illustration: Rob Flowers
Berliner creatives, rejoice! Once a year, our incredible city becomes home to one of the coolest designer and artist gatherings, Pictoplasma Berlin, which showcases the latest trends in character design, bringing together artists, video game and animation designers, virtual and augmented reality creators, but also illustrators, graphic designers, even kids’ books and ceramic designers, inviting them to explore how far they can push their genre boundaries, and our grasp of what’s real.
As its central event, Pictoplasma holds a conference where creators and producers have the chance to exchange ideas on new strategies on characters and trends. And while they do their thing, the wider festival invites us to enjoy multiple screenings of selected short films, bringing us the latest anime eye candy, combined with the opportunity to learn a thing or two, as the makers hold Q&As right after the screenings. Along with that, exhibitions run in galleries all around Berlin: there, one gets the unique chance to be part of quite rare exhibition tours by artists themselves, where they present originals and new productions. Cool huh? Parties and further art happenings is also part of the deal- enabling some fun interaction with the festival’s audience and production members.
Chris Haughton
Henning Wagenbreth
This is a chance not to be missed, guaranteed inspiration boost whether you belong in the fields involved or not. So make a big red note on your calendar for 10 to 14 May, since Pictoplasma is coming this week! This year’s theme is ‘Character Upload’, all about character production in times of ‘Internet Everywhere’, and extreme viral circulation. Characters, once ‘born’ have a sort of ‘life of their own’, they become agents travelling through media, and therefore they are being associated with other artifacts, beyond the artist’s intention. For further information, artist line-ups, screening programs, we kindly refer you to the festival’s website. See you there!
Sean Charmatz
Pooya Abbasian
Peter Millard
Nathalie Choux
Mate Steinforth
Louise Rosenkrands
Jack Sachs