Ecstatic Truth IX symposium: Ways of Knowing

On Tuesday, April 29, 2025, a symposium will take place at VSKK in Prague, focusing on:

Ways of Knowing: practice as research, material resistance, and re-presented reality in expanded documentary form.

This symposium investigates the interplay of artistic research and expanded documentary forms. It aims to uncover the nature of knowledge in creative practices and the profound engagements involved in sensory, embodied, and experiential learning methods. The discussions will revolve around how research transforms perceptions of reality and the ways we communicate our discoveries.

Particular attention will be given to the theme of material resistance, exploring how aspects like environment and the chosen media shape and challenge perspectives on reality. The focus will also be on the influence of expanded animation and documentary in conveying new and complex narratives of knowledge and resistance through visual media.

Participants will be invited to broaden their understanding of knowledge production and its communication within artistic endeavors and creative resistance.

Keynote Speaker: Abelardo Gil-Fournier, an artist and researcher from Madrid, will address the interconnections of media and material. His extensive background in Physics and a PhD in Art from the UK enrich his exploration across various techniques, including installation, sound, and visual arts.

Featured Speakers Include:

Carolina López Caballero, Spain
I raise my voice: Curating animated realities from Ibero-America

Jane Cheadle, UK
Rich Material Documentary: ways of knowing material agency through stop-frame/time-lapse animation

Hugo Glover, UK
Follow your knows: Animation Practice Through Second-Order Cybernetics and Embodied Knowledge

Dominica Harrison, UK
In the Garden: Listening, Learning, and Animating the More-than-Human

Birgitta Hosea, UK
Animating Resistance: Embodied Knowledge and Subversive Truths in Iranian Anti-Domestic Violence Campaigns

Yanqi Liang, UK
Exploring Haptic Communication in Mother-Daughter Relationship Through Expanded Animation Practice

Kim Noce, UK
Unraveling Narratives: Animated Documentary as Embodied Knowledge

Andrea Gudiño Sosa, Spain
Anima Natura Project: Stop motion as a tool to explore the intersection between animation, animism, and nature

Christoph Steger, USA
The Frame Rate is a Machine Gun – animation and war, a media history

Penny Woolcock, UK
Listening to the Dead

MAKING SENSE MINIFESTIVAL: A related minifestival will be held on Sunday, April 27, focusing on materiality, sensory perception, and embodiment. Further information and registration details will be available shortly.

Ecstatic Truth is a yearly symposium dedicated to the exploration of animated documentary, initiated in 2016. It examines the convergence of animation and documentary, emphasizing experimental and practitioner viewpoints.

Inquiries: ecstatic.truth.symposium@gmail.com

Organizing Committee: Tereza Stehlikova, Birgitta Hosea, Pedro Serrazina, Natalie Woolf

Professor Birgitta Hosea from UCA Farnham is recognized for her innovative methods in expanding animation through events and installations. She has a notable history in academia and has published significant works on drawing and experimental animation.

Pedro Serrazina is a celebrated director and lecturer with an extensive portfolio across multiple mediums, merging architecture, documentary, and animation.

Artist and researcher Tereza Stehlíková focuses on the sensory and embodied experiences in art, teaching artistic research in Prague and crafting a forthcoming publication on human senses in art practice.

Natalie Woolf is engaged in exploring the intersections of drawing and moving images while contributing to academic research on sensory narratives and public arts consultancy.