Database for Animation Studies

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Answer to the questionnaire on “10 essential books/articles to know Animation Aesthetics”

Georges Sifianos

It is not easy to say what is "essential". (For myself? for everybody? for today or in all times etc.) What is essential depends by a context which does it essential or not, and all contexts are not similar...I always combine ideas that I find in different sources..In any way as you suggest "They are not necessary to deal with animation directly" I can mention books that I like and are references for me.

Various Books on Bauhaus

from Paul Klee, Johannes Itten...

Theodor Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, University of Minnesota Press, 1998

In this theory he explains why I can't answer directly to your question! He suggest that the appreciation depends of the context, of what the object to appreciate, is not. (That means the social, historical, cultural context who is behind the object that we have to appreciate...) He calls it a "negative approach" who gives a "negative aesthetics" theory. In another way, McLaren said that "what happens between two frames is more important than what is on the frames".

Georges Sifianos
filmmaker and professor of Animation

Georges Sifianos is filmmaker, and professor of Animation, born in Greece in 1952. He teaches in ENSAD (École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs) in Paris, where he founded the Animation Studies in 1995, and coordinated this specialisation for several years. He taught also at universities in Europe, India, Korea, or China. He has a PhD in Philosophy (1988), and is interested on the Aesthetics and the renewal of the cinema forms, particularly under the light of Cognitive Sciences. His book "Aesthetics of Animation Cinema" received the award for best academic book of 2014 by the Society for Animation Studies. His research work in progress focuses on forms of animation found on the Parthenon frieze. Founding member of "CARTOON" (European program MEDIA), board member of the Annecy Animation Festival and the Festival "Rencontres Internationales 10/10" in the past, he participated in many juries of animation festivals around the world. He also involved in the Visual Arts.
Filmography:
"C'EST MÔA" (2007) short animated (ballet) film, 12 min / "TUTU" (2001) short animated film, 27 min (Co-dir. P.Dalet) /”SCENT OF CITY" (1994) short animated film, 8 min./ "PETROCHEMICALS, THE CATHEDRALS OF THE DESERT” (1981) full-length documentary, 81 min (Co-dir. S.Katsaros) / "SMILE" (1974), short animated film, 2 min.

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