James Curran

SEE YOU AGAIN MAY 8—12, 2019

14th

Pictoplasma
Conference & Festival
Berlin

02 – 06 MAY 2018

From avant-garde urban art to global recognition value, award-winning animation to viral Internet phenomena: the 14th Pictoplasma festival presented true virtuosos of contemporary character design and art. The featured artists challenge the way we recognize familiar facial patterns and demonstrate character power at its most emotive—radically abstracting the portrait, playfully flipping heads inside out, covering the inner void with grimacing masks, or pushing minimalist reduction to its limits.

21 CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

2018 / Spain

Alberto Vázquez

30’25’’, 1080p mp4 (H.264), 612,9MB

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Spanish writer, animation director, illustrator, and cartoonist Alberto Vázquez shares behind-the-scenes insight on the making of his multi-award winning short films and recent feature ‘Psiconautas,’ based on his dark coming-of-age graphic novel of the same name.

2018 / UK

Alex Jenkins / Nexus

32’26’’, 1080p mp4 (H.264), 623,1MB

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Award-winning creative director Alex Jenkins for LA and London-based Nexus Interactive Arts shares his thoughts on possibilities and limitations of interactive AR and VR projects for clients such as Google, Snapchat, or The New Yorker.

2018 / UK

Alex Norris

32’00’’, 1080p mp4 (H.264), 714,1MB

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‘Webcomic Name’ creator Alex Norris is famed for his viral meta-gags fusing tragedy and comedy. In his talk he reflects on the frustrations of false expectations, human relationships, and the existential insignificance of everything we do—and confesses that he struggles to write a comic without an ‘oh no’ punchline.

2018 / France

Benjamin Vedrenne

27’55’’, 1080p mp4 (H.264), 640,9MB

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Benjamin Vedrenne, known as GLKT, introduces us to his personal work revolving around digital experimentation, procedural generation, computer errors, glitch aesthetics, and the intersection of natural and artificial intelligence. He also loves playing with emerging systems, and has a bunch of Indie game recommendations.

2018 / Spain

Cachetejack

24’19’’, 1080p mp4 (H.264), 566,9MB

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The Cachetejack universe is teeming with light hearted color, energy and humor —always with a quirky twist on everyday situations. The Illustrator duo made up of Nuria Bellver and Raquel Fanjul take the stage to share how much work lays behind their seemingly easy and engaging analogue drawings and paintings.

2018 / UK

Charlotte Mei

26’38’’, 1080p mp4 (H.264), 511,6MB

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Upcoming artist and illustrator Charlotte Mei presents her diverse body of work, from paintings and ceramics to animation, characterized by a bold and playful use of color, form, gestural mark-making—and character.

2018 / USA

Danette Beatty

26’26’’, 1080p mp4 (H.264), 554,1MB

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3D artist and ambassador for WIGJ (Women in Games) Danette Beatty takes the stage to share her journey from the US to London, where she most recently worked as a level artist on ustwo games’ ‘Monument Valley 2,’ the burden of maintaining a daily doodle project and how sharing 3D advice by writing up tutorials can help you grow.

2018 / UK

Darren Dubicki / Aardman

25’44’’, 1080p mp4 (H.264), 491MB

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Director and designer Darren Dubicki of Bristol based Aardman leads through the challenges of directing the studio’s first fully immersive VR film ‘We Wait,’ which won best VR experience at the Broadcast Digital Awards.

2017 NYC, 2018 / USA

Edel Rodriguez

45’15’’, 1080p mp4 (H.264), 723,3MB

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As an artist of Cuban origin, who moved to the US as a teenager, Edel Rodriguez has a long illustration career and more than 100 newspaper and magazine covers under his belt. Yet it was his incendiary imagery taking aim at the Trump presidency for Time magazine and Der Spiegel that became immediate global icons, and turned him into ‘Donald Trump’s most hated artist.’

2018 / USA

Encyclopedia Pictura

38’40’’, 1080p mp4 (H.264), soon

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California based film studio Encyclopedia Pictura, run by Isaiah Saxon, Daren Rabinovitch, and Sean Hellfritsch, takes the stage to share their taste for mysterious relationships with nature and technology. During their projects for the likes of Björk, Panda Bear, Dirty Projectors, or Grizzly Bear, they always stayed true to their unique approach: mix puppeteering, stop-motion, live-action, and CGI interactivity—with a meaning.

2018 / Lithuania

Ged Sia

38’55’’, 1080p mp4 (H.264), 629,1MB

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After years of digital work Lithuanian animation director, visual artist, and founder of studio PetPunk Ged Sia discovered his love for stop motion and artisanal craftwork. His recent short film ‘Running Lights’ might have been a struggle in the making, but was awarded with several international awards and screened at over 30 film festivals around the world.

2017 NYC, 2018 / UK

James Curran

36’20’’, 1080p mp4 (H.264), 792,8MB

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British animator and director James Curran shares the making of his famed ‘Gifathon’ projects—30 animated GIFs released in 30 days based on his experiences living in New York City, Los Angeles, Tokyo—and a mini-gifathon in Berlin especially for Pictoplasma.

2018 / UK

Jim Stoten

28’59’’, 1080p mp4 (H.264), 819,1MB

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Famed illustrator and artist Jim Stoten talks about 6 year old emails, the use of too many Photoshop filters and living and working from his home studio in Hastings, where he creates painstakingly elaborate drawings with a distinct psychedelic flair on commissions for clients from all over the world.

2018 / France

Kévin Gemin

23’36’’, 1080p mp4 (H.264), 535,6MB

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French self-taught animator Kévin Gemin, better know as Kékéflipnote, confesses how he fell in love with the simple animation tools provided by his little Nintendo DSi and 3DS consoles. The resulting GIF vignettes of bouncing pigeons and foxes are currently creating a big splash online, and certainly made everyone in the conference auditorium smile!

2018 / Finland

Marika Makaroff

20’30’’, 1080p mp4 (H.264), 461,9MB

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Award-winning content creator at Gutsy Animations Marika Makaroff talks about the challenges of working as creative director and executive producer on the soon to be released ‘Moominvalley’ series, based on the beloved Moomin books.

2018 / Hungary

Réka Bucsi

32’52’’, 1080p mp4 (H.264), 577,4MB

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Hungarian animation filmmaker Réka Bucsi takes us on a stunning tour through her career: from receiving a BFA to her Oscar shortlisted graduation film and beyond! After winning basically EVERY international festival award, and a feature film accompanied by a live jazz orchestra later, her advice is basically still the same: do we really need to obey traditional narration?

2004, 2006, 2011, 2018 / Australia

Rilla Alexander

31’12’’, 1080p mp4 (H.264), 607,4MB

Illustrator, designer and picture book maker Rilla Alexander starts off with a quick drawing exercise (you’ll need pen and paper!!!) and leads us through the ups and downs of finishing a project, be it her self-authored picture books or the recent collaboration with author Jane Yolen, ‘A Bear Sat on My Porch Today.’ Done it better than none!

2018 / Mexico

Smithe

36’12’’, 1080p mp4 (H.264), 946MB

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Influenced by vintage comics and Sci-Fi movies, Mexican artist, muralist, musician and fashion designer Smithe continuously reinvents his style, dipping into themes such as existentialism, human isolation, and the machine within.

2018 / Finland

Sophia Jansson

24’02’’, 1080p mp4 (H.264), 442,1MB

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Sophia Jansson, niece of legendary Tove Jansson (1914-2001), gives insight into her job of managing and protecting the Moomin heritage as Chairman and Creative Director of Moomin Characters Ltd, while remaining true and respectful to the spirit and artwork created by her aunt.

2018 / Brazil

Tartaruga Feliz

22’52’’, 1080p mp4 (H.264), 577,7MB

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Exploring art and technology, Deborah ‘Tartaruga Feliz’ talks about her workshops mostly with children in very different parts of the planet, passing on values and exploring the intersection of learning, interaction, and play as a path to strengthen creativity.

2018 / Chile

Victor Castillo

30’49’’, 1080p mp4 (H.264), 769,3MB

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Los Angeles-based Chilean artist Victor Castillo explains how he appropriates the narrative logic of children’s book illustration and the aesthetics of vintage US animation to present pitch-black allegories about the human nature. His work has been described as political poetry rooted in his Latin American experience—which at the conference premiered its re-incarnation as animation, thanks to the help of Matias Rivera.

03 – 05 MAY/

ARTIST TALKS,
LECTURES AND PRESENTATIONS

BABYLON
ROSA-LUXEMBURGSTR. 30
10178 BERLIN – MITTE

At the heart of the Festival, the central Pictoplasma Conference presented 20+ key lectures by the world’s most influential artists and upcoming talents, cutting-edge graphic, toy and game designers and leading animation filmmakers, offering the chance to learn from and be inspired by some of today’s most innovative and avant-garde artists.

17 CHARACTER WALK EXHIBITIONS

#FaceOff exhibition 2018

02 – 06 MAY/

EXHIBITIONS AND
GROUP SHOWS
THROUGHOUT
BERLIN

The accompanying Festival exhibitions staged new work by an impressive line-up of participating artists – presenting sculptures, paintings, installations, art editions and multiples – many of them for the first time in Berlin.

VIEW EXHIBITIONS

100 ANIMATION SCREENINGS

03 – 05 MAY/

Big screen
psychedelic
eye-candy and
storytelling genius

The Festival’s film section brought animated newborns to the big screen, whisking the audience around the world in freshly curated programmes brimming with psychedelic eye-candy and storytelling genius.

VIEW SCREENING PROGRAM