Keynote: Franziska Bruckner, St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences

Stops in Motion – Animation as Meta-cinematographic Concept

Stop-motion is an animation technique, in which objects are shifted in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of photos are projected as a continuous sequence. In filmic contexts stop-motion reaches a specific potential of expression, but already includes historically grown aspects of intermediality by combining artistic spheres like photography, music, fine arts, theatre or puppetry. More comprehensive ideas of animation are featured from several theorists, such as Lev Manovich (1995), Alan Cholodenko (1991) or Suzanne Buchan (2013), which also emphasize the variety of manual, mechanical and conceptual possibilities of stop-motion beyond the medium film.

The talk “Stops in Motion” focuses on an expanded notion of stop-motion, its potential before, in, and beyond its filmic boundaries and aims to explore a brief history of this aesthetically diverse animation technique. Beginning with precinematic devices, the lecture outlines important steps of stop-motion in film history and explores innovative prospects since its digitalization. This not only includes possibilities of established stop-motion software, but also focuses on opportunities in virtual and augmented reality applications. As stop-motion vitalizes objects in a visible fragmented way, it is an ideal concept for investigating new understandings of cinematic perception. Viewed from this perspective, stop-motion functions not anymore as a technique but as a “meta-cinematographic” concept and becomes a tool to fragment and recompose the world.

Biographie

Dr. Franziska Bruckner (Salzburg, 1981) is head of the research group Media Creation at St. Poelten University of Applied Sciences, co-coordinator of the Focus Group Animation within the German-speaking Society of Media Studies and board member of ASIFA-Austria.

She graduated in Theatre-, Film- and Media Studies at the University of Vienna as well as Painting and Animation at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. From 2009 to 2013 she was a university assistant at the department of Theater-, Film- and Media Studies in Vienna, from 2013 to 2017 she worked as lecturer for animation theory and practice at the University of Vienna, University of Tuebingen and University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria

Contact:
franziska.bruckner@fhstp.ac.at
http://franziska-bruckner.com