Early photographic technology was often employed to visually manifest ideas of memory, stasis, and preservation - examples include post mortem photography, psychicones (attempts to visualize the soul on photographic plates), spirit photography, and other techniques unique to optical and photochemical technology. Even today, with the ubiquity of personal phone cameras, capturing images of people, places, things, still orbits the idea of preserving essence in the form of image. Animation, on the other hand, has always been about creating the illusion of life from static images, through ever-changing forms of photographic and imaging technology. In Animating Memento Mori, we will explore the contradictions and tensions between ideas of stasis, motion, and the illusion of movement, through animation and photographic practices employed outside of a studio setting. 
 

Department permission is required to register for this course; this course is not available via web registration. Please contact fav@risd.edu for permission to register.

Elective

Early photographic technology was often employed to visually manifest ideas of memory, stasis, and preservation - examples include post mortem photography, psychicones (attempts to visualize the soul on photographic plates), spirit photography, and other techniques unique to optical and photochemical technology. Even today, with the ubiquity of personal phone cameras, capturing images of people, places, things, still orbits the idea of preserving essence in the form of image. Animation, on the other hand, has always been about creating the illusion of life from static images, through ever-changing forms of photographic and imaging technology. In Animating Memento Mori, we will explore the contradictions and tensions between ideas of stasis, motion, and the illusion of movement, through animation and photographic practices employed outside of a studio setting. 
 

Department permission is required to register for this course; this course is not available via web registration. Please contact fav@risd.edu for permission to register.

Elective

This course is an historical and critical study of the work of selected masters of animated film. A spectrum of animated film techniques, styles, national schools, etc., will be presented. The course will cover the period from the pre-Lumiere epoch to the end of the 1970's. The relationships between animated film and other visual art forms will also be studied.