Max Hattler

Over the past year, Hong Kong has seen unprecedented disruptions of public life through ongoing protests and the city’s health emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This situation has thrust the semi-autonomous region into an economic recession, which is hardest felt by its most vulnerable constituents who are already suffering from the highest wealth disparity in half a decade in the most expensive housing market on earth. The past year has also triggered an existential crisis for Hongkongers, a crisis of confidence and fear of an uncertain future, in which recent traumata of the 2003 SARS epidemic and the 2014 Umbrella Revolution have been reawakened, leading to increased distrust in government institutions and deepening divisions within society.

Mass and social media portrayals of such circumstances, especially in the age of algorithmic filter bubbles, tend to reinforce and exacerbate such societal divisions. Abstract animation approaches to ‘documenting’ events, however, allow for more fluid ways of storytelling, through which less fixed, more open-ended meanings can be negotiated by an audience. Through the interplay of abstract and representational imagery, by foregrounding formal-aesthetic visual or temporal qualities, or through experimental sound and editing, abstracted narratives can be presented that allow for, and invite, multiple readings.

Experimental animation films by the author take up current Hong Kong themes to explore animated abstraction as a discursive space. These films are contrasted with recent works by several Hong Kong-based artists that employ alternative and experimental ways of narrative processing in response to more traditional modes of moving-image storytelling. A dedicated taxonomy of meaning in abstract animation is proposed as a framework from which to develop a narrative-abstraction vocabulary for artists and scholars to work with. What role do the works of Hong Kong artists play in shaping this, and what are the unique perspectives that these works can offer for such an endeavour? This presentation is part of the author’s research project Towards a Taxonomy of Meaning and Narrative in Abstract Animation: A Study of Contemporary Hong Kong and International Artists.

Max Hattler is a German video artist, experimental filmmaker, animation researcher and educator based in Hong Kong. After studying in London at Goldsmiths and the Royal College of Art, he completed a Doctorate in Fine Art at the University of East London. Hattler’s artworks have been presented around the world, including at Ars Electronica Festival, European Media Art Festival, Seoul Museum of Art, MoCA Taipei and Sónar Hong Kong. Awards include London International Animation Festival, Cannes Lions, Bradford Animation Festival, and several Visual Music Awards. He has presented papers at the Society for Animation Studies Conference, CONFIA in Portugal, and the inaugural Annual China Animation Studies Conference in Chengdu. Max Hattler serves on the board of directors of the iotaCenter and the editorial board of Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal. He is an Assistant Professor at the School of Creative Media at City University of Hong Kong.