If you like to watch cartoon characters bash each other over the noggin and hand each other sticks of dynamite, this is probably not the conference for you. This Friday and Saturday (Sept. 21-22), the University of Pennsylvania will host an animation conference called Enchanted Drawings II: Animation Across the Disciplines. The two-day conference will take place in Philadelphia at the Institute of Contemporary Art (118 S. 36th Street). The event is FREE and open to the public.

The conference, organized by Karen Beckman, Erna Fiorentini and Oliver Gaycken, will explore the convergence of animation with other disciplines. Some of our smart Brew readers will surely enjoy this, but frankly, I’m intimidated just reading the titles of the lectures: “Rough and Smooth: Toward a Rhetoric of Animated Scientific Images,” “The Animation of Evanescence: Camouflage in Motion,” “Algorithmic Aesthetics vs. Punk De’collage: From Animation to Live Performance,” “Graphic Engines: Videogame Animation as Transmedia Bridge,” and “Inside and Outside the Toon Body: Challenging Somatic Integrity through Animation History.”

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