Pictoplasma 2015: Who – Or What – Is It?
Pictoplasma Conference 2015 – Form follows empathy
With over 100 short animations, 18 speakers, 2 exhibitions, hands-on workshops and plenty of partying, the Pictoplasma Conference 2015 was an eye-opening, fun, weird, exhausting and extremely inspiring few days.
Who – or what – is this Pictoplasma anyway?
The world’s leading and largest Festival of contemporary character culture is the brainchild of Peter Thaler and Lars Denicke. Since its inception in 2004, the annual Pictoplasma Berlin Festival has established itself as the main meeting point for an international audience of visual creators and producers. The event is an unconventional design conference, a forward looking animation film festival, a communal playground for collaborative creation and is all about the fun of encountering like minded people. It is also renowned for its style-defining book publications.
Screenings
Each morning we were treated to a screening of new character-based animations at the Babylon Kino. This year’s dreamy and atmospheric opener was created by speaker Lucas Zanotto.
There were beautifully crafted films such as the funny A Single Life by Job, Joris and Marieke and the super stylish Phantom Powers music video by Persitant Peril.
Also shown were thought provoking films such as Yves Geleyn’s gun-safety awareness film Monster in the Closet and the new Don Hertzfeldt sci-fi epic – World of Tomorrow.
Films that got the biggest laughs included the annoyingly catchy Lesley the Pony has an A+ day! By Christian Larrave, the helpful 7 Tips For Creatives by Jonny Clapham, and the quite bizarre animated film that doesn’t actually contain much animation but still had the audience laughing out loud – Unhappy Happy by Peter Millard.
There is also the infamous Psychedelic midnight mix screening which is where the films that are just too weird for daytime viewing can be seen – my personal favourite being Crackhouse by Martinus Klemet – a unique looking 3D film based on the real life stuffed drone cat.
It was great that so many of the filmmakers were present, which allowed us to get a bit more background into their projects, and also meant it was easy to find them later and have a chat over some nice German beer.
Talks
The main part of the conference is the talks given by an incredibly diverse group of artists who’s common bond is a love of characters and making the world just that little bit happier with their creations. Although not all of them practice animation, most of them have dabbled in it to some extent, and it was very interesting to see how they had incorporated it with toy designs, book making, street art, commercial work etc.
Aside from the opener, Lucas Zanotto has created some beautiful animations such as the anti-soft drink campaign The Real bears, and has recently been making mobile games for children. He gave us a sneak peek at his latest project, a charming music based app featuring a host of dancing animals that is sure to be loved by children and adults alike.
A far stranger, but equally enlightening talk, was from the Cantonese animator Wong Ping. He started drawing images to escape the monotomy of his life as a factory worker in Hong Kong, and now create gasp-inducing animations based on rather unusual sexual experiences. His visual style is quite distinctive (based on the fact he only knew how to use the pen tool in photoshop), and the subject matter is certainly ‘refreshing’.
Other animation highlights included UK duo TADO sharing the intricate processes they went through to make their Hello Kitty stop motion animation, Yves Geleyn talking us through his awesome The Bear and the Hare advert for John Lewis, Nicholas Menard showing us the way he creates his complex narratives by beginning with illustrated books, and taking a look at the sketchbooks of Adventure Time’s Andy Ristaino.
If you want to take a look at some previous talks, essays and interviews, there is a collection of interesting Pictoplasma material here.
Exhibitions
The main exhibition was held in a surprising beautiful location this year – a disused crematorium! I didn’t spot any ghosts, but there was plenty of nice artwork from the conference speakers on show, such as the sculptures of Mr Kat, Sticky Monster Lab and Yomsil, comic drawings by Joan Cornella and Nadine Redlich, and the striking work of Hikari Shimoda.
Also on show was the Academy All Stars exhibition, a group of artists who had attended the intensive character design course – the Pictoplasma Academy last year. As an alumni of the course myself, I can highly recommend it to help push your character driven projects to the next level with help from world renowned tutors such as Studio AKA’s Philip Hunt and Nathan Jurevicius. They are taking applications for this year’s course now!
The Eggplant Collective (the Academy alumni 2013) decided to hijack the festival too, and we put on our own little exhibition of work based on Memory alongside the festival.
Art happenings and beer
Alongside the stuff above there were also several hands on workshops with some of the speakers where you got to pimp your clothes, create models and generally have a bit of a party. The performance from spoof Picto-psychologist Erik Willer was so inspiring I felt compelled to make an animation summing it up the next morning (you had to be there!).
If you fancy visiting the laid-back city of Berlin and spending a few days immersed in the world of characters, then this friendly festival is a must.
Many thanks to Paul Ridge for the event photographs.