Unit

School Of Communication, Design And Media

Design Issues: Animating the ImageWestern Sydney University Unit Code: 100613.1

Discipline: GRAPHIC DESIGN STUDIES

Student Contribution Band: 105

Level: 2

Credit Points: 10

Prerequisite
10931 Design Issues 1: The Design(ed) World OR 100595 Understandings of Design AND 11080 Design Issues 2: Modernism and Postmodernism OR 100596 20th Century Design Histories

About this Unit
This unit focuses on three major genres of the animated image: the history and recent practice of experimental/arthouse film animation; digital animation in film and new media; and the 1990s explosion of contemporary adult TV animation (The Simpsons, South Park, Duckman, Ren and Stimpy). In order to familiarise students with the history and development of animation, the lectures involve viewing a broad range of works from these three areas, followed by tutorial-based close readings of the works. With the assistance of a small set of key theoretical texts, these analyses facilitate an understanding of the artform's aesthetic, socio-cultural and technological aspects, contextualising it within the history and theory of art and design - live action cinema, photography, drawing and painting, video, TV - and popular culture more generally. The unit is taught by theory and studio staff, the latter with production as well as theoretical expertise in the animation field.