The fascinating paradox that we can see life in abstract images is the starting point of this conference. In a drawing of just a few lines, we can immediately recognize a human figure walking. A moving quadrangle can be seen as a crawling caterpillar. And some well-placed moving points are directly joined together in the form of a dancing couple. Again and again, we are astonished that we can actually see a creature moving in the image – even when the image is of such a reduced and simple nature or when it is not even a temporal moving image. How this impression of animate movement can be explained is what is explored at this conference: how can a simple line or form suddenly transform into something so specifically meaningful? How is this transition – this coming to life – to be described? How can it be constructed in the first place? The conference "Images of Animate Movement. Representations of Life" brings together different domains of knowledge in order to approach the phenomenon of animate movement and its images in its complexity in a new way.

Conference Announcement:

International Conference

Images of Animate Movement. Representations of Life

Bilder animierter Bewegung. Darstellungen von Leben

May 26 – 28, 2011

eikones NCCR Iconic Criticism – Power and Meaning of Images

Basel University

Concept and organisation: Sigrid Leyssen, Pirkko Rathgeber

Speakers: Gottfried Boehm (Universität Basel), Gabriele Brandstetter (FU Berlin), Ansgar Büschges (Universität Köln), Maria Luisa Catoni (Scuola Normale Superiore Pisa), Robin Curtis (SUNY), Matthias Haldemann (Kunsthaus Zug), Hannah Landecker (UCLA), Andreas Mayer (MPIWG Berlin), Matt Mullican (artist, New York/Berlin), Brian Scholl (Yale), Norah Zuniga Shaw (Synchronous Objects Project, Ohio State University), Stuart S. Sumida (California State University), Nikolaus F. Troje (Queens University), Paul Ward (Arts University College Bournemouth).

The fascinating paradox that we can see life in abstract images is the starting point of this conference. In a drawing of just a few lines, we can immediately recognize a human figure walking. A moving quadrangle can be seen as a crawling caterpillar. And some well-placed moving points are directly joined together in the form of a dancing couple. Again and again, we are astonished that we can actually see a creature moving in the image – even when the image is of such a reduced and simple nature or when it is not even a temporal moving image. How this impression of animate movement can be explained is what is explored at this conference: how can a simple line or form suddenly transform into something so specifically meaningful? How is this transition – this coming to life – to be described? How can it be constructed in the first place?

For centuries, the investigation and representation of the movements of human beings and animals have been an important scientific and artistic project. Different types of often very abstract representations have been used to capture and analyse such animate movements. This conference focuses on the construction, the perception and the use of these images of animate movement with their different degrees of abstraction in a variety of disciplines and contexts. The central question is how a specific movement can be represented schematically in such a way that we instantly experience it as animate and alive.

The conference brings together different domains of knowledge in order to approach the phenomenon of animate movement and its images in its complexity in a new way.

Program

Thursday, May 26, 2011

14.30 – 15.00 Gottfried Boehm: Begrüssung und Einführung: Das Bild als Ereignis

15.00 – 15.30 Sigrid Leyssen und Pirkko Rathgeber: Begrüssung und einführende Überlegungen: Animated Points, Living Lines – The Impression of Animate Movement

Session: Tanzende und laufende Figuren

Dancing and Walking Figures

Chair: Inge Hinterwaldner

• 15.30 – 16.30 Nikolaus F. Troje: Vision as Hypothesis Testing: The Case of Biological Motion Perception

16.30 – 17.00 Kaffeepause

• 17.00 – 18.00 Gabriele Brandstetter: Tanz die Pause! Choreographische Re - Animationen

18.00 – 18.30 Pause

Chair: Nicolaj van der Meulen

• 18.30 – 20.00 Norah Zuniga Shaw: From Improvisation Technologies to Choreographic Objects: William Forsythe and the Mobility of Dancing Ideas

20.00 Apéro

Friday, May 27, 2011

Session: Bewegung studieren, Bewegung darstellen

Studying Movement, Representing Movement

Chair: Arno Schubbach

• 09.30 – 10.30 Ansgar Büschges: The Complexity of the Ordinary – Neural Control of Locomotion
• 10.30 – 11.30 Andreas Mayer: Epistemic Figures of Movement

11.30 – 12.00 Kaffeepause

• 12.00 – 13.00 Stuart S. Sumida: Animation as Intersection: Art and Science, Analog and Digital, and the Importance of Anatomy for the Suspension of Disbelief

13.00 – 14.30 Mittagspause

Session: Stille und bewegte animierte Bewegung

Still and Moving Animate Movement

Chair: Thomas Brandstetter

• 14.30 – 15.30 Hannah Landecker: The Life of Movement: From Microcinematography to Live Cell Imaging
• 15.30 – 16.30 Robin Curtis: Compression / Repression: Zwischen belebter und unbelebter Materie

16.30 – 17.00 Kaffeepause

• 17.00 – 18.00 Maria Luisa Catoni: Mimesis and Motion in Classical Antiquity

18.00 – 18.30 Pause

Chair: Margarete Pratschke

• 18.30 – 20.00 Matt Mullican: How to Prove That Stick Figures Live Lifes: A Lecture in Three Parts

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Session: Formen setzen sich in Bewegung, Linien werden lebendig

Forms Starting to Move, Lines Coming to Life

Chair: Nina Gerlach

• 09.30 – 10.30 Paul Ward: Dark Intervals, Mechanics and Magic: Animated Movement as the Illusion of Life
• 10.30 – 11.30 Brian Scholl: Perceiving Animacy in Geometric Shapes: Visual Roots of Social Cognition

11.30 – 12.00 Kaffeepause

• 12.00 – 13.00 Matthias Haldemann: Wie die Linien laufen lernten. Über animierte Bild-Linien und ihre Vorgeschichte seit der Figura serpentinata

The conference is free for all, but please RSVP. sigrid[point]leyssen(at)unibas[point]ch

More info: http://www.eikones.ch/nc/events/detail.html?L=1&tx_cheikonesevent_pi1%5Buid%5D=195&cHash=40d8a2dbab

eikones NFS Bildkritik, Rheinsprung 11, CH - 4051 Basel