Anna Madeleine is an emerging artist from Canberra, Australia, working in experimental animation, mixed media and installation. She is currently a visiting artist in Animation at USC.
Through explorations of time and mapping, her art practice aims to create poetic interpretations of scientific data, networks and infrastructure that underpin contemporary culture.
While at USC Anna is working on a series of hand-drawn, animated MRI and CT scans through a collaboration with the Australian National University Medical School, as well as creating new animations based on her time in LA. She is interested in experimenting with new 2D animation techniques, as well as new ways of presenting animation in multi-channel installations.
Anna completed a PhD in Media Arts in 2014 at UNSW Art and Design in 2014, and a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Honours) at ANU School of Art in 2007. She has had solo exhibitions at CHASM Gallery (New York), MILS Gallery, Paper Plane Gallery, 107 Projects (Sydney), Brunswick St Gallery (Melbourne) and Canberra Contemporary Art Space. In 2016 she was selected for the SafARI 2016 emerging arts festival, the Churchie National Emerging Art Prize, and the ANU Vice Chancellor’s College Visiting Artist Fellowship scheme, and was a recipient of a Project Funding grant from Arts ACT. She is currently a studio artist at ANCA, Canberra.
Website: http://www.annamadeleine.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matchbox_movies/
CTAN 522 Animation Seminar Fall 2016 
Anna‘s animations give me a strong inspiration about how different materials can be used to express. Like the piece that contains a man swimming in water, the ink itself floats up and down and at the same time, the swimming character which is also painted by ink, is mixed well with the water floating around him, which creates a very nice visual experience. And this is good example for my now study about painting under the camera. Also, I love the film that directly painting ink on the globe. When the globe rotes on the screen, and the image appears at the same time. I am so expect what will come to my eyes next. The expression is so fresh to me and full of power！ Also, I do want try to do some very short piece that can be looped. I think those pieces she showed us are so amazing and it is truly a good way to explore the 2D animation technology by making those shorts more and more. So thanks for Anna’s sharing! Nice Evening!
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I’ve talked to Anna a couple times and it was great to get a chance to see her work. I appreciate how she merges science with different forms of animation. Her method of exploring subjects is very organic. Her animation of the MRI scan is so mesmerizing; I can stare at the loop forever. Anna seems to be investigating her surroundings and finding the best way of expressing them. It is interesting how she experiments different methods on showcasing her work. Her exhibition in Brooklyn where she had a combination of her loops on mini digital screen and in flipbook seems very clever. It really did make me consider how society uses technology. Even though she uses multiple different animation techniques, her work all seems consistent in creating a beautiful meditative style. I wish she could stay here longer!
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I quite like the idea of exploring relationships between new technology and people in the form of animation, I thought the installation was the most successful as the audiences controlled the technology to reveal the fact that we are controlled by it as well. I like the idea of truly experiencing the influence of technology in a gallery space, (the same goes for her piece where her loops was being shown on iphone screens in a gallery), that the animation seemed warm and organic, while the machine remains mechanical and cold. The contrast/combination of the two is the most fascinating. My favourite is her swimming paint-on-glass animation, the transition and the use of colours is great. When I look at the loops I imagine them to be on a wall just constantly looping, as if it is a moving painting. Surely we are about to achieve that one day soon enough,
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There is an essence of searching in Anna’s work, utilizing found objects, textures, new techniques, old technology, new technology, time, space, movement, and stillness. The rawness of her practice resonates with me. It appears as if these pieces are a part of her thinking process, that her ideas shift and culminate throughout the creation process. The dynamic between her approaches become the focus of the work. It’s not an animation, or an installation, or a work of art, or a work of prose but rather a conversation between disparate elements that turns around a theme and presents new relationships in the form of experience. The only drawback from this presentation was our inability to walk through these crafted spaces, missing the ability to witness the imposing effect of a traversable life-sized mind.
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One thing I really like about Anna’s work is how it blends together the old and the new. Taking hand-drawn, looping animations reminiscent of the first examples of animation, and displaying them using modern technology. I especially enjoyed the MRI animations. Those kind of MRIs are fascinating on their own, but it adds a whole new feeling of human connection to them to see them drawn by hand.
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Anna’s use of technology blends surprisingly well with her artistic animation style. I have always been of the belief that animators should embrace the advances made in technology to enhance their own animation technique. It does not matter if one is an experimental animator, character animator, computer animator, or otherwise, technology can improve upon one’s animated vision. It is encouraging to see that an animator such as Anna has embraced the use of technology to express her animated art. It is particularly interesting that she has also used older technology to animate, mainly with her use of the record player. I wish her luck in pressing on with her future animations, and hope she continues with her embrace of technology to make art!
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I was impressed my Anna’s diversity in her works. She uses different textures, materials that perfectly are blended with her artistic style and interpretation. I love her works that combine our interpretation with body, for instance, the loop animation, chest. The changing outline and textures give her works a strong style and emotions. Also, What catch my eyes is the stop motion animation, swimming. She used ink painting on the glass. The soft and elegant patterns changing with the movement of swimming creates a beautiful animation. Even though there is no sound in it. I really look forward to the work she’s gonna work on.
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Anna’s presentation brought up some interesting ideas involving “media archaeology” as we put it back at UC Davis. In my undergrad we did a lot of research involving technology and the idea of necessity being the mother of invention, visa versa. Anna creates some cool work and I’d love to see someone taking the same ideas of merging old with new, but dating back even farther to inventions like the Phaistos Disk or Quipus. Keep up the good work Anna–it’s great to have artists producing work that is different and experimental. You change perceptions, and USC can definitely use a break from traditional storytelling and media practices.
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I was really inspired by the painting on glass piece that showing people swimming in water. The fun thing is I was doing painting on glass project the same week and it inspired me a lot for the same process that I’ve been through. It’s really hard to manage the brushes and paint but Anna’s work showed me the different way to illustrate the movement. Wonderful experience. The short, looped animation that Anna did also get to me cuz I’m also like doing short and loop pieces. I can find some similarities in our works and many of her work open up my eyes to new ways to do simple, but attractive animation.
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When people think of animation, they often think of it in context of cinema or television, so it was interesting to learn about how Anna brings animation to the fine art world with her gallery installations. I appreciate how she uses animation as a means of exploring psychological and scientific subjects. Her PhD work highlighting how technology affects the way we communicate sparked my curiosity most, because I’ve also had an idea in mind for a project combining text messages and animation, though much different than Anna’s. She also talked about creating an installation showcasing her matchbox_movies instagram posts, which was a move that honestly puzzled me a bit: I was the apprentice for an artist who showed her work in galleries around the world, and she gave me the advice of NOT putting work that I’d show in a gallery on instagram, because it would diminish the value of the work as well as people’s incentive to go see the work in a gallery setting. Interesting that Anna seems to hold the exact opposite belief, as she reimagines what the work can be and say in a 3D space vs confined to the digital realm.
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I was amazed by every piece of Anna’s works. I really appreciate the thoughts and ideas behind each piece. She has a very unique and creative way to experiment stuff and express her ideas through her animations. I love how she uses many techniques, from traditional hand drawn to photography to big installations, and combines them together and makes such beautiful pieces of art. Her works really gave me inspirations on exploring and playing with many different things and they might lead you to many different endless possible outcomes. Since nowadays we have so many accessibility to almost every technique we can think of, both traditionally and digitally. The fun part is now we get to see so many interesting works being created by combining different techniques and mediums. And the way to come up the those ideas is to never stop exploring. I’d like to thank you Anna for the great inspirations and wish her best of luck on her future animation path.
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Anna’s work was kind of interesting for me because she is trying to bridge between science and art. Although this premise is attractive, at the same time it could be dangerous for an artist to trap in the dark corners of the solid scientific facts and not using her imagination and creativity. I liked her idea about SMS messages but I think she can more creative with MRI images. Anyway that’s my idea I could be wrong.
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Anna’s works are interesting and shows how much she cares about the connection of the whole world. The earth shows up several times in her art works and she can always find some ways to connect and combine the countries and people from everywhere. It’s interesting that it will totally show what’s the person is and what does she really care about while she work on her own art. We can still say art is hard to understand sometimes but it will not be too difficult to comprehend if you see carefully, you can always find some clues.
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One of the most exciting aspects of Anna’s works is her openness to try all different types of mediums to achieve her desired result for showing a piece. Her interactive piece pairing text and animation is of most relevant pieces to me because I would like to combine interactivity and 3D animation in creative ways. I’m also really interested in her current piece that includes a multitude of images ranging from handdrawn MRI scans to painted animations of stitches. I think it would be really cool if those images were somehow projected back onto the physical body. In a way, we are so dependent and connected to digital representations of ourselves, that it becomes a piece of our body.
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I was so impressed to see the range of Anna’s work and all the different digital tools and materials she has worked with. Her work carves out placid, intimate spaces and moments for people to experience technology in. Given how hectic and frenzied social media and the internet prove to be, it’s extremely valuable to have artists like Anna making the work she does. I’m so curious as to what it would be like to experience “Crossed Wires” first-hand. Were I to go in not knowing anything, I wonder how I would respond to the projected scroll of texts. Would it be clear to me that these texts belonged to the artist? Would that presumption give me a sense of comfort and entitlement to read the texts? Or would I worry about the text origins and feel like a voyuer? The animations that respond to movement of gallery viewers creates a sort of dance between the art and its consumer. As I see it, the installation sets up a strange surveillance space that forces you to meditate on the grey areas of maintaining and respecting privacy.
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She uses many technics and experiment animations in many artists way. Her art style is unique, dynamic, quiet, and modern. I like her multi channel screen installation work. Her perspective towards the world and animation is very wide, and her message in the work of geographic theme is very interesting.
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I really enjoyed seeing Anna Madeleine’s work because of her commitment to exploring various mediums and surfaces. I was particularly intrigued by her PhD thesis animation, in both its concept and execution. While going through a gallery, I find that I am a passive viewer who walks through the halls and sees the images, but rarely processes said images. Her enclosed path seemed to really force the viewer to make an active choice about whether or not to engage with her piece, given how the text messages and an animated short come to life per motion detectors. Once these come on, it’s up to the viewer to choose to stop and look at the “walls” on either side of her, thus creating an intentional viewing experience.
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I liked Anna Madeleine’s work, some strategies she used in some of her work; which melding the new and old, the archaic and the modern, Madeleine’s art shows that even objects and people and places in time can be connected. I was inspired by her using new media and cross-disciplinary practice to make artwork more innovative and more interesting. And some of the transitions she used in the charcoal animation are beautiful.
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There were a lot of interesting materials that she has used through her works. Each her work was mixed with different media and that leads the works unique and great. I had a chance to see she was working and I was excited because I could see it during the seminar. What a smooth and relaxing work. I liked it so much.
I hope I can see her work again in the future.
Thank for sharing such amazing works with us and I wish the best for you!
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I like Anna Madeleine’s work, it was interesting and cute. And she used so many different strategies and materials in her work, to create so amazing effect for animation .I liked it so much ,hope I can see more of her work in the future.
Thank you for sharing!
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I really enjoyed watching Anna’s installation pieces. I liked the technology behind the installation piece itself and her concept as well. I really enjoyed her under the camera work. There is just something so pleasing with the look of under the camera animation. I was impressed with her control of the painted globe piece. I look forward to her future work about earthquakes. I feel that an installation piece about this will make for a great work.
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One of the things I noticed on Anna’s work, even in the works that are related to the body, is that she has a general sense of the Landscape in her work. The space is central, not only in her installation work, but also in her two dimensional work. Said that, that sense of geography is felt in the slides of the human body where the use of colors and textures refers immediately to the weather predictions images that describe natural phenomena behavior. Finally, personally, I like the idea of small video series, and that’s something I’ve tried to explore in my work, I enjoyed a lot the multiplicity of small processes and products and the way they were show. Thanks for sharing.
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No doubt my favorite animation of Anna’s was the swimming animation she showed during her presentation. I tried to relocate it on her Instagram, but only found one short snippet of the whole animation under matchbox_movies. The full swimming animation (sorry I do not know the title) was extremely powerful. While watching it I was overcome by the sensation that I was underwater. I believe the sensation was directly linked to the medium used (water and paint on glass), which reminded me of the visceral feeling of water when animating with it. Perhaps the feeling of water was extended throughout my body because the water in the animation seemed immersive since it was being viewed in the traditional immersive cinematic experience (in a theater). I’m curious if anyone else felt like they were underwater when watching it. I loved the animated performance and patterns in the short anatomic loops, but based off how unbelievably inspiring the swimming animation was, maybe some of Anna’s other work could be even stronger if the mediums used were deliberately chosen based on the loops subject matter, message etc. All in all I learned a lot about staging and execution from Anna!!
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One of the aspects that I thought is really interesting and resonated me a lot is the way Anna uses to bridge between technology and art. and also, exploring various mediums and materials. It is really fun to see so many interesting medium are used and the way she combine all the medium. I really enjoyed watching these installation pieces. Thank you for sharing! Looking forward to see her work in the future!
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I was really enjoy of Anna Madeleine sharing her excellent works this time. I got a lot of inspiration form her works. Since my last major is Environmental arts, Animation is a new major for me. So experimental animation is also a new field to me. Anna Madeleine has really has her talented to create experiment animation. I was such impress by the earth moving part. This part can bring us many reminiscence and true feelings. I love her works very much, thanks for sharing.
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I was really enjoy of Anna Madeleine sharing her excellent works this time. I got a lot of inspiration form her works. Since my last major is Environmental arts, Animation is a new major for me. So experimental animation is also a new field to me. Anna Madeleine has really has her talented to create experiment animation. I was such impress by the earth moving part. This part can bring us many reminiscence and true feelings. I love her works very much, thanks for sharing anyway.
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Anna Madeleine’s presentation showed so many interesting works she made. I really like the way she used, blending and connecting several different techniques. Artist and scientist has some points similar, they both need to do many experiments to see the results. Anna did really good try on experiment. She gave me so many inspiration. And I like the connection between modern and ancient. And the craft she made is really good. Thanks for sharing your works!
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I’m so glad Anna Madeleine shared her work with us – it was very interesting to see. I really loved watching her loops, and I especially liked the swimming animation. I thought the technique with the water and the paint on glass was gorgeous, and really transported you into that world. It’s refreshing to see how she approaches each piece she works on, and has new ideas and techniques that she explores. I like that she’s combining art with science, and am looking forward to seeing what she does next and her work on the tectonic plates/earthquakes.
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Anna’s work is stunning. There is strong visual appeal in all her work, even with the most experimental of materials. I enjoy how much experimentation she puts into her work, especially combining different techniques. Specifically her use of technology is intriguing, or even just her inventiveness. For example on her website I really enjoyed the flip book made with cards, wood and clear acrylic. I feel that Anna embraces the physicality of animation, which is unique in the digital age. Even when she uses technology, I feel it is with the mind of the physicality of technology. So much animation is spent trying to optimize the screen experience that it’s really great to see an artist who not only thinks about that physical experience, but how different mediums and methods can bring about a visceral response. It is great to see that USC is involved with such incredible artists.
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Anna shared her wonderful work with us. So grateful to see what she is up to. She shared a glimpse of what some of her projects have been. Her process for working with others on installation was refreshing to see. This really stood out to me. Tactile work that engages others is so great! I look forward to seeing what is next for Anna.
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Anna’s works give me the feeling of “media combination”, she likes to use a combination of different media, traditional media and modern media. Surprisingly, this combination style makes people feel good, and reflects a very clear personal style. But I think if she uses this “combination style” to tell a good story, I think it will be better.
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