News
updated January 2019
My focus of the 2017-2018 academic year was the completion of my doctoral thesis: “Willful Subjects: The Splendid Camera Obscuras and Popular Observatories of Miss Maria Short,” under the supervision of Dr. Kim Sawchuk (defended Spring 2018), and the organization of the 30th Annual Society of Animation Studies Conference: Then | Now | Next with my co-chair associate professor Dr. Marc Steinberg and our amazing team.
Presently, I am shopping around my recently completed monograph Eyes Aloft, as well as abstracts for current research in the Concordia Visual Collections Repository (VCR) concerning experimental pedagogy and animation during the 1990s. I recently completed teaching DART441: The Culture of Images, a course that I redesigned as a research-creation class on critical visuality studies for advanced Design students. I also re-wrote FMST218: The History of Animated Film, which I begin teaching in Winter 2019, alongside CART212: Digital Media I and the capstone Production Project class for the Dawson 3D Animation and CGI program.
For an overview of my artistic work, please see the first five posts on this website and the About page for more about me. Some of my recent activity is listed below.
Other classes taught since 2015
- DART 620: Graduate Colloquium (Fall 2017)
- CART 444: Portfolio (Winter 2016)
- DART 392: Environmental Design Research & Practice (Winter 2016)
- DART 391: Socio-Cultural Design Research & Practice (Fall 2016, 2015)
- CART 214: Visual Form & Communication (Fall 2015)
- DART 502: Language, Politics, Manifestos (Fall 2015)
Selected Conferences Papers since 2015
- “The Astronomical Pre-animated Moving Picture Show,” 29th Annual Society of Animation Studies Conference: “And Yet it Moves!”, University of Padova, Italy, July 4-7 2017.
- “Public Sights and Private Dirt: Viewing Women in the Splendid Camera Obscura,” Terms of Privacy, McGill University, 3-5 November 2016.
- “Archiving Failure (paper panel)” and “Mobile Media Archaeology (workshop)” Media Art History Conference “Re-Create 2015.” Montreal, 5-8 November 2015.
- “Silk screens, caterpillars and animating an interspecies collaboration.” Screen Conference, “Screening Animals and the Inhuman” University of Glasgow, 26-28 June 2015.
- “A Short Stop before the Exhibitionary Complex.” Lost Museums Symposium, Brown University, 7-8 May 2015.
- “Experiments in 3D: Norman McLaren,” SCMS Montreal Host Event (presenter & event co-organizer), Concordia University, 28 March 2015
Recent Publications
- “Galileo, Sunspots and the Heretical Rotoscope of 1612” in Animation Studies 2.0 (blog post), 3 September 2018.
- “The Anamorphic Cinema” (reprint) in Animation: Critical and Primary Sources, ed. C. Pallant, (Bloomsbury Academic), forthcoming. Originally published in Animation Practice, Process and Production Journal, 1(2), 2011.
- “We’re Asian, more expected of us!: The Model Minority and Whiteness in King of the Hill” (reprints) in The Animation Studies Reader, eds. N. Dobson et al. (Bloomsbury Academic), 2018; in Animation: Critical and Primary Sources, ed. C. Pallant, Bloomsbury (forthcoming), and in The Model Minority Stereotype Reader, ed. Nicholas Hartlep, Cognella, 2014. Originally published in Animation Studies Online Journal, 5, 2010.
- “A rational and entertaining species of amusement to bipeds of all ages: The Splendid Camera Obscura” in Corporeality in Early Cinema, ed. M Dahlquist et al. (Bloomington: Indiana UP), 289-299, 2018.
- “3-D Convergence and Collaboration in the Cold: Norman McLaren and 1950s Stereoscopic Animation at the National Film Board of Canada,” Animation Journal, 22 (Special issue on Norman McLaren), 2014.
- “From Near to Far: Maria Short’s Popular Observatory and The Spaces of Science in Edinburgh from 1736 to 1850.” Theory of Science: journal for interdisciplinary studies of science, 36(1), 2014.
- “Of Motors, Martians and Jazz Age Cuties: The Stereoscopic Inventions of Laurens Hammond.” (co-author Owen Chapman), in 3D Cinema and Beyond, eds. Dan Adler, Janine Marchessault and Sanja Obradovic. (Toronto: Intellect) 2014. Originally published in Public 47.
Recent Exhibitions
- Animal Intent group show (curated by Emily Falvey), Apexart New York, Jan-Mar 2017
- L’art est vivant! group show (curated by Anne-Marie Belley), Maison des Arts Laval, (Nov 2016-Feb 2017); Centre d’exposition de Val-d’Or (Feb-Apr 2017)
- Cross-Pollinated: Hybrid Art Abuzz (curated by Lynn Tomlinson), Centre for the Arts Gallery, Towson University, Baltimore, Sept-Dec 2015
- En Masse, FOFA Gallery, April-May 2014
- Mass Transit in Mobile Interventions for Performigrations, travelingexhibition, April-May 2014,
Reviews (selected)
- Irene Plagianos, Artists and Animals ‘Collaborate’ in TriBeCa Exhibition, DNAInfo, 9 Jan 2017
- Kemberly Richardson, Wild art exhibit in Tribeca combines efforts of artists and animals, ABC News, 18 Jan 2017
- Andrew Nunes, “This Is What Happens When Humans Use Animals to Make Art,” Creators, Vice.com, 28 Feb 2017
- Aimee Lusty Review: “Animal Intent” at Apexart, Sciart Magazine 7 Feb 2017
- Lynn Tomlinson Cross-Pollinated Hybrid Art Abuzz, Towson 2015.
- Elena Raznovan “A Caterpillar’s Life…under the microscope.” Concordia News, 27 May 2015.
- WeSauce “Circles|This World of Ours [Mass Transit remixed],” 24 April 2015.
- Irene Blei Canadá cuadro a cuadro. Animadores y animadoras del National Film Board. Argentina: Wolkowicz, 2014. (I’m profiled on pages 187-191)
At the CAA conference (13 Feb 2015, NYC), demonstrating how Chris Plenzich and I made projection screens from uncombed silk for the En Masse exhibition. (I’m in my bright red Canadian plaid blazer.) Photo by Craig Saper.