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Holland Animation Film Festival Fellow
Paul Ward is CfH-HAFF's first festival fellow
The Centre for the Humanities and the Master New Media & Digital Culture (Department of Media & Culture Studies) at Utrecht University, in collaboration with the Holland Animation Film Festival (HAFF), are proud to present Dr. Paul Ward as the first CfH-HAFF Festival Fellow.
On 23 September 2011, Paul Ward will give a lecture named ‘Dark Intervals, Mechanics and Magic: Animated Movement as the Illusion of Life’.
In this lecture he will explore the specific dialectical relationship between animation as magic and animation as a process, as something that reveals the processes of its own making. The overall aim is to look at how the magical and the material can be reconciled, and how this is especially important for a more nuanced understanding of animation history. The starting point will be to outline some of the ways in which cinema, animation and magic have intersected and how this is a relationship built on ambivalence. The main argument will be that animation is a particularly privileged site of a peculiar dialectic that exists at the heart of much popular entertainment: the paradox of seeing life in images we know do not possess life.
The Holland Animation Festival and the Dutch Film Festival, are jointly organizing an open-air v-jaying programme as part of the festival in the city centre under the Dom of Utrecht. The lecture will precede this event.
Paul Ward is one of the leading scholars in the UK in the field of animation studies. He is currently Principal Lecturer in Animation at the Arts University College at Bournemouth and serves as the President of the international Society for Animation Studies [www.animationstudies.org]. Dr. Ward’s work focuses on the emergence of Animation Studies as an interdisciplinary field. His current research explores the interfaces between animation and a range of other cultural practices, including videogames, documentary/non-fiction filmmaking and computer-generated imagery. Furthermore Dr. Ward investigates the convergence/dialectic between ‘animated’ media, ‘live action’ media, as well as the history and theory of documentary practices. Paul Ward has published numerous articles, contributed to and written several books. His work has also appeared in scholarly journals such as the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television; Animation Journal and Scope: An Online Journal of Film Studies.
Ward’s article ‘Some Thoughts on Theory-Practice Relationships in Animation Studies’ published in animation: an interdisciplinary journal, won the McLaren-Lambart Award for Best Scholarly Essay (in the field of Animation Studies) in 2008. Dr Ward has already marked the field of Animation and Documentary theory significantly and we are proud to be able to welcome him as our first CfH-Holland Animation Festival Fellow.
Upcoming Visits
In March and April, Paul Ward will give a number of seminars for BA, MA, RMA and PhD students as well as animation scholars in the Netherlands and Belgium on his research and relevant developments in animation theory. Dr. Ward will open up strands of discussion on some of his current research, which examines animation as a performative process. In the workshops and Seminars, Paul Ward will explore this in more depth and link it to related research strands on animated documentary.
During the Holland Animation Festival, Paul Ward will have a personal programme, and participate in various festival events.
Festival Fellowship
This programme is designed to connect the Festival Fellow to a series of activities and workshops that will be jointly organized by the CFH, the Holland Animation Film Festival and the Department of Media & Culture Studies, to explore current developments in animation and documentaries, with respect to emerging animation studies in the Netherlands.
The festival fellowship scheme is an initiative designed by the Centre for the Humanities, to bring together researchers, practitioners, students, Utrecht citizens and others interested and to stimulate the discourse around the arts today.
Startdatum en tijd:
23/9/2011 19:30
Einddatum en tijd:
23/9/2011 20:45
Locatie:
Senaatszaal, Aacademiegebouw, Utrecht.