and American artists Stephanie Maxwell (TIME STREAMS, ALL THAT REMAINS) and Karen Aqua (KAKANIA, SENSORIUM). The festival also presents the work of emerging digital artists including SVA alumnus Joe Tekippe (2006 MFA Computer Art; MODAL DRAWING TOY), German artist Robert Siedel (_GRAU) and U.K.-based artists Ruth Jarman and Joseph Gerhardt of Semiconductor (200 NANOWEBBERS), among others.

In addition to the contemporary works, the program will include examples of rare, historic works from early practitioners of the art form, such as Hans Richter and Oskar Fischinger, which will be screened on 16mm film. The Visual Music Marathon will also feature live audio-visual acts: 1/X , performed by artist and SVA alumnus Chiaki Watanabe (1996 BFA Computer Art) and musician David Galbraith; and S 2: SIMSTIM SQUARED, performed by artist Marjan Moghaddam and composer Adam Caine.

For further details about the festival or to view the April 11 program schedule, visit www.2009vmm.neu.edu and www.nydigitalsalon.org.

The KLDW Festival is the first mega Creative Event of its kind to be organized in Kuala Lumpur. To be making its inaugural mark in KL soon, KLDW 2009 promises a wide mix of creative thoughts and eclectic ideas, of imaginative programs and inspiring showcases, plus loads more under one grand event of "Show + Shine", to showcase what we don't have, and to enhance what we do have.

Sketch Theatre's first gallery show collects many of the sketches filmed on SketchTheatre.com and puts them on display to finally be admired in person. March 21 opening reception will featuring live figure drawing models, DJ and refreshments. Artists featured include: Wayne Barlowe, Michael Hussar, Travis Louie, Ana Bagayan, Chet Zar Steven Daily, Greg "Craola" Simkins, Munk One, Gris Grimly, Shawn Barber, Nate Frizzell, Nikko Hurtado, Luke Chueh, Cameron Davis, The Black Frog, Michael Broom, Gene Guynn, Tod "Junker" Waters, Jim Smith, Kali Fontecchio, Meats Meier, Jordu Schell, Molly Crabapple, Nick Baxter, Jeff McMillan, Levon Jihanian, Christian Lorenz Scheurer, Dave Dorman, Vincent Hui, Gary Baseman, Jim "Gay Bigfoot" Wirt, Daphne Yap, Raul Aguirre andAlvin Lee www.gnomongallery.com or www.sketchtheatre.com for information.

Chair of Panel: Dr. Janeann Dill Experimental animation was presented as fine art by its creators long before the art world acknowledged William Kentridge's work, the widely-accepted marker to distinguish animation a "legitimate" language in fine art. Looking beyond the constraining nomenclature of cartoon inherited from Sergei Eisenstein and forwarded by Gilles Deleuze and Rosalind Krauss, this panel visits an earlier history of art practice and critical thinking in experimental animation that was passed over by art history and then relegated to film history, where it was equally ignored. Considered neither art nor film, experimental animation dropped out of critical consideration entirely from its 1921 origins in the first experimental animation film, OPUS I by Walter Ruttmann, until the early 1970s with the writings of Louise O'Konor (on Viking Eggeling), Standish Lawder (on experimental film), William Moritz (on Oskar Fischinger), and Jeanpaul Goergen (on Walter Ruttman). With seminal texts by P. Adams Sitney, VISIONARY FILM: THE AMERICAN AVANT-GARDE (1974), and Cecile Starr and Robert Russett's EXPERIMENTAL ANIMATION: AN ILLUSTRATED ANTHOLOGY (1976), a nascent canon of critical art history in experimental animation was formed. Rooted in the art historical trajectories of experimental animation, experimental film, digital art and expanded cinema, this panel links the critical histories of art, film, and philosophy as one. This session serves not only to excavate its panelists' individual research, but, collectively, to engender a critical authority previously languishing. Panel/Session Date and Time: Friday, February 27, 2009 2:30-5 p.m. Concourse Meeting Room 408B, Level 2, Los Angeles Convention Center

The Canada International Film Festival brings the best of world cinema to Canada and plays an important role in maintaining and further enriching its film culture. The Canada International Film Festival has quickly carved out a name for itself among the top film festivals in Canada. It accepts films of any type, in any genre, from over 90 countries around the world. The festival is dedicated to the creation of opportunities for the artistic interaction and exchange among independent filmmakers and the film-going community.

This year IAF 5th will be held in the Pera Museum November 24-30, 2008. 5th Istanbul Animation and Visual Effects Short Film Competition applications are available until September 17. Competitors can apply by going to www.iafistanbul.com.

To check news of IAF 5th visit http://www.iafistanbul.com/index_en.php.

The Create Chaos Expo surrounds a unique Medici Garden Intersection for the ultimate networking and trade show experience. The expo boasts three live theaters, access to the job fair, a bookstore and round the block inspirational demos and showcases of the latest technologies and techniques. The Create Chaos Expo is the hub of the entire week. Here you can hop online at the cyber cafe, talk to a prospective recruiter, find talent, talk with vendors, explore the bookstore, or just chill out and take a rest in the Medici Garden while you see the chaos unfold around you. Live events such as podcasts interviews, filming, photo shoots, live performances, and product and software demonstrations will also be on going throughout the expo arena at four different stages. Create Chaos is pleased to co-locate this one of a kind event with these one of a kind conferences and partners. One Week. One Location. And one all access ticket gets you into everything. Creative Suite Conference -- This year's conference will host leading Creative Suite experts covering several in-depth sessions. This is the most comprehensive, dedicated Adobe Creative Suite event in the nation and we want to see you in Orlando. This show is for designers, art directors and marketing professionals looking for new and creative solutions in the world of printing, paper and packaging. Classes and hands-on demos showcase technologies and techniques such as lenticular printing, variable data, scratch and sniff, rapid prototyping, and the latest "coolness" in digital publishing and print communications. The Pixel Conference -- The Photoshop Conference for Designers. If you're a creative professional, you rely on pixels – those building blocks of every Photoshop image. The Pixel Conference focuses on how professionals get their work done – high quality and high productivity. Leave the wacky special effects at home and take some time to master Photoshop's powerful utility features at The Pixel Conference. The Pixel Conference only focuses on the issues/topics that pertain to designers. The Web Design Conference -- What Designers Need to Know to Make It on the Web. It's not hard to find seminars for code-heads and Web developers ... but now there's finally a conference for designers. Whether you're targeting desktop browsers or mobile devices, you need to understand the fundamentals of designing for the Web and the tools that let you build high-quality interactive designs quickly. At The Web Design Conference you'll find sessions on Flash, Dreamweaver, CSS, Fireworks, Photoshop, video, and more. We'll also have special sessions introducing you to AJAX and Adobe AIR, creating content for mobile devices, and decoding all the terms and acronyms that people talk about. ASMP Fall Photo Summit (held on Wednesday, Oct. 15) -- Join with the American Society of Media Photographers and experience first-hand photographers helping photographers while engaging with nationally recognized marketing and electronic authorities who will share their secrets for success. Experience search-engine optimization at its best and develop a systematic base for your archives. To be the best in the business, you need the best information and the photo summit has it covered. Motion Graphics Festival (MG Fest) is an innovative industry event showcasing creative motion picture design. The festival includes a unique summit with discussions to listen and learn with some of the industry's best artists, designers and animators. The topics range from the future of the motion graphics business, unique motion graphics placements, life as a VJ, and the breakdown of how a company approaches and delivers a motion graphics project. Create Chaos Job Fair -- Brahn Awards & Events, producers of Create Chaos, has partnered with CreativeHeads.net to produce a best-in-class job fair for Create Chaos 2008.

Special guest Brent Spiner (Data from STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION) will perform several songs on his new CD DREAMLAND, while also incorporating a storyline throughout. Also performing songs along with Spiner is Maude Maggart, and Mark Hamill (STAR WARS, BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES) performs several roles in the story. The DREAMLAND CD is $25, including an autograph. Spiner will sign one additional item at his 1-3 p.m. appearance. The Los Angeles Comic Book and Science Fiction Convention features one of the largest dealer's rooms on the West Coast full of comic books and collectibles. A wide range of stuff is for sale at all price ranges, old and new comic books, toys, action figures, hot wheels, STAR WARS, THE SIMPSONS and FAMILY GUY collectibles, non-sport and sport trading cards, Marvel legends, Japanese animation merchandise and classic action movies on DVD from Hong Kong. The convention will be held at Shrine Hall (700 W. 32nd Street, across from the USC campus) Admission: $8. Information: www.comicbookscifi.com.