Synaesthetic Syntax: Gestures of Resistance

Symposium details: Sunday 11^th September 2022, Ars Electronica Center, Linz, Austria.

Synaesthetic Syntax is part of the Expanded Animation events at the Ars Electronica Festival. This one-day symposium explores the complex relationship between sensory perception and expanded animation. In focussing on the primacy of the senses, the symposium aims to ask questions about the seduction of technology and how to maintain a discourse of what is fundamental about being human. This year’s theme is touch, gesture and physical movement. The symposium will take place in Linz and in-person attendance is preferred. All selected speakers will be given a free pass to the 2022 Ars Electronica Festival.

To be human, to be in a body, is to move and to feel; to move as it feels and to feel itself moving. However, bodies do not exist in isolation. Bodies collide with one another in social contexts. They have the power to affect others or to be affected themselves. Bodies are structured by culture, but they can also resist. Motion and sensation felt in the body lead to change.

At the time of writing, a line of tanks, armored vehicles and troops 40 miles long approaches Kyiv, literally illustrating change in motion through technology. How can animation respond to this? How might technologies of gesture, proprioception and motion be used to create animation that goes beyond formalism and is able to reflect upon the forces that seek to contain movements towards change?

The sensation of touch can be brutal and violent or tender and loving. Through ‘haptic visuality’, a sense of touch can be evoked in animation by triggering physical memories of smell, touch and taste that engage the viewer bodily to convey cultural experience rather than through use of language. How can touch be used in animation to create community or share memories?

Some of the questions we invite you to consider:

• How to critically reflect on the tools and technologies of touch and movement used to create animation – motion capture, tablets and pens, sensors – and the data sets and libraries that they create?
• How might the capture of motion, gesture and proprioception be used to innovate and tell stories of new communities?
• What is the role of touch in conveying memory?
• How might touch and biofeedback data be used in new ways to create animation?

You can find the schedule for Synaeathetic Syntax under Program. Switch to 11/09/22 for the exact times.

The symposium is jointly organized by Dr. Juergen Hagler, Ars Electronica, University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Hagenberg and Professor Dr. Birgitta Hosea, Animation Research Centre, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, UK.

Scientific committee: Professor Rose Bond, PNCA, USA; Associate Professor Max Hattler, School of Creative Media, CityU, Hong KongSchool of Creative Media, CityU, Hong Kong.

The conference will be held at the Ars Electronica Centre, Sky Loft (Floor 3) (Ars-Electronica-Straße 1, 4040 Linz) as part of the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria. The media festival will take place on the 7th–11th of September 2022: https://ars.electronica.art/festival/en/.

All questions about submissions should be emailed to animationresearch@uca.ac.uk.