Ars Electronica ANIMATION FESTIVAL 2019

As every year, Ars Electronica Animation Festival is a condensed best-of of current productions in digital filmmaking, selected from the entries of this year’s Prix Ars Electronica, the international competition for cyber arts in the computer animation category. Trends of the last few years are continuing with further growth in AI-related themes, VR productions, installative works, large scale mappings, and interactive elements.

This year there have been 835 entries in total. In two pre-jury rounds, first by Christine Schöpf, Juergen Hagler, and Nana Thurner, then in an online rating by the jurors Alex Verhaest, Ina Conradi, Birgitta Hosea, Ferdi Alici, and Nobuaki Doi, the count has been reduced to the more manageable number of 165 productions, considering the three days of deliberation. These also form the foundation for the programs of this year’s Ars Electronica Animation Festival.

Additionally, there are guest screenings by Anifilm Třeboň, Digital Media — Hagenberg Campus, Animationsinstitut of the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg, ISCA (International Students Creative Award) and Japan Media Arts Festival. Young filmmakers will be presented in the Young Animations category. A studio feature from Platige Image shows animated short movies from the last 20 years. All in all, the program provides an interesting insight into current international productions of digital filmmaking.

Program

Animation Festival Screenings

The seventeen programs of this year’s Ars Electronica Animation Festival are once again an international showcase of excellence in current digital filmmaking. Visitors can experience these programs in several screening rooms at the POSTCITY, Art Thinking House.

Animation Festival @ Deep Space 8K – Part 1

Boy transcoded from phosphene | Promenade (excerpt) | WHERE DO WE GO | Seven Experiments in Procedural Animation | tx-reverse

Animation Festival @ Deep Space 8K – Part 2

Serial Parallels | Influencers | In Trance It | Beauty = Function

Electronic Theatre

The program shows the prize-winning works selected by the jury and showcases current productions from an artistic, substantial, cultural, and cutting-edge technological perspective.

Expanded Animation – OUT OF THE BOX

Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences Hagenberg Campus (AT), Ars Electronica (AT)

In collaboration with the Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences’ Hagenberg Campus, the 7th Expanded Animation symposium carries on a process launched in 2013 — mapping the wide-ranging domain of animated worlds of imagery beyond the well-trodden paths. The symposium stays the course originally set at its inception, and presents theoretical positions and perspectives from the art world, the R&D field and the industrial sector.

Gender, Virtual Reality and playfulness at the Ars Electronica Animation Festival 2019

The best of 835 Prix Ars Electronica submissions in the Computer Animation category will be presented at the Ars Electronica Animation Festival. In an interview, curator and director Jürgen Hagler talks about what visitors will be able to expect this year, what trends the industry is currently experiencing and what he personally looks forward to the most.