An exhibition of international animation works. The project takes the form of a self-selection video lounge in the gallery spaces at Site where visitors can select works to view from a ‘menu’ of international works. Taking in stop-frame, digital, drawn and lens-based animation, the project gives both an overview of work recently produced in this area and also very personal selections from artists and curators.
Theorist Walter Benjamin saw early animation as a radicalising of film, which offered a release from the constraints of the physical laws of time, space and technology. A chapter of an early version of his essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction was originally titled Mickey Mouse, about whom he said: ‘His life is full of miracles – miracles that not only surpass the wonders of technology, but make fun of them’
Perhaps it is these original radical and avant garde possibilities of animation which still fascinate artists – ‘the anti-naturalist, utopian rebuttal of physical laws and “natural” constraint’ (Esther Leslie) which allows reinvestigation of the relationship between the still and moving image, the flatness of line and the illusion of depth and the digital manipulation of photographic ‘reality’.
Including over 100 animations, the videotheque features work selected by: The Designers Republic, whose selection includes Fadeby Qian Qian, Oggoby Saiman Chow and Soarby Star Dust; Motohiko Odani (artist, Japan) including work by Kon Satoshi; Ben Cook (director, Lux) including ‘Rabbit’ by Run Wrake, ‘Agnes Queen of Sorrow’ by David Shrigley and ‘Peak Project’ by Sebastian Buerkner; Grennanand Sperandio (artists, UK) including ‘Animal Kids’ by Anthony Gross and ‘Gotta Do It’ by Rafael Rozendall; Ann Course (artist, UK) including work by Paulette Phillips and Tamara Al Samerraei; as well as the most recent Prix Ars Electronica awards and work selected by the gallery. Visitors could select and view work on monitors at their own pace in the main gallery or watch personally selected showreels projected in the small gallery.