Research Center for Animation and Emerging Media
The Research Center for Animation and Emerging Media was founded in 2013 to promote innovative approaches to animation studies in Germany. Animation is a largely under-researched field, despite the extensive influence of animated images on almost all areas of life. Not only in the cinema or on television, but wherever screens and projections are used, animations take on extensive tasks, for example in the context of advertising, propaganda, medical technology, or media art. In the area of science communication, a focus of the Research Center, content is often conveyed through animation. Animation is interrelated with different forms of media. In addition to animation research and science communication, topics such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence are also key research areas of the Research Center for Animation and Emerging Media. The Research Center aims at studying animation from various perspectives by bringing together scholars from disciplines of the humanities, computer science, and the social and natural sciences.
In addition to the Center's comprehensive research and publication activities, faculty members and students also benefit from the lively exchange with other German and foreign universities. For example, every year the Center holds two animation research colloquia where PhD candidates and postdocs from all over Germany are invited to present their current research.
Baden-Württemberg, the German state where the University of Tübingen is located, is of great importance for animation in central Europe with its numerous production companies, educational institutions such as Film Academy Baden-Württemberg, Hochschule der Medien, and Offenburg University of Applied Sciences as well as MFG film funding, the Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film and the industry event FMX – Conference on Animation, Effects, Games and Immersive Media. It is thus also an excellent environment for conducting research on animation as can be seen from the varied output of the Center. Since 2019, the Center is part of the AMCRS (Animation Media Cluster Region Stuttgart).