Conference: "Images of Animate Movement. Representations of Life" - 26-28 May, 2011, Basel

*Conference Announcement:*

*International Conference*

*Images of Animate Movement. Representations of Life*

*Bilder animierter Bewegung. Darstellungen von Leben*

*May 26 -- 28, 2011*

**

eikones NCCR Iconic Criticism -- Power and Meaning of Images

Basel University

Concept and organisation: Sigrid Leyssen,PirkkoRathgeber

Speakers: Gottfried Boehm (UniversitätBasel), GabrieleBrandstetter(FU
Berlin),AnsgarBüschges(UniversitätKöln), Maria
LuisaCatoni(ScuolaNormaleSuperiorePisa), Robin Curtis (SUNY),
MatthiasHaldemann(KunsthausZug), HannahLandecker(UCLA), Andreas Mayer
(MPIWG Berlin), MattMullican(artist, New York/Berlin), Brian Scholl
(Yale), Norah Zuniga Shaw (Synchronous Objects Project, Ohio State
University), Stuart S. Sumida (California State
University),NikolausF.Troje(Queens University), Paul Ward (Arts
University College Bournemouth).

The fascinating paradox that we can see life in abstract images is the
starting point of this conference. In a drawing of just a few lines, we
can immediately recognize a human figure walking. A moving quadrangle
can be seen as a crawling caterpillar. And some well-placed moving
points are directly joined together in the form of a dancing couple.
Again and again, we are astonished that we can actually see a creature
moving in the image -- even when the image is of such a reduced and
simple nature or when it is not even a temporal moving image. How this
impression of animate movement can be explained is what is explored at
this conference: how can a simple line or form suddenly transform into
something so specifically meaningful? How is this transition -- this
coming to life -- to be described? How can it be constructed in the
first place?

For centuries, the investigation and representation of the movements of
human beings and animals have been an important scientific and artistic
project. Different types of often very abstract representations have
been used to capture and analyse such animate movements. This conference
focuses on the construction, the perception and the use of these images
of animate movement with their different degrees of abstraction in a
variety of disciplines and contexts. The central question is how a
specific movement can be represented schematically in such a way that we
instantly experience it as animate and alive.

The conference brings together different domains of knowledge in order
to approach the phenomenon of animate movement and its images in its
complexity in a new way.

**

*Program*

*Thursday**, May 26, 2011*

14.30 -- 15.00Gottfried Boehm:Begrüssungund Einführung: Das Bild als
Ereignis

15.00 -- 15.30Sigrid Leyssen
undPirkkoRathgeber:BegrüssungundeinführendeÜberlegungen: Animated
Points, Living Lines -- The Impression of Animate Movement

*Session:TanzendeundlaufendeFiguren
Dancing and Walking Figures*

Chair: Inge Hinterwaldner

15.30 -- 16.30NikolausF.Troje: Vision as Hypothesis Testing: The Case of
Biological Motion Perception

16.30 -- 17.00Kaffeepause

17.00 -- 18.00Gabriele Brandstetter: Tanz die Pause!ChoreographischeRe
-Animationen

18.00 -- 18.30Pause

Chair:NicolajvanderMeulen

18.30 -- 20.00Norah Zuniga Shaw:From Improvisation Technologies to
Choreographic Objects: William Forsythe and the Mobility of Dancing Ideas

20.00Apéro

**

*Friday**, May 27, 2011*

*Session: Bewegung studieren, Bewegung darstellen
StudyingMovement,RepresentingMovement*

Chair: Arno Schubbach

09.30 -- 10.30AnsgarBüschges: The Complexity of the Ordinary -- Neural
Control of Locomotion

10.30 -- 11.30Andreas Mayer: Epistemic Figures of Movement

11.30 -- 12.00Kaffeepause

12.00 -- 13.00Stuart S. Sumida: Animation as Intersection: Art and
Science,Analogand Digital, and the Importance of Anatomy for the
Suspension of Disbelief

13.00 -- 14.30Mittagspause

*Session: Stille und bewegte animierte Bewegung*

*Still and Moving Animate Movement*

Chair: ThomasBrandstetter

14.30 -- 15.30HannahLandecker: The Life of Movement:
FromMicrocinematographyto Live Cell Imaging

15.30 -- 16.30Robin Curtis:Compression/ Repression: Zwischen belebter
und unbelebter Materie

16.30 -- 17.00Kaffeepause

17.00 -- 18.00Maria LuisaCatoni: Mimesis and Motion in Classical Antiquity

18.00 -- 18.30Pause*

*

Chair:MargaretePratschke

18.30 -- 20.00MattMullican: How to Prove That Stick Figures LiveLifes: A
Lecture in Three Parts

*Saturday, May 28, 2011*

*Session: Formen setzen sich in Bewegung, Linien werden lebendig*

*Forms Starting to Move, Lines Coming to Life*

Chair: NinaGerlach

09.30 -- 10.30Paul Ward: Dark Intervals, Mechanics and Magic: Animated
Movement as the Illusion of Life

10.30 -- 11.30Brian Scholl: PerceivingAnimacyin Geometric Shapes: Visual
Roots of Social Cognition

11.30 -- 12.00Kaffeepause

12.00 -- 13.00MatthiasHaldemann: Wie die Linien laufen lernten. Über
animierte Bild-Linien und ihre Vorgeschichte seit der Figuraserpentinata

More

info:http://www.eikones.ch/nc/events/detail.html?L=1&tx_cheikonesevent_pi1%5Buid%5D=195&cHash=40d8a2dbab

The conference is free for all, but please RSVP to
sigrid[point]leyssen[at]unibas[point]ch.

eikones NFS Bildkritik, Rheinsprung 11, CH - 4051 Basel