EMILY PELSTRING:
ARTIST RETROSPECTIVE & ARTIST TALK
Animation’s relationship to the real is complex; it is an illusion that can complicate our very sense of reality, logic, order, truth and reason. It offers an opportunity to consider that which is apparently impossible according to a rationalist perspective. In this talk, GIRAF spotlight artist Emily Pelstring frames animation as an act of magic-making that creates a space for generative disruptions of rationalist orientations to reality. Drawing on the thoughts of Patricia MacCormack, Isabelle Stengers, and Esther Leslie to propose that art-making and sharing has potential as a magic of resistance, join Emily for a discussion of the the ways in which her expanded animation practice troubles notions of truth through the creation of paradoxical and fantastical animated objects, and the notion of her artistic practice as a form of witchcraft, inspired by the belief that a subtle disruption of the space and material of the known world might incline us toward feelings of curiosity and openness.