|biog|education|exhibitions|awards|publications|employment|
artist statement
Birgitta Hosea is an artist and animator based in London and working in the field of expanded animation. Her work investigates hybrid forms of practice in which animation meets live presence. She has coined the term ‘post-animation’ to describe her practice, because it uses the tools of animation, but does not take the form of an animated film. Rather she creates interdisciplinary works that de-construct conventional notions of animation. Her interest is in exploring animation as both performance and performative act. Is it possible to be both 'animator' and also'animated' at the same time?
Through video installation and performance art, she combines a range of media - animation,manipulated video, paper sculpture, performance drawing, live video feeds and interactive technology - with the live body. This has taken many forms including dressing up as a cartoon character or projecting animation onto herself. Birgitta creates work both as an individual practitioner and also in collaboration with other artists, performers and computer programmers.
Her early practice was in soft sculpture and installation, where she developed an interest in sensual, visceral and tactile forms of communication between the viewer and the work. Her more recent work has been concerned to explore ways in which animation can be generated through sound or physical movement and she has been investigating different ways to project these moving images into three-dimensional space. She is also developing video works for 3D holographic projection in which she animates herself into being through the line.
biography
Birgitta Hosea was born in Edinburgh and now lives and works in London. She has worked freelance in art direction, design for performance, web design and animation.
education
| 2005+ | Confirmed part-time PhD, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, title: “Substitutive bodies and constructed actors: a practice-based investigation of animation as performance” |
| 1999 | MA Computer Imaging and Animation, Sir John Cass School of Art, London Metropolitan University |
| 1997 | Computing and Fine Art access course, Tower Hamlets College of Further Education |
| 1987 | Postgraduate Diploma in Theatre Design, Glasgow School of Art |
| 1986 | MA (Hons) Drama, Film and TV Studies, University of Glasgow |
selected solo exhibitions
| 2011 | Chatter, animation installation, Bar Sequence, London |
| 2010 | Chatter, animation installation, Cinematic Arts Gallery, USC, Los Angeles, USA Lunch with Miss Smith, site-specific interactive animation installation, Mansfield Court, London |
| 2007 | Dog Betty performances, public intervention, central London |
| 2004 | Visitation (curated by Sandra Louison) Site specific video installation in the Crypt of St Pancras Church featuring video loops playing on piles of broken old TV sets in the dark tunnels of the crypt. London. Reviewed on Radio 4. |
| 1998 | Fluid Fictions (curated by Bradley Quin) Installation of computer animation and Super-8 projections in Christie's (the auctioneer’s) warehouse, London. Part of Ice Garden - work from Swedish artists. |
| 1997 | Romantic Fictions (with Elaine Axten) – installation of mutilated Mills and Boons romantic novels. Shown in Whitechapel Open and Waterstones bookshop as part of MAVIS Goes Shopping: a series of site-specific installations by artists in shops on Camden High Street, London. |
| 1996 | Virus installation, performance and giant virus sculptures. Shown in Whitechapel Open and as part of World AIDS Day Exhibition at the Globe Centre, London |
| 1993 | Hot Pussy – sexual chair sculpture installation - The Edge Gallery, Cromer Street, London. Reviewed in Time Out, The Face, Ms London, Skin Two, Brutus (Japan), Pink Paper, Capital Gay, Virgin FM, News of the World, Shebang. Interviewed on TV – UK Living (Sky TV, Europe) and Fashion Sushi (NTV, Japan) |
| 1993 | Seaside Collection - Lauren Shanley Contemporary Textiles, London. Reviewed in Time Out and the Evening Standard |
| 1992 | Dream Chair, Baik Gallery, London |
selected group exhibitions and screenings
| 2011 | Papay Nights Festival, Orkney (with the Performance Drawing Collective) |
| 2010 | Mix 23 Queer Experimental Film Festival, New York Animation Deviation, UWE, Bristol Bitbots, Kingly Court, London Holographic Serendipity, Shunt, London I Can't Even Draw Straight, LLGFF, British Film Institute, London Kinetica, P3, London ARC: I draw for you, Performance, Centre for Drawing, Wimbledon (with PDC) |
| 2009 | Joined Up,The Vault Gallery, Lancaster (with PDC) Musion Gala Awards, The Old Cinema, University of Westminster, London Act Art 7, Hidden, London UpStage 090909 Festival,Haymatlos, Eclectic Tech Carnival, Istanbul, Turkey; Norsk Telemuseum, Oslo, Norway; Muffatwerk Cafe, Munich, Germany; New Dowse Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand; Hutt City Libraries, New Zealand; SCHAUMBAD - Freies Atelierhaus Graz, Austria; MAD @ Smalle Haven Eindhoven, Netherlands; APO33, Nantes, France; School of Interactive Art and Technology, Simon Fraser University in Surrey, BC, Canada; Syneme, University of Calgary, Canada; Culture Centre Pancevo, Serbia Forkbeard Residency showcase, Devon Musion Showcase, Slade Technology Fayre line process echo repeat2, Performance, Centre for Drawing, Wimbledon (with PDC) Showcase 09, Lethaby Gallery, London |
| 2008 | Explorations, the Innovation Centre, CSM, London line process echo repeat, the Lethaby Gallery, London (with PDC) Moves08, Manchester |
| 2007 | Here Tomorrow Residency, the Lethaby Gallery, London Adobe Inspired Media, Curzon Cinema, London |
| 2006 | 1era Bienal Internacional de Performance, Santiago de Chile Technarte, Bilbao, Spain |
| 2005 | Cosmic Zoom festival, Denmark Video Forum, London 291 Gallery, London the Fleapit, London Northern Exposure, Newcastle |
| 2004 | IBC, Amsterdam Adobe Live, South Africa |
| 2003 | San Diego Experimental Film Festival, San Diego Museum of Photographic Arts, USA |
| 2001 | IBC, Amsterdam Video Forum, London |
| 2000 | ICA Bar, London 291 Gallery, London Raya, Athens, Greece Keigo Arts, Japan LoveBytes, Sheffield The Ikon Gallery, Birmingham |
| 1999 | Lux Centre, London Chicago Underground Film Festival, USA Raindance Festival, London |
| 1998 | London Electronic Arts, London Chisenhale Dance Centre, London |
| 1997 | Backspace Cyber Café, London Globe Centre, London |
| 1994 | 3 Little Bloomfield, Sydney, Australia Hackney Town Hall, London |
| 1993 | Whitechapel Open, London |
| 1992 | The Worx, London Cable Street Studios, London |
| 1991 | Brixton Art Gallery, London |
| 1987 | Transmission Gallery, Glasgow Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow |
awards and residencies
| 2010 | Artist-in-residence, Digital Arts and Animation Department, School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA |
| 2010 | Adobe Impact Award |
| 2010 | Artist-in-residence (with PDC), the Centre for Drawing, Wimbledon College of Art |
| 2009 | Second prize, MAMA Awards for Holographic Arts (Performance category),Musion Academy, London |
| 2009 | Artist-in-residence (with PDC), the Centre for Drawing, Wimbledon College of Art |
| 2006 | Finalist, DIFFRACTION ARTIST PLACEMENT, Arts Council England, Adobe, Montalvo Arts Centre and The Junction. |
| 2004 | Nominated Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (fRSA) |
publications: books
| 2006 | Author, The Focal Easy Guide to Flash 8 (Focal Press) ISBN: 0-240-51998-1 |
| 2004 | Author, The Focal Easy Guide to Flash MX 2004 (Focal Press) ISBN: 0-240-51959-0 |
publications: academic journals
| 2010 | “Drawing Animation”, Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Online ISSN: 1746-8485 Print ISSN: 1746-8477 (Nov 2010 issue) |
| 2010 | "ARC: I draw for you",joint paper by Maryclare Foá, Jane Grisewood, Birgitta Hosea and Carali McCall, published in Studio International. |
| 2009 | "Performativity, Post-animation and How I Became a cartoon Character". Paper published in Illuminace, vol. 21 no. 4 ISSN 0862-397X. |
| 2009 | "Drawn Together: Collaborative Performance", joint paper by Maryclare Foá, Jane Grisewood, Birgitta Hosea and Carali McCall, published in Tracey: Contemporary Drawing Research ISSN 1742-3570 |
| 2008 | “TV 2.0: animation readership / authorship on the internet”, Paper published in Animation Studies: Peer-reviewed Online Journal for Animation History and Theory ISBN 1930-1928 |
publications: conference papers
| 2010 | "Drawing Animation", paper presented at Animation Evolution: Society of Animation Studies 22nd annual conference, Edinburgh |
| 2010 | "Drawn Together", poster presentation at the Drawing Research Network Annual Conference, University of Brighton |
| 2010 | “Out There in the Dark”, performative presentation at Animation Deviation Conference, University of the West of England |
| 2009 | "Digital Drawing", paper presented at Computer Space 2009, Sofia, Bulgaria. |
| 2009 | “Character animation, performance and performativity”, paper presented at University of the Arts London Interdisciplinary Performance Conference, Siobhan Davies Dance Studio, London |
| 2008 | “Photosonic synthesis: hearing colour, seeing sound, visualising gesture”, paper presented at Seeing…Vision and Perception in a Digital Culture, Computers and the History of Art (CHArt) 24th Annual Conference, University of London. Another version of this paper was also given at Moves08: Movement on Screen in Manchester. |
| 2008 | “TV 2.0: animation readership / authorship on the internet”, paper presented at Popular Culture Society Conference, San Francisco, USA |
| 2007 | “Performativity and Animation, or How I Became a Cartoon Character”, paper presented at Here Tomorrow Conference, Central Saint Martins, London |
| 2006 | “Photosonic synthesis: hearing colour / seeing sound”, paper presented at Technarte 2006 Conference, Bilbao, Spain. Another version of this paper was also given at Mindplay, London Metropolitan University. |
publications: book reviews
| 03+ | Reviewer of book proposals and technical checker: animation, motion graphics and digital video titles, Focal Press / Elseveir |
| 2004 | Review, Stop Motion by Susannah Shaw for the Times Higher Education Supplement |
| 2003 | Review, The Complete Animation Course by Chris Patmore for the Times Higher Education Supplement |
| 2002 | Review, The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams for the Times Higher Education Supplement |
employment
| 2011+ | Research Leader (part-time), Centre for Performance, Central Saint Martins |
| 2001+ | Course Director (part-time), MA Character Animation, Central Saint Martins |
| 1987+ | Freelance work: www.studiovenus.co.uk |