Pictoplasma Academy professor, illustrator, designer and picture book maker Rilla Alexander takes the Conference stage—to start things off with a quick drawing exercise (you’ll need pen and paper!!!) and lead us through the ups and downs of finishing a project, be it her self-authored picture books or the recent collaboration with author Jane Yolen, ‘A Bear Sat on My Porch Today.’
Erik Willer is the founder of Pictopsychology, a scientific discipline that has set out to quantitively measure the effect images – and especially characters – have on us. With his methods Willer is revolutionising the very code that still today defines the boundaries between image and subject, object and viewer – and demonstrates how physically close images actually come to us.
Ragnhild Tronstad is a researcher at the Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo. She has published on various subjects within games- and performance studies.
Even though this might be aesthetically painful territory for Pictoplasma, in her talk at the Conference 2009 Tronstad delves into the highly interesting “player-character” identification process of World of Warcraft by analyzing the relationship between character appearance and character capacity – and how these aspects of the game enable a player to experience flow with their character throughout the different modes.
Geoffrey Long (USA) is a scholar/storyteller, exploring the future of entertainment as Technical Director and Research Fellow at USC’s Annenberg Innovation Lab (formerly of MSFT & MITT). In his Pictoplasma talk from 2009 he delivers plenty of answers to ever-urging questions: Why did the Star Wars prequels suck, what was inside Lost’s box, and how can one set up a character’s narration for Transmedia Storytelling?
Ken Belson (USA, New York Times) is the co-author of “Hello Kitty: The Remarkable Story of Sanrio and the Billion Dollar Feline Phenomenon”, the only book in English ever to be published about Japan’s most famous cat. In his talk at the Pictoplasma Conference 2009 he explains how Sanrio, the company behind Hello Kitty, turned a cute cartoon cat into a multi-billion dollar global commodity, plastered on over 22,000 different products and sold in more than 40 countries.
AJ Fosik creates sculptures of wood and found materials with an irresistible uncanny aura. In a process of arranging hundreds of individually cut, varnished, and painted pieces, he handcrafts artificial creatures, reduced and abstract animals with an anthropomorphic appearance. Familiar cultural icons and traditions are re-configured, confronting the viewer with cryptic symbols from overlapping sources. In his lecture at the Pictoplasma Conference 2009, he talks about the familiar and the uncanny, nature and culture, and the relationship of art and viewer…
Marc Craste is a senior animation director working at Studio AKA in London. He has designed and directed many award-winning commercials including memorable work for Orange, Compaq, Lloyds Bank and the National Lottery. His 12 minute debut film ‘JOJO IN THE STARS’ won the 2004 BAFTA for Best Animated Short Film – alongside a host of other international awards, and was followed by his much appraised half-hour animation adaptation ‘Varmints’, completed late 2008 in between commercials.
Peter de Sève is famed for his illustration work and cover art to The New Yorker since 1993. He is also undoubtably one of the leading character designers in today’s animated-film industry, and has created unforgettable characters for block-busters such as “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”, “Tarzan”, “Finding Nemo” or “Robots”.
Peter was the sole designer on “Ice Age” and its sequels, yet his “Scrat” clearly overshadows the entire cast and turned into a world-wide icon…
