FilmEU Rit Expanded Memories in IN shadow festival expo

“Shadow Machine”, “Kalam-Machine” and "Dream-o-trope", are three of five artefacts from the same base art research project — Expanded Memories: Artistic Experiments into Hybrid Analogue-Digital Animation. " Expanded Memories" is a FilmEU_RIT project, developed within the framework of the FilmEU European Universities Alliance for Film and Media Arts.

These are works that, despite the authorship on the technical sheet, are the result of a collective process with contributors from different countries and backgrounds*. InShadow promotes contemporary creations and imprints new crossovers and views in the city of Lisbon in connection with the world.

Shadow Machine

Authors: João Trindade, José Carlos Neves e José Gomes Pinto

This work materialises the concepts of record / testimony / presence / memory in its combination of shadows and sound. The piece consists of a mechanism that rotates a ray of light, limited in width, like a lighthouse, which casts shadows of wooden sticks placed on the rotating plate of the object. These sticks are the interaction pieces, as they can be removed from or added to the existing holes in the plate to change the visual and audio spaces.

Kalam-Machine

Authors: Diaa Lagan.

The Kalam-Machine deals with the concept of memory. It is a hybrid artwork merging classic or traditional practices (sculpture, pottery, calligraphy) with digital media forms (3D printing, VR). The project went through four stages of development with Diaa Lagan as the main artist with the help and input from John Buckley. First, we engaged with probably one of the world’s oldest proto-animation devices: a ceramic bowl found in the city of Sookhteh in Iran. This bowl’s ornamentation depicts a wild goat jumping up to eat the leaves of a tree in a series of images representing the animal’s movement in five stages, in a way that is strikingly reminiscent of zoetropes.

crossover between Proto-animation device and the Dreamachine

Author: Guido Devadder.

As a hybrid between the Dreamachine and the zoetrope, Dream-o-trope explores a meditative, conceptual form of tangible light/shadow-animation. This work reflects on the universal human strive to achieve a state of oneness, which is fundamental to many spiritual and philosophical traditions across the globe. On the material level of the shadow, the machine itself, the rotating crescent shapes move closer, but remain separate. Only in the blurry edges of the projected light, they can join as one.

— This work is heavily indebted to the conversations within the Expanded Memories collective, especially our talks on Sufi spiritualism and meditation, initiated by Diaa Lagan

Steven Malliet is a lecturer and researcher at LUCA School of Arts and a member of the academic board of the RE:Anima Erasmus Mundus master program in animation.

Diaa Lagan is a multidisciplinary artist based in Dublin and a PhD candidate at Universidade Lusófona.

Fuad Halwani is a Lebanese scriptwriter, media producer and published doctoral researcher at Universidade Lusófona. His research focuses on Shadow Narratives in media art.

Gert Wastyn is a PhD candidate at LUCA School of Arts and a multimedia artist, teaching and researching the field of Extended Reality within Expanded animation.

Guido Devadder is an artist and PhD researcher at LUCA School of Arts in Brussels where he teaches at the Department of Audiovisual Arts.

João Trindade is a musician and professor. He holds a PhD in Communication Studies and has "forgotten sounds" as the basis of its research and sound production.

John Buckley is a digital artist, designer, researcher and educator, lecturing in 3D Modelling, VFX and VR at the Institute of Art, Design and Technology.

José Carlos Neves is a researcher and teacher in the areas of Media Arts, Interaction and Design at Lusófona University. Holds a PhD in Communication Studies (Interactive Arts).

José Gomes Pinto holds a Ph.D in Philosophy: Aesthetics and Art Theory and teaches in the School of Arts, Architecture, Arts and Information Technologies at Lusófona University.

Judith Pernin is a Post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Art, Design and Technology and a coordinator of Expanded Memories.

Veronika Romhàny is an artist and PhD candidate at LUCA School of Arts who investigates collaborative digital art practices.

Thanut Rujitanont is an animation artist holding a joint master’s degree from the RE:Anima Erasmus Mundus program. He uses animation to explore the crossover with various art forms and scientific approaches.

Dream Machine

Shadow Machine

Dream-o-trope