Course Syllabus

ART 2420 Experimental Animation

Course Description

In this course, students will learn the potential of animation as a fine art medium and a mode of cultural production. While utilizing a wide range of animation techniques, concepts, and software, students are encouraged to experiment, creating individual and collaborative animation shorts. Students will analyze historically and contemporarily relevant approaches to experimentation in the field of animation and relate them to their own animated art works. Students will acquire technical skills and critical vocabulary for discussing creative work, while exercising their artistic intuition and expressive instincts. Students need to complete ART 1140 before taking this course. A program fee is required.

Justification

The moving image and its associated language is pervasive in both popular culture and the arts. Museums and galleries throughout the country routinely include experimental animation in their exhibitions and collections and it is a growing genre in popular media. In addition, experimental animation encourages interdisciplinary approaches and collaboration, redefining what this dynamic art form can ultimately be. The attitude of play, discovery, and pushing the boundaries, inherent to experimentation, creates curiosity and enthusiasm essential to a student’s self-expression, while supporting multimodal learning. The student-centered approach in this class provides students with a sense of agency while preparing them for entry into the practicing art world.

Student Learning Outcomes

1. Material Proficiency: Students will be exposed to a variety of analog and digital mediums used within the realm of experimental animation. They will navigate different approaches used in capturing, creating, and presenting animated shorts.
2. Principles of Concept: Students will learn to apply conceptual principles to a variety of experimental animation techniques and styles through the study of principles of animation, notions of time and space, along with the laws of physics and how they impact our visual perception of movement. Students will reference their own creative concerns, artistic influences, and art education in creation of original and meaningful animated shorts. They will conduct in-depth research to develop original ideas for animation.
3. Historical Context: In addition to viewing works by animation contemporaries, students will study historically relevant animation works in relationship to socio-political situation and captured zeitgeist of the time. They will analyze elements of animation history and their relationship to contemporary experimental animation. This knowledge and historical understanding will assist them in informing creative communication through visual language of animation.
4. Critical Theory: Students will develop an ability to critically analyze works of art through verbal critiques of the work of their peers and professional artists as it applies to creative, process-intensive, conceptual animation work. This skill will foster a greater ability of students to be critical of their own work within the creative process.
5. Creative Process: This course teaches strategies for cultivating creative practice, expressing ideas, solving problems creatively, engaging with challenging concepts, and experimenting with different mediums in working with animation. Students will explore the importance of animation processes and interdisciplinary approaches in creating animated works. They will utilize alternative visual storytelling elements, design fundamentals, and sound design, along with anatomy and a basic understanding of physics. Students will practice all phases of production including idea generation and storyboarding, image and audio capture, and editing, and critique as they create hands-on animated projects. Utilizing a sketchbook to record and develop this process will be highly encouraged as part of the process.

Course Content

This course will include lecture, discussion, critique, and studio time in exploring a variety of animation materials, methods, and techniques; creating several experimental animated shorts; practicing compositing, rendering, and editing techniques; understanding historical perspectives of cinematic process as well as contemporary critical issues in experimental animation; engaging in critique of historic, contemporary, and student work; and participating in public screenings of student animations.The artistic genres, major figures, and movements covered in this course will be representative of a ranging variety in gender, nationality, language, identity, perspective, and background.