[-empyre-] Introducing Eric Patrick (US), Christopher Sullivan (US), and Melanie Beisswenger (SG

[Renate Ferro]

Welcome to Weed 3 of February on –empyre soft-skinned space:  Theorizing
Animation:  Concept and Context Moderated by Renate Ferro (US) and Tim
Murray.  Introducing  Eric Patrick (US), Christopher Sullivan (US), and
Melanie Beisswenger (SG) for Week 3.

A warm welcome to Week 3 guests:  Eric Patrick (US), Christopher Sullivan
(US), and Melanie Beisswenger (SG). Eric and Patrick will be writing from
the US and Melanie from Singapore so  my apologies for the late
introduction in the east as it is almost Tuesday there.  Our guests'
biographies are below and I invite them to each post a bit about their own
work and their relationship to our topic: Theorizing Animation : Concept
and Context.

Eric Patrick combines animation, live action, photographic effects,
sound collage and performance to create experimental narratives.  He has
been the recipient of numerous awards both domestically and
internationally including a Guggenheim fellowship, and awards from The
Black Maria Film Festival, Semana de Cine Experimental de Madrid, South by
Southwest Film Festival, The Ann Arbor Film Festival, and Festival de
Cinema Independent de Barcelona.  His films have screened extensively at
festivals, museums, and on television throughout Europe, Australia, Asia
and the Americas, including screenings at the Museum of Modern Art in New
York, the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris and The Rotterdam Film
Festival.

In addition to his film work, Eric has also worked extensively in
commercial animation in both New York and Los Angeles.  His animation
for the Nickelodeon program Blues Clues has been nominated for multiple
Emmys and received a Peabody award.
He has additionally written articles on animated documentaries and
ritual in animation.  He is currently working on a film titled
Retrocognition, and is an Assistant Professor in the Radio/TV/Film
program at Northwestern University.

Christopher Sullivan
<http://mediaartists.org/content.php?sec=artist&sub=detail&artist_id=516>
Is an animator, filmmaker and performance artist. He has been creating
experimental film and theatre for over 20 years. He has shown his work in
festivals, theatres and museums all over the Country and in Europe. He has
received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Rockefeller Media Arts Fellowship.
Recently, he has been programming experimental films and animations in
community settings such as libraries, elementary schools, and educational
conferences, and puppet festivals. He lives in Chicago with his wife Susan
Abelson, and their daughters Carmen and Silvia, and teaches Animation and
Film at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago.

Melanie Beisswenger  joined the School of Art, Design and Media at Nanyang
Technical University in July 2007 as Asst. Professor in the Digital
Animation Programme, where she is teaching 3D Character Animation I and II
and Animation Development and Preproduction. Melanie has a decade of
production experience as artist and character animator on feature films
and TV commercials. Credits include the Academy Award winning feature film
"Happy Feet", the stereoscopic 3D feature film "Fly Me to the Moon" and
the BioShock Game launch trailer among others.Melanie Beisswenger's
research interests are digital animation, story telling, and 3D
stereoscopy, and how technology and tools can be adapted to employ them
intuitively within the creative process. Her current research work focus
on the production pipeline and process of the animated short film creation
in 3D and stereoscopic 3D.



Renate Ferro
Visiting Assistant Professor
Department of Art
Cornell University, Tjaden Hall
Ithaca, NY  14853

Email:   <rtf9 at cornell.edu>
Website:  http://www.renateferro.net


Co-moderator of _empyre soft skinned space
http://www.subtle.net/empyre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empyre

Art Editor, diacritics
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/dia/