The tradition of found footage is nearly as old as cinema itself, but it has also changed over the course of the decades, and its strategic implications evolve with the changing context in which they appear.
As we are now daily exposed to samples, mash ups and other forms of digital piracy (or open source) behaviour, the status of an ‘original’ or ‘authentic’ image is rapidly losing its authority.
Re-editing and manipulating found footage is always a form of reanimation: breathing new life into old matter. At best, it is also a conscious way of activating our memory and commenting on the source material.
From the beginning, animation has also been used to comment on live-action cinema. Much rarer, however, are the moments when animation recycles itself, or that one artist ‘borrows’ the authorship of another animator.
Already a distinct sign system within itself, animation is less easy to divert. Just like it is hard to caricaturize a caricature, cartoons already contain a form of exaggerated content on their own and make it harder to change their signification. Yet, as animation and graphic cinema in general have become so much more common in everyday media, they also form a ready and all the more relevant source material to recycle and re-contextualize.
This presentation and programme is an exploration of reanimated imagery through various manifestations, with diverse strategies by experimental filmmakers, media-activists and visual artists. The theoretical framework combines film theory with iconology.
The investigation is part of a larger frame work, an investigation into animation as a methodology in contemporary art. (Edwin Carels)

This program screened as part of HAFF 2010