18+19 September, 2020

International Conference and Festival
of Contemporary Character Design and Art

Artists Talks, Animation Screenings,
Live Workshops and Panels

Free Broadcast on pictoplasma.com

Since 2004, Pictoplasma has been welcoming more than 250 speakers to its annual conference in Berlin to share their ideation processes and methodologies in working with character design. For the first time, and for obvious reasons, this year’s physical Pictoplasma originally scheduled for May had to be cancelled.

No matter how devastating this year may be, Pictoplasma refused to give up on 2020, and took the circumstances as an opportunity and an unforeseen starting point for something new: This September 18+19, the first ever digital 'Pictoplasma in Isolation' is set to take place as a free 2-day livestream broadcast. The event features more than 40 artist talks by and conversations with illustrators, animation filmmakers, visual artists, and designers, as well as performance artists, activists and academics.   

ARTISTS PRESENTATIONS

Participating artists include, among others, Niki Lindroth von Bahr from Stockholm, who has developed a unique signature style with multi-award winning, stop-motion, apocalyptically tinged musicals. Sarina Nihei is renowned for her exquisite hand-drawn, post-digital surreal shorts and hypnotic music videos. Will Anderson is also a director and writer of animated shorts, mixing minimal, simplistic character graphics with profound, highly emotional narration. Illustrators Genie Espinosa and Cristina Daura are two of the most uncompromising artists working today in the genre, the first exposing a unique, bold style with vivid color gradients, the second with surreal compositions full of fauvist perversion. UK-based Hattie Stewart has long established a name for herself by artistically defacing the images of celebrities on magazine covers and layering her own quirky interventions on top. Haein Kim from Sydney is an emerging illustrator and 2D animator whose characters expose a distinct corporeality, often dealing with adolescence and belonging. British illustrator Dan Woodger is known as the master of insanely detailed sceneries and all things emotive, classic-retro and spiced with a healthy dose of humor. And multi-facetted artist Jon Burgerman will share how he coped with being creative during lockdown and why painting bananas isn’t always funny.

SPECIAL FOCUS: THE MASK IN VISUAL CULTURE
This year’s edition of the festival puts a thematic emphasis on the mask and expands on Pictoplasma’s ongoing research into how characters relate to, invade, take over and warp the human body, reexamining one of our most ancient cultural artifacts in a new light. Special sections feature lectures, presentations and conversations with artists and designers, activists, scholars, and performance artists who work with visual techniques of facial disguise.

Among them are Damselfrau and threadstories, two of the most prolific artists currently working with masks, both diffusing their elaborated works in photography and video on social media and beyond. Cyrus Kabiru will talk about what it means to give trash a second chance; he is renowned for his detailed sculptural eyewear made from found objects and recycled material sourced on the streets of Nairobi. Adam Harvey, researcher and artist focused on computer vision, privacy, and surveillance, Yiğit Soncul, researcher at University of the Arts London and Winchester School of Art, and Rachel Cheung, a journalist writing from Hong Kong for Washington Post, LA Times and The Nation, will all shed light on the political dimension of the mask. Activists from Chile will talk about the long tradition of the capuchas in their country and how a feminist movement took it to a new meaning. Two digital artists will reflect on how face filters function as a way to change our identities online: David OReilly, renowned for his animation films and games, whose filters have been downloaded more than a billion times, and Ines alpha, who pushes the boundaries of beauty and virtual make up. Rapper Zebra Katz, vocal band iKi, the noise guerrilla BNNT and the electronic duo Dengue Dengue Dengue, will each perform and reflect on why wearing a mask is part of their artistic practice.

ANIMATION SCREENINGS
This year's animation section has seen more than 900 submissions from all around the world, of which 77 hand-picked jewels are streamed to your home entertainment system in four carefully curated programs. The official selection includes award winning Anna Mantzaris' latest stop motion film noir following her protagonist as she struggles to make the right decision; a surprising Sci-Fi trip fast-forwarding through humanity's development by Kirsten Lepore; a visual explosion of color and rhythm by experimental film-maker Caleb Wood; the feverish psychedelia of French animation collective Meat Department; and the latest digital nightmares by US American 3D enfant terrible Cole Kush.

PANELS AND WORKSHOPS
A second channel features workshops that allow viewers to join forces with international artists and get hands on with different media—in the comfort of their own 4 walls. Jon Burgerman and Nathan Jurevicius both host playful sessions that put the focus on instant and spontaneous creativity. Julian Glander showcases how fast he (and only he) can build complex illustrations using the simplest shapes in Blender.

A panel discussion explores the current stage of illustration in light of its digital transformation and whether today's visual culture is governed by a new regime of ‘Corporate Memphis.’ A second panel focuses on animation film: In the height of lockdown, many previously shelved animation projects have been green lighted by producers as live action was no longer possible to shoot, and animation seemed pandemic proof. We will discuss how this might affect the industry in the long run.  

REGISTRATION
Participation in the two-day Pictoplasma in Isolation broadcast on 18+19 September, 2020 is free. Prior online registration is available on conference.pictoplasma.com