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Robert Darroll is a British citizen born in 1946. He studied at the Michaelis School of Fine Art and was then awarded a DAAD scholarship in 1971 to study a further three years at the Hamburg Academy of Art in Germany. At the Academy he worked with Prof. Kurt Kranz, a former Bauhaus student in the classes of Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. The collaboration with Kurt Kranz continued for many years, beginning with the conversion of early Bauhaus storyboards (which were never translated into film because of the lack of funds and technology at the time of their conception) into animated sequences, and later continuing with experimental animated films commissioned by German TV (ZDF). The first of these works was based on an electro-acoustic composition by Ernst Sauter, entitled “Spiegelung” and was produced in 1980. The second work, “Zeit”, was commissioned by ZDF in 1982. Parallel to this, Robert Darroll worked with Helmut Herbst and Katrin Magnitz at the CINEGRAFIKSTUDIO in Hamburg, where amongst other projects, he produced “Cenit”, (1974) an abstract animation inspired by and completed after an extended stay in Argentina and Brazil.
In 1983/84 Robert Darroll was resident in Song Kwang Sa in South Korea where
he studied Asian Philosophy. During this period he worked exclusively on a
large series of graphics, which were conceived as studies for a later
project. These graphics were exhibited in a one-man show at the Kumho
Gallery in South Korea in 1984. Returning to Germany, Robert Darroll started
work on a series of three 10 minute experimental animations, which together
form “The Korean Trilogy”. The production of the trilogy extended from 1984
to 1990. The three parts of the trilogy are entitled “Lung”, “Feng Huang”
and “Stone Lion”. The trilogy refers directly to existential concepts and
thoughts developed during the preceding years in Korea. All of these works
were realised with conventional animation film technology.
In 1990 Robert Darroll converted his studio to digital technology and began
work on his first computer animation, “MEMB” from 1991 to 1993. Kiyoshi
Furukawa produced the sound track at the ZKM (Centre for Art and Media
Technology) in Karlsruhe, Germany.
It was during the production of this early computer work, that he realised
the significance of several principles common to software used in visual
media: that of compositing and the use of databases. Following this, he
worked on a further experimental animation entitled "Moe’s Field" (1993 to
1996), which entailed the combination of computer animation with
conventional animation and video sequences in a collage technique. The work
included text sequences, which separated four main segments of animation.
For this work too, Kiyoshi Furukawa produced the sound track at the ZKM in
Germany.
On the basis of the collaboration on these projects, Robert Darroll was
invited by Kiyoshi Furukawa to design an interactive virtual reality
sequence for a media opera, commissioned by the ZKM. For this project, a
complex virtual world was developed so that on-stage events and also musical
events, interactively commanded events in the virtual world. The project was
entitled “Die Ungeborene Goetter” and was premiered at the opening of the
new ZKM building in 1997.
From 1996 until 1999, Robert Darroll worked on a further development of the
collage techniques used in the production of "Moé's Field", in a project
entitled "Stele". This is an 11 minute experimental animation for which
Kiyoshi Furukawa produced the sound track at the ZKM.
From 1999 to 2000, Robert Darroll worked on a Video-Animation entitled
“Noemata No.1”, a short visual essay on the theme of violence, for which
Sean Reed composed the sound track.
In 2001 the Tokyo National University of Art and Music invited Robert
Darroll to join their Inter-Media Art Department in Toride as professor for
Media Art. During this period, he produced a further short visual essay, entitled
“Noemata No.2” (2002) based on visual impressions gathered while living in
Japan. Shigenobu Nakamura of the Kyushu University composed the sound track
for this work.
Since 2002, Robert Darroll has been teaching animation, media art and aesthetics at the Nagoya University of Art and Science. His project, “Bedlam”, (produced from 2001 - 2005) was based on a performance text for 5 voices, which he wrote in 2000. The text has been associatively translated into visual imagery. The original installation version was designed for 5 projections on 5 large screens, set in a semi-circle in front of the viewer. Subsequently a mono-screen version was produced. Sean Reed composed an accompanying sound track also based on the text. Three levels of the works therefore include visual animated imagery, sound composition and spoken texts. “Bedlam” was completed and first shown in the Blue Cube of the ZKM in Germany in March 2005.
His most recent project was "Oracle". This work is an interactive installation based on the ZKM 360 degree panorama screen and was commissioned by the ZKM. The viewer may consult the work via a touchscreen. The main system program constructs responses by combining material from a large database containing many short animation clips. Thus each viewer may receive an entirely different response. The principle is similar to that of the I Ching and of later mechanical oracles produced in Japan (known as Omikuji). Essentially the project intends to examine the way in which "meaning" is unavoidably constructed from data (also random data).
Robert Darroll has frequently lectured as a guest artist in various institutions around the world.
His work is distributed by The iotaCenter in Los Angeles, USA.
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