Pictoplasma Festival

ENTER PICTOPIA!

In spring 2009, Pictoplasma and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt hosted the PICTOPIA festival, the world’s first ever large-scale presentation and celebration of reduced and abstract character design and art.

Berlin was transformed into a character biotope and the meeting point for an international scene of designers, artists, producers and an interested public. At the heart of the festival was an exhibition which explored the huge diversity of the character universe, where artists remix and sample, condense the surreal and uncanny, inflate all proportions and stage bizarre rituals to introduce their characters into contemporary culture.

A series of ongoing screenings and performances focussed on reduced figuration throughout the media.

The festival featured the long-awaited 3rd Pictoplasma Conference which, since its inception in 2004, has set the standard for a playful yet concentrated approach to the subject. For the first time, scientific light was shed on the character phenomenon in a Symposium, bringing together experts from the fields of art history, cultural studies, robotics and media theory. Pictopian Parties and the Character Walk guided visitors through 30 galleries and project rooms throughout Berlin and deeper into the visual worlds of individual artists.