ANIMAFEST SCANNER X | SYMPOSIUM FOR CONTEMPORARY ANIMATION STUDIES | PANEL 3 – ANIMATION ASSISTING OTHER ART FORMS

ANIMATION MAKING LANGUAGE VISIBLE: CREATING ANIMATED POETRY Georg Diederik (Diek) Grobler (MA-supervisor, Open Window University, Lusaka, Zambia / Pretoria, South Africa)

PANEL 3 – ANIMATION ASSISTING OTHER ART FORMS
Theatre &TD
07/06 WED 10:15-10:45

Literary scholars (Riffaterre, Wolofsky and Bradford, amongst others) accentuate the intentionality of language in poetry; how every word is considered and placed in a specific position within a text in relation to other words. Animation, created frame by frame, has the same intentionality. Filmmaker Ruth Lingford expands on this relationship between poetry and animation: ‘They have this way of colliding familiar elements in order to get new thoughts, new ideas.’ (Mitchell 2011). In this paper I will explore how animation adds value to poetry as an artform within a specific language (Afrikaans) and cultural context (post-apartheid South Africa). The Filmverse project is an animated poetry project which I curated in South Africa in 2014 and 2016. During the course of the three-year project, 24 short animated films were created. Although the concept of a poetry-focussed animation project is not unique, the almost complete absence of a culture of animation production in South Africa, and the complicated history of the language itself, sets Filmverse apart. Using examples from the project I will explain the nature of the project and my interaction with the participating artists, most of which had no prior animation experience. The interconnectivity of media was explored through transmediation, a concept introduced by Charles Suhor (1984) to refer to translation between sign systems as a technique to reveal relationships between medium and content. Suhor used translation from one sign system into another as a pedagogical tool to help students recognise connections between signs systems. In the project the concept of transmediation was utilised as a formalisation of the creative process. Animation can be used to empower poetry by increasing its visibility and exposure within a language and culture. Animation can also help poetry in a small language reach the world stage.

Diek Grobler (1964) is a visual artist aworking in various media and disciplines. Since 2010 his creative and theoretical focus has been on animated poetry-film. In 2014 and 2016 he devised and directed the Filmverse project, overseeing the production of 24 Afrikaans animated poetry-films. Grobler’s own films have been widely exhibited at international animation festivals, and his work has been shortlisted twice for the Weimar Poetry-film Award. He was awarded a PhD in Art by the University of South Africa on the thesis topic Narrative strategies in animated poetry-film (2021). Diek Grobler is an independent researcher of poetry-film and experimental forms of animation.