In 2017, the Animation Academy, National Football Museum and Hotel Football will open The Beautiful Frame, an exhibition and symposium that will explore the relationship between sport and animation, video games and other models of virtual experience.

Part of the ‘Beautiful Frame: Animation at the National Football Museum’ Exhibition in Manchester, this symposium brings together scholars of animation, games, VR, VFX, Visualisation and E-Sport to discuss the representation of sport. The keynote speakers are Mike O’Mahony (University of Bristol) and John O’Shea (National Science and Media Museum, Bradford) and the symposium includes a tour of the Exhibition by Professor Paul Wells (Animation Academy, Loughborough University). This ground breaking area of study seeks to assess the relationship between the real and the virtual in sport as a vehicle to address complex contemporary issues.

The Supporters Club, Hotel Football, Manchester
Nov 14th / Nov 15th 2017 [09.30 – 17.30]

PROGRAMME:

TUESDAY 14th November 2017

Arrival and Registration
09.00-09.30
Welcome and Introduction
09.30
The Animation Spectrum and Sport
Professor Paul Wells
KEYNOTE
10.00
Action Replayed!: How Watching Sport Changed the Way We See the World
MIKE O’MAHONY Professor of History of Art and Visual Culture, University of BristolThe emergence and global dissemination of the new medium of photography notably coincided with the rise of organized sport in the modern world. Contrary to popular perception, sport was one of the earliest themes embraced by early photographers, although limitations in early photographic technology inevitably restricted the possibility for capturing sporting action.Significantly, it was a strong desire to achieve this goal that motivated some of the earliest attempts to animate photographic images into coherent sequences, thus allowing the detailed study of sporting motion. At the same time this work opened a new field facilitating the use of animated imagery to study and perfect training regimes and protocols for high performance athletes. The paper will look at the impact of sport on the early development of chronophotography considering the impact this had on subsequent developments within animation and sport.
COFFEE
11.00
11.15
The History of Football’s World Cup Posters:
Design Influences from Animation and Virtual Experience 1930-2014
Jean Williams
11.45
Race and Face:
The Bodily Habitus in 1980s Boxing Games
Alex Wade
12.15
The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix:
How an animated racecar changed an established universe.
Gunnar Strom
LUNCH
12.45
KEYNOTE
13.45 – 14.45
Life Imitating Art
JOHN O’SHEA Senior Exhibition Manager, National Science and Media Museum, Bradford.Drawing on research and expertise from 2014’s major exhibition Pitch to Pixel: The World of Football Gaming, this talk highlights key points of intersection and overlap in the realms of sports, broadcasting and video gaming: Expect a pixelated, glitchy, insight into the emergence of new technologies, changing modes of representation, cross-industry investment and the obsessive pursuit of realer than real environments and experiences, all of which are ”…in the game”.
14.45 – 15.45
Sport, Virtual Practice and Health & Well-Being: Projects
Samantha Beath
Melanie Hani
Jim Horsfield
and Adam Seaman
Ian Creichton-Chambers
COFFEE
15.45
SCREENING
16.00
WAR GAME [2002]
In recognition of the opening of The Beautiful Frame; Animation and Sport at the National Football Museum, on Armistice Day, a showing of War Game. With Introduction, Discussion, and Q&A with Illuminated Films’ Iain Harvey, executive producer of The Snowman, When the Wind Blows, and Father Christmas, and producer of Channel Five’s Little Princess.
CLOSE
17.30

WEDNESDAY 15th November 2017

 

COFFEE
09.30
Introduction
09.45
Professor Paul Wells
10.00
A feel for the game: exploring game experience through sports-themed video games
Professor Garry Crawford and Dr Daniel Muriel.
10.30
Trust in Images: The Mediating Role of Image Processing Algorithms in Visualizing the Goal/No Goal Decision in Football. Christoph Musik
COFFEE
11.00
11.15
Playing as the Team: A Transmedia Storytelling Approach to Sports and Video Games
William Coombs
11.45
The Globalization Strategy of Football through Video Games
Tobias Scholz
12.15
Sensorial athletic realms? Re-framing sports events as immersive and vicarious media events
Damian Sturm
LUNCH
12.45
13.45
Sport Data Realisation for Virtual Performance
Grant McLay
14.15
Potential for Affective Training Scenarios for Athlete Development
Ryan Flynn
14.45
Sports: Fusing the Virtual and Real world
Nathan Kellman
Plenary Discussion
15.15
Concluding Remarks and Recommendations
CLOSE
15.30
at Hotel Football
RE-CONVENE
16.00
at The National Football Museum
Tour of THE BEAUTIFUL FRAME: ANIMATION AND SPORT EXHIBITION

Conference organiser: Professor Paul Wells (p.wells@lboro.ac.uk)

The registration is at http://store.lboro.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/school-of-the-arts-english-and-drama/upcoming-eventssymposiums/animation-video-games-and-virtual-experience-sport-and-the-artifice-of-moving-image-media