Real Time Identity

This event is combining the inspiring opportunities of an academic conference with the possibilities of a film festival. Since 2011 we are transcending conceptual boundaries to connect international and local artists, scholars, researchers, communicators, and distributors. Embracing fine-arts and creative enterprises, we also like to describe the converging function of our event a “confluence,” and we are open to suggestions for new elements and formats to be included.
We invite you to come together to exchange, communicate, network and enjoy stimulating art/work/research/people. Recent participants include (among many more) renowned individuals like Maureen Furniss (US), Pierre Hébert (CA), Suzanne Buchan (UK), Olivier Cotte (F), Eliška Děcká (CZ), Paul Wells (UK), Madi Piller (CA), Jürgen Hagler (A), Chunning Guo (CN), Nikita Diakur (DE), Nöel Palazzo (ES), Tomm Moore (IE), Maike Höhne (DE), Bonny Mitchell (US), József Fülöp (HU), Chi-Sui Wang (TW), Martin Reinhart (A), Olga Bobrowska (PL) – etc.

Submit an abstract in English for twenty-minute academic presentations.
All presentations must be thematically related to this year’s topic.
Sketched ideas for concepts are in the below-included section,
but we are also open to additional suggestions.

For each proposal, the applicant is required to fill out a separate online entry form.
Only correctly filled out online-forms will be accepted.

When you think about a mediated experience, an audio-visual project, animation or film production,
the question of “the story” is an essential element during development, completion, and promotion of your venture.

Let us think about this point and consider some of the possible questions:
What is a story? Do we need stories? Are we looking for stories? How do we define a story?
How do we work with stories? Are stories necessary for effective outcomes?
Is everything just a story, or do we just project stories into everything?
Where does a narrative begin, where does it end?
Is there something like the “non-narrative, and if so, how do we tell the story of it?
Do we describe, what seems to have no story, with meta-stories?
Can we even think or feel or dream without an underlying narrative that we relate to?
Is any description, any depiction, any representation some sort of story,
some sort of narrative construction that is a necessary component of communication?
Do we need the narrative, an emotional narrative, a drama, stirring and exciting stories,
adventures, legends, myths or fantasies to reach a broad audience?
Could we communicate without packaging abstract ideas into concrete tales?
How do we construct our stories, how do stories construct themselves?
Do we customize our stories depending on the chosen medium of communication?
What role does “The Narrative” really play in our interaction, both – in current times – and across the centuries?
Are we tied to stories like slaves to a galley, or are they the wings that we can use to raise ourselves from common and ordinary grounds?
Stories are there, and they rule our lives, but is there a world without them?
How do you handle that, how do you use them, what is your story?

You can also come up with your own question and your own approximation,
as long as it relates to “the narrative” – or its opposite – or some other connected idea.
Make sure that you are focussing on moving images, on animation in the broader sense,
on animation as a conceptual foundation of motion media, or on traditional approaches to animation,
or overlaps and structural “spills” into film, virtual-reality, game, interactive tools and similar fields.
We are looking for a discussion of new ideas, not so much for a pure review of established positions.

This covers conceptual, theoretical, artistic and practical approaches, experiences and discussions of rather abstract terms like “time”, “reality”, ”existence”,  memory”, “identity”, “interpretation”, “anticipation”, “integrity”, “authenticity”, “factuality”, “heritage”, “community”, “projection”, “distortion” – and connected or related notions. The connection – even in a comprehensive and open understanding – to animation and experimental media art should be clearly recognizable.
Our subheading: How the interaction with our image of the past and our ideas of the future shape the work in film, media, art, and connected hybrids at our current moment. – points out our interest in submissions that combine academic analysis and research with real-world applications and uses. A connection to documenting or documentary type (or related) work is possible and also the (re-) interpretation of historical artifacts, work, or activities. You may investigate how aspects of our understanding of time affect structures, aesthetics, narratives, styles, and tones of sequential visual compositions. Animation and experimental media art may be understood in a range between very traditional and highly hypothetical and suggestive ways. Based on the interdisciplinary and inviting nature of this conference we like to encourage applicants to submit proposals that will initiate discussion and analytical exchange among participants.

Details about schedules, locations, participants, collaborators, contributors, partners, supporters, organizers, events, etc. will be made available online at our website “www.under-radar.com” as soon as they are available.

In case you would like to propose a different item for our program, like a workshop, masterclass, panel, film-program, etc. – please contact us at info@under-radar.com