Steve Woloshen | Canada | 30+ years working in cameraless animation

Curated by Becka Barker

Festival Trailer: Includes clips of Woloshen’s cameraless animation!

Since the early 1980s celebrated Canadian artist Steven Woloshen has been creating animated moving images by using hands-on, tactile methods for creating images directly onto film, without the use of cameras. Found footage, ink, bleach, etchings, and a wide array of other unconventional tools form his unique visual syntax, guiding his conceptual and formal explorations into music and rhythm, language and perception, archive and memory, and familial relationships.

Cameraless filmmaking, in Woloshen’s hands, dives into possibilities of film images we do not see in typical movie-going experiences. Animation is his mechanism to peel back layers of moving image to reveal feelings and thoughts--serious and playful, colourful and textured--beneath typical cinematic expectations. His deft use of colour, line, texture, and rhythm create abstractions that offer audiences another kind of immersion into an animated space.

AFX is proud to present a retrospective screening of Woloshen’s works that invite us into this space. After our screening, Woloshen will be on hand to discuss his work with the audience. And if this work inspires you, be sure to check out his cameraless animation workshop on Saturday, here at the festival!