Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt
Berlin
17 March – 03 May 2009
Pictoplasma returns this year and with it, the Pictoplasma Conference and Pictopia Festival.
The explosion of character design at the beginning of the millennium changed visual culture distinctively. These graphically pared down and bright-eyed pictograms spread like wildfire across digital media, advertising, fashion and art. They playfully sample and remix the visual codes of pop, folklore, brand logos and comics, but resist being restricted to any one genre.
By engaging the viewer on a direct emotional level they are able to bypass language and cultural barriers–but can abstract designs really be the answer to our Utopian dreams of global visual communication?
In spring 2009, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt will host Pictopia Festival, the world’s first ever large-scale presentation and celebration of the phenomenon.
In March and April, this multi-disciplinary event location will be transformed into a character biotope and a meeting point for an international scene of designers, artists, producers and an interested public.
At the heart of the festival is an exhibition which explores the huge diversity of the character universe, where artists remix and sample, condense the surreal and uncanny, inflate all proportions and stage bizarre rituals to introduce their characters into contemporary culture.
The festival programme also features the 3rd Pictoplasma Conference which, since its inception in 2004, has set the standard for a playful yet concentrated approach to the subject.
For the first time, scientific light will be shed on the character phenomenon in a symposium, which brings together experts from the fields of art history, cultural studies, robotics and media theory.
The Pictoplasma Animation Festival will put the characters in motion, steering well clear of the mainstream and the Character Walk will lead visitors through 20 galleries and project rooms throughout Berlin-Mitte and deeper into the visual worlds of individual artists.
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