ANIMAFEST PRO | ANIMAFEST SCANNER VIII | SYMPOSIUM FOR CONTEMPORARY ANIMATION STUDIES | Panel 3 - DEPICTING EMOTIONS
Hölderlins Echo VR: Exploring Complex States of Mind through the Means of an Animated Vocabulary - Hannes Rall (Nanyang Technological University Singapore)
Panel 3 - DEPICTING EMOTIONS
09/06, WED 11:20 – 11:50, Kino Tuškanac
The 19th century poet Friedrich Hölderlin can be seen one of the main protagonists of German Romanticism. Co-directed by the author, Hölderlin's Echo VR is a serious game that transforms Hölderlin's poetry into an interactive audiovisual experience in VR. In a stylised 3D reconstruction of the historically authentic Tower Room, users can discover the world of the poet: Five windows allow them to immerse themselves in interactive animated worlds from different stages of Hölderlin's turbulent vita. Moving beyond the traditional "paint by numbers" restaging of biographical facts, we seek to immerse the player into the various emotional states of the poet. Having gone through stages of youthful enthusiasm and euphoria, heartbreak and desperation, and ultimately madness and isolation, Hölderlin's life was characterised by drastic changes and extremes. This paper seeks to unpack how the vocabulary of expanded animation can be employed to create visual equivalents of internal worlds. It argues that audiovisual immersion combined with highly stylised animation can create an emotional immediacy for the user that puts him into the mind of the poet. It will further explain how the expression of specific emotions informed the design process itself and describe the visual development that led to final decisions.
Hannes Rall is Associate Chair (Research) and a tenured Associate Professor at the School of Art, Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University Singapore. He is also a successful director of independent animated short films: his works have been selected for 654 international festivals and won 69 awards. His books Animation: From Concept to Production (2017) and Adaptation for Animation: Transforming Literature Frame by Frame (2019) were published by CRC Press.