The most recent presentation of contemporary animation and 3D rendered video
works in the Aboveground Animation project has been curated by animator
Casey Jane Ellison, and took place last Friday, June 24, 2011 at Ramiken
Crucible in New York City. The event at Ramiken took the form of a one night
screening with a live performance by NYC band Mirror Mirror. Now a selection of
the work from Aboveground Animation is also being exhibited on DIS.

Aboveround brings together a wide array of works and artists experimenting with
various media and content. While Kathleen Daniel’s video, Delic, reminiscent
of ‘90s drug induced introversion delves into the self reflexivity of freak-human
hybrids, Cyber Goth Girl by Jamachinima is far more digital, new age, and light,
picturing a woman with flowing colorful dreads grooving out. At the other end
of the spectrum is The Woman, a video from SSION by Cody Critcheloe, which
expresses a funky and contemporary form of avid feminism that is nonetheless
playful yet demanding, catchy yet aggressive.

What is perhaps most impressive about Aboveground Animation is precisely
the diversity with which curator Casey Jane Ellison approaches the medium of
animation and the drastic differences from video to video. Rather than show
where animation as one unified art form is heading in 2011-12, Ellison instead
focuses on the various ways that the medium is being used throughout a wide
range of artistic and cultural contexts. At the same time, we see many bodies,
even if distorted, appear and reappear throughout the series of videos, and
narrative, though not dialog, is still a clear through-line for many of the works.
We see through this presentation that story-telling, even if on an abstracted and
conceptual level, is still a strong point of animation, and it is exciting to see new
technologies influencing the perspectives from which such stores can be told and
received.

For more information please visit abovegroundanimation.com