Event: Ventriloquism, Animation, Puppetry, Film and Performance.
Skwigly
As part of the ‘Animation Research Pipeline’ series of invited guest speakers the Arts University Bournemouth are holding animation talks on campus that can be attended by non students and those interested in the craft of animation. On the 14th March Dr Dan North from Webster University, Leiden in the Netherlands will be talking about acts of ventriloquism, and will explore animation, puppetry, film and performance. All are welcome.
THURSDAY 14th MARCH
ROOM B001
4.30-6.00pm
If you wish to attend contact Paul Ward pward(@)aub.ac.uk (remove brackets)
This talk will explore the representation of ventriloquism in cinema. Ventriloquism is usually used as a metaphor for any kind of speaking on behalf of an Other but, as part of a larger study of cinema and puppetry, I am primarily interested in actual acts of ventriloquism; with examples from a wide range of films, from horrific tales of performers possessed by the spirits of their dummies, to the big-screen career of Charlie McCarthy, I will argue not only that all ventriloquial acts represent re-tellings of the same ‘joke’, but also that filmic depictions of ventriloquism add their own iterations and performance styles to the ventriloquial trope. Like other forms of puppetry, the ventriloquist’s performance re-orders the customary relationships between voice, body and image in a way that creates comedy, and sometimes terror, out of these disruptions.
Dr Dan North is a lecturer in Film and Media at Webster University in Leiden. He is the author of Performing Illusions: Cinema, Special Effects, and the Virtual Actor (2008), and is currently working on a book about cinema and puppetry.
COMING UP AFTER EASTER
Weds 3rd April – Aylish Wood (University of Kent): ‘Between Software and Image: Autodesk Maya’
Thurs 2nd May – Nichola Dobson (Edinburgh College of Art): ‘Dancing to the rhythm of the music: Norman McLaren and the Performing Body’
Thurs 23rd May – Sean Cubitt (Goldsmiths, University of London)