Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin

Pictoplasma Conference
1st Symposium on Reduced Figuration
Free Admission, Eintritt frei

19 - 21 March 2009, 17-19h

For the first time, a symposium discusses the cultural implications of
the phenomenon from an academic perspective. With contributions by
Christoph Bartneck (information design, Technische Universiteit
Eindhoven/NL), Cindy Lisica (art theory, University of the Arts in
London/UK), Geoffrey Long (media theory, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge/USA), Ken Belson (New York Times / USA), Klaus-
Peter Köpping (ethnology, Universität Heidelberg/DE), Ragnhild
Tronstad (theory of performance, theatre and media, Universität Oslo/
NOR) and Verena Kuni (art and media theory, Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe
Universität Frankfurt/DE).

Programme:

Thursday, 19 March
Close Encounters - Character Perception

Characters are visiotypes which build immediate emotional ties to
their viewers: they look back - in what is at once a promise and a
threat of negated distance. The focus of the panel discussion is the
desire awakened by these figures and the often ambivalent emotions
they aim to provoke - whether these figures take the form of reduced
icons, in a play with the aesthetics of cuteness or grotesquerie, in
art pieces or as robots. What perceptual patterns are triggered when
we set eyes on them for the first time? What basic aesthetical
schemata do these characters employ, and to what end?

Michael Liebe and Stefanie Diekmann (DE), Universität Postdam
'Little Black Dots. Minimal Characters in Comics, Animé, and Computer
Games'

Cindy Lisica (USA/UK), University of the Arts London
'Survival of the Cutest: The Rise of the Superflat'

Christoph Bartneck (NL), Technische Universiteit Eindhoven
'Too Real is Unreal'

Hosted by Donya Ravasani

Friday, 20 March
Shaping Global Media - Character Creation

Characters have a presence that seems to work independently of
narrative and refuses clear contextualisation. Which is why characters
function equally well as brand logos in the field of global marketing
strategies, as pop-cultural obsessions and as protagonists of
subversive interventions in the system which created them. The panel
will examine a wide spectrum of production and reception sites for
these figures, asking how their lives in the new media look like and
how they are marketed as objects of desire, and looking at the
conditions of their existence in the global flow of images.

Geoffrey Long (USA), Massachusetts Institute of Technology
'From Plot to Character to World: Some Aesthetics of Transmedia
Storytelling'

Ken Belson (USA), New York Times
'Hello Kitty: How a Two-Dimensional Cat became Japan's Answer to
Mickey Mouse'

Frenchy Lunning (USA), Minneapolis College of Art and Design
'Under the Ruffles: Cosplay and the Shojo Character'

Hosted by Philipp Albers

Saturday, 21 March
Rituals and Masquerades - Get into Character

In their reduced figuration the formal language of these characters
often draws on a wide range of folk and pop cultures. The play with
mask, costume and fetish begins when the figures leave two
dimensionality, when image incarnate meets human being or when man and
character become one. The panel will examine the different strategies
of interacting with and embodying characters - interpreting these
interactions with theories of performance and ritual to pinpoint the
positions and functions which these characters proclaim as their own.

Mario Bührmann (DE), Freie Universität Berlin
'Embodied Characters: Rituals and Masquerades'

Ragnhild Tronstad (NOR), Universitetet i Oslo
'Performing a Character Identity'

Verena Kuni (DE), Goethe Universität Frankfurt
'Get A Life? Get Alive! Or: I Walked With a Character'

Hosted by Mark Butler

Haus der Kulturen der Welt
John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10
10557 Berlin
www.hkw.de

www.pictoplasma.com