A+RC Virtual Lecture by Tom Gunning: Animation, or, Bringing images to Life
- wgclients01
- Oct 21
- 1 min read
ICA Miami welcomes Professor Tom Gunning to the Art + Research Center for a virtual lecture. This lecture is free and open to the public with advance RSVP and is presented in conjunction with A +RC Fall 2025 semester on Animation and the Future of the Image in dialogue with the museum’s landmark exhibition Joyce Pensato (1941–2019).
This lecture will probe the roots of our fascination with images that come to life. Starting from the Greek myth of Pygmalion and its resonances in western culture (guided by art historian Victor Stoichita’s wonderful study The Pygmalion Effect: From Ovid to Hitchcock) in both literature and the visual arts, the lecture will explore how the modern media of photography, cinema, animation and digital effects have fulfilled this dream by making images move and seem to possess life. The uncanny effects of this animation and the way the icons of cartoons have inspired the arts in the modern era will be explored. The ambiguous legacy of the Pygmalion myth of a male artist creating an ideal woman will provide a thread whose ideology and imagery will be traced.
DATE: Thu, Oct 30, 2025 at 12 PM