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Jordan Gowanlock

Sessional Faculty

Availability:

Education:

PhD, Film and Moving Image Studies, Concordia University

Bio

Dr. Jordan Gowanlock’s work focuses on the interaction between technology and creative practice in the history of animation, special effects and games. He has a PhD in Film and Movie Image Studies from Concordia University and was a Visiting Researcher at University of California Berkeley, with support from the Fonds de Recherche sur la Société et la Culture. Jordan has published in the academic journals Animation, Technoculture and Navigationen and has published a monograph through Palgrave Macmillan titled Animated Unpredictable Effects.

Research Interests

Jordan’s book Animating Unpredictable Effects looks at forms of computer graphics that sit between the manual manipulation of animation and the automated capture of live action cinema. By focusing on automated tools, he reveals the shifting role technology development has been playing in media industry economics and labour over the past few decades. Jordan’s work offers a framework for understanding the contributions of technical workers in media production, anticipating recent conversations about AI and creativity. Jordan is currently working on a project that involves analyzing public datasets from IMDB, the US Patent Office, and the University of Minnesota’s Movielens project to create visualizations about the changing role of engineering and R&D in media industries. He is also co-editing a volume of the Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Animation Studies on techniques, processes, and environments that bridge theory and practice.

Courses

Course Name Department Course Code Term
Media History MHIS 327 26/FA

Description

This course offers students a deeper understanding of animation history. For many animation scholars and artists, a defining feature of "animation" that separates it from traditional photographic cinema is the capacity to bring to life processes or concepts that are invisible to the naked eye and to the live-action camera. This course uses that distinction as an organizing structure for thinking about the history and development of animation, by considering animation's capacity to reveal otherwise-invisible historical factors and influences, including the rendering of history itself. Topics will cover industrial and material contexts of animation production; the intersection of animation with histories of fine arts and sciences; and the central role that animation has played in rendering and evoking abstract ideas or intangible experiences. Considering the wide range of animation traditions and the proliferation of animation across all digital media, the course eschews a comprehensive chronology in favour of a series of perspectives and case studies. Examples will include commercial animation from more than one global context, as well as independent artisanal animation, scientific and industrial animation, and animation in gallery installations. Through lectures, readings, and assignments, students will develop their own ability to understand and investigate areas of interest within animation.

Pre-requisites

No prerequisites.