Balancing act

A sculptural goblet inspired by childhood experiences and how they equate to contemporary fairytales. The work is hand-blown and engraved. This piece represents scene two in the narrative. It is a work that condenses the animated moving image into a sculptural form.

Everything I need under one roof

A sculptural goblet inspired by childhood experiences and how they equate to contemporary fairytales. The work is hand-blown and engraved. This piece represents scene one in the narrative. It is a work that condenses the animated moving image into a sculptural form.

Feline pet

A sculptural goblet inspired by childhood experiences and how they equate to contemporary fairytales. The work is hand-blown and engraved. This piece represents scene two in the narrative. It is a work that condenses the animated moving image into a sculptural form.

Sunday stroll

A sculptural goblet inspired by childhood experiences and how they equate to contemporary fairytales. The work is hand-blown and engraved. This piece represents scene one in the narrative. It is a work that condenses the animated moving image into a sculptural form.

Bird flock

The work consists of a set of six, utilitarian wine glasses. Each glass features the engraving of a bird silhouette; the six engravings represent a flock of birds and also six key-poses in the animated flight-cycle of one bird. Beside the array of wine glasses sits a screen on which is displayed a looped animation of this same bird in flight. In a way, the six wine glasses represent the six animation cels of the displayed animation. Additionally, each engraved glass serves as a sight-trigger for a smart-phone or other mobile device. If one has the Aurasma app on their device and holds it up to ‘look at’ any one of the engravings, the animation of the flying bird will also be displayed on their device’s screen.

Moving house

A sculptural goblet inspired by childhood experiences and how they equate to contemporary fairytales. The work is hand-blown and engraved. This piece represents scene three in the narrative. It is a work that condenses the animated moving image into a sculptural form.

Material damage: expanded cinema

Over a 35 year career de Bruyn’s bracing and immersive work has investigated legacies of trauma anddisplacement, dealing with the residue of the white Australia policy and his own experience ofchildhood migration to Australia from Holland.In recent years de Bruyn has presented his hand drawn 16mm animation films as performances, withde Bruyn manipulating the images live, and accompanying them with a live vocal soundtrack. returnsto Auckland to deliver an expanded cinema performance for 16mm projectors and voice.

Capture, hold, release: an ontology of motion capture

In proposing an ontology of motion capture, this paper identifies three modalities — capture, hold, release — to conceptualise the peculiar affordances of motion capture technology in its relationship to a performer's movement. Motion capture is unique among contemporary moving image media in its capacity to re-perform a performer'srecorded movement a potentially limitless number of times, e.g. as applied to innumerable different CG characters. Unlike live-action film or even rotoscoping (motion capture's closest equivalent), the movement extracted from the captured performance lives on, but only by way of the inimagable (non-visible) domain of motion data.Motion data 'holds' movement itself in inimagable form, and 'releases' it in the domain of the digital moving image. This tri-fold conception relates an important dimension of (Heideggerian) Being to the idea of movement as fundamental to an ontology or 'being' of motion capture. At the same time, the proposed ontology challenges the 'illusion of life' metaphor as the accepted definition of (motion capture) animation.The Oscar's Special Rules for the Animated Feature Film Award asserts that 'by itself' motion capture does not qualify as an animation method. The notion that a technology could do or be anything 'by itself' affords a conceptual leap toward Heideggerian thinking on the nature of Being as embodied in temporality, in which past, present and future are unified.In its capacity to operate outside the domain of the digital moving image, the concept of 'movement itself' not only articulates an ontology of motion capture: motion capture itself can be understood to be brought into being by movement, thus also challenging the notion that capture technology has a parasitic relationship to a performer's originary performance.

Complex simulation of stockyard mining operations

Conflicts between resources in stockyards cause mining companies millions of dollars a year. An effective planning strategy needs to be established in order to reduce these operational conflicts. In this research a stockyard simulation model of a mining operation is proposed. The simulation uses discrete event and continuous strategies to create a high detail level of visualization and animation that closely resemble actual stockyard operation. The proposed simulation model is tightly integrated with a stockpile planner and it is used to evaluate the feasibility of a given production plan. The high detail visualization of the simulation model allows planner to determine the source of conflict, which can be used to guide the elimination of these conflicts.

The status and function of Inanimate 'object-actors' in cyborg theatre

 This practice-led research investigates the relationships between human and technological actors in theatre with specific reference to theatrical presence.The research proposes to advance knowledge in the fields of directing and theatre making by putting forward new strategies for directing actors who perform with computer-based technologies.

Dissociation

Dissociation is an abstract materialist film that has migrated from 16mm film to the digital. It is made up of scratches, half-baked images and flicker. The film explores the tension between the image, the written text and the spoken word and the consequent struggle for meaning. A report on the anti-social nature of corporate space inspired by the first non-sense poem “The Great Lalula” by Christian Morgenstern.

Somewhere else

Faraways, 2012, 10 minMagic Miles, 2014, 15 minTelescope, 2013, 80 minAudrey Lam's films follow people in situations and places familiar to her, them and others they know. Sometimes moments and landscapes are revisited in some way to remember thoughts and time missed.Telescope is a time-lapse of reflections, changes in sunlight of Dirk de Bruyn’s backyard, assembled over 20 years. Telescope starts in Super 8 and ends with digital video, shot mostly while his family were themselves at work, somewhere else. It is an emptied landscape.Audrey Lam was born in Hong Kong and lives in Australia. She studied film and photography at Queensland College of Art. She has participated in art festivals including Next Wave, Otherfilm and Yebisu, and her films have screened at film festivals in London, Rotterdam and Oberhausen. Her work often builds on shared experiences, re-chronicling everyday encounters to reflect on the nuances of place and belonging. She has been developing new work during her Asialink arts residency at Green Papaya Art Projects.Dirk de Bruyn was born in the Netherlands and migrated with his family to Australia in 1958 as young child. He has made numerous experimental, documentary and animation films, videos and performance and installation work over the last 40 years. He was a founding member and past president of MIMA (Experimenta). His book The Performance of Trauma in Moving Image Art was published in 2014.

Dirk de Bruyn: Australian master + Q&A

Dirk de Bruyn is one of Australia’s most successful and acclaimed abstract animators. It may be too soon to truly call this program a ‘retrospective’ but de Bruyn’s career none-the-less spans a significant portion of the history of abstract and experimental animation in Australia. His films are as addictive as they are bold and uncompromising examples of the genre. He displays a remarkable ability to learn the lessons gifted us by earlier greats and yet produce a flowing, beautifully realised river of imagery that is all his own. His film contain, in many instances, the spirit and ghost-narratives of his own life. MIAF is thrilled to be able to present this program and the chance to have him discuss these works in person will be one of the festival highlights.

Hillegonda: 3 projector performance

Dirk de Bruyn is one of Australia’s most successful and acclaimed abstract animators. His career spans a significant portion of the history of abstract and experimental animation in Australia and his films are as addictive as they are bold and uncompromising examples of the genre. He displays a remarkable ability to learn the lessons gifted us by earlier greats and yet produce a flowing, beautifully realised river of imagery that is all his own. MIAF’s look at the various iterations of de Bruyn’s work continues with this special one-off live performance in which he will utilise three projectors to create an experience that blends a suite of moving image artwork drawn from his practice with an improvised sound track. Hosted by the VCA, this performance is FREE and will take place in VCA’s Founders Gallery at 234 St Kilda Rd just a few short minutes walk from ACMI.

A cavalcade of erasures: an educational audio-visual presentation

Dirk de Bruyn has been creating film works for over 35 years; mostly in the hand-made, 'direct animation' mode. He also performs live with multiple projections of his films in a highly embodied mode of expanded cinema performance. His work is renowned for its intricate, suggestive layering of sound and image, and use of sumptuous, blooming fields of colour.An active participant in our PyR16, Dirk will be discussing his conceptual work, his meticulous creative process, and his particular relationship with the materials, light, space and time both on film and stage, illustrating with some examples.We'll conclude with a Q&A session with the attendants.