REGENERATION
The Sixth Annual Supernova Digital Animation Festival, presented in 2021 in Denver, Colorado, was a year in which the global COVID19 pandemic had forced dramatic alterations upon the festival’s original presentation format and ancillary community collaborations. Regeneration emerged as a potent theme that would encapsulate societal shifts as well as modifications within the finest aspects of the festival’s core that came about following a year of severe challenges and substantial doubt for the future. The online pivot remained a primary focus for Supernova, proving to now be an essential shift that allows anyone around the world to watch Supernova’s diverse programming throughout September, with each category available for 2-3 days across the month. Night Lights Denver, Silent Screen and the introduction of Gifathon became successful anchor live events for the public in Denver to enjoy, with curatorial standards tightened and with additional emphasis on documentation and community participation. The Arts Commission returned to support Supernova’s presence at their annual Momentum Festival in Toledo, Ohio, and Denver’s Art Gym hosted a group exhibition to continue our annual showcase an additional month to the public. All things considered, the return to form proved solid, the approach to the 2021 festival providing the organization with a successful template and highly advanced graphic profile, with adjustments or additions to be determined based on additional sponsorships and partner opportunities. The materials below offer a fairly pure view of how the festival was marketed and presented in both live settings and online.
Welcome to Denver Digerati. We are a nonprofit 501(c)(3) that specializes in digital motion art and animation. Learn more about us and our mission in the about pages on the website. Each year we host the Supernova Digital Animation Festival in Denver, Colorado. The festival utilizes many different facets of exhibition, and the exploration of new media artworks, that run the month of September. Supernova offers a wide exposure to artists and opportunities for the public enjoyment of these works. Though compromised, due to the ongoing challenges of the pandemic, Supernova has adapted. We strive to be artist-forward, operating with an exceptional network of international artists, and we embrace those localized to Colorado, in support of elevating and amplifying their work.
This year, much of our programming will be shown online for members, on public LEDs downtown Denver on September 18th, projected on the Daniels & Fisher Clocktower as part of Night Lights Denver, and in an October exhibition in partnership with the Art Gym. A detailed explanation of our offerings across the month of September are presented below, click an image, or the links, to fully immerse yourself in the full span of the festival. Read the official Regeneration Press Release HERE
Please note that all online programming for the festival is ONLY available to members. However, base-level membership is FREE to all. We will need your information in order to share the details on viewing the content that we keep protected for our artists.
Some of the Faces of Supernova Regeneration
Denver Digerati’s September Artist Feature is also Supernova’s 2021 Solo Artist Spotlight: featuring AUJIK, an entity that has intersected with Supernova feature programming in the past and whose work in digital animation and motion art is an ideal representation of the festival’s REGENERATION them. We are indebted to Stefan Larsson for opening his world in association with Supernova.
Supernova’s Programs are the core of the festival, with over 150 animations presented across 8 categories including: Kid Wonder, Bodies in Motion, Everything Abstract Experimental, Everything Abstract Sonic, Post Covid Stress Disorder, Director’s Choice, Student Shorts Competition, our annual Focal Competition (split into 3 one-hour programs), and Age of Aquarius, a program curated by our own Livy Snyder. The majority of our programming is selected from submissions accepted each year through FilmFreeway. Programs will stream on limited dates throughout the month, so check the schedule now and watch the best in digital animation by artists from around the world.
Denver Digerati commissioned artists to create works to be presented on the Daniels & Fisher Tower, in the heart of downtown Denver, in association with Night Lights Denver. Discover the artists that we’ll be presenting this year and visit this September, every evening starting around 7pm at the corner of 16th and Arapahoe Street.
Click on gif above for program preview
Click on gif above for program preview
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Focal Competition Awards
Grand Prize: Louis Crevier / Sometimes I think about things, and sometimes I get sad
Grand Prize Artist Residency: Eunseo Kim / Megalomania
2nd Place Award: Johannes Duncker / Soft Rains
3rd Place Award: Taokan Xu / Audenie
Honorable Mention: John Butler & Lina Theodorou / JI
Honorable Mention: Linyou Xie / We will love you
Director’s Choice Awards
Award of Distinction: Dane Cree / Dragon
Award of Distinction: Brian Cowe / Ahead
Honorable Mention: Kendra Fleischman / Daisy Chain
Honorable Mention: Jenelle V. Davenport / Chrysalis Mama
Student Shorts Awards
Grand Prize: Tsz Wing Ho / Hand
Honorable Mention: Gobelins Student Group / Coffin
Honorable Mention: Haomin Peng / BUT (bud)
Honorable Mention: Yoon Hei Cho / Parked
Everything Abstract Experimental
Grand Prize: Faiyaz Jafri / Gently (and Chainsaw)
Honorable Mention: Snow Yunzue Fu / Avalanche
Honorable Mention: Benjamin Ridgway / Formless Form
Everything Abstract Sonic
Grand Prize: Esteban Azuela / Drop to Hell
Honorable Mention: Sacha Beeley / Craziest Things
Honorable Mention: Martina Scarpelli / A Little Too Much
East High School Student Gif
Grand Prize Award: Clara (11th Grade)
Denver Digerati has crafted two special programs of digital animation to present to the public at Toledo’s Momentum Festival for the evening of September 16th, celebrating the return to an in-person experience. This engagement represents the second time Momentum has collided with the annual Supernova Digital Animation Festival. Works have been selected for optimal integration with LED, and for the public’s pleasure, with some of the more radical bits thrown in for good measure.
Denver Digerati’s Silent Screen program is an exclusive opportunity for artists to create animations for public display as an exclusive component of the annual Supernova Digital Animation Festival. Silent Screen will take place on Saturday, September 18th as a focal live event of this year’s Festival, with programs commencing at Noon and looping repeatedly through 8pm. This offers the public an extended opportunity to see select animations created for six different screen formats, through a self-guided walking tour that promotes digital animation’s growing relevance as a form of public art and visual engagement. Discover the artists whose proposals were accepted for this distinguished opportunity and will be shown throughout the day.
Denver Digerati teams up with Denver’s Art Gym to present the exhibition New Frontiers hot on the heels of Supernova in October. The current pandemic has highlighted digital art as a medium that is timely and offers new ways of understanding the human relationship with technology. New Frontiers surveys the countless modalities in which artists approach the creative process and computational thinking in order to produce digital artworks. The exhibition features a Supernova sample reel as well as full works by Snow Yunxue Fu, Cherish Marquez, Rory Scott, Kendra Fleischman, Logan Holderread, John Harlan Norris, Anduriel Widmark, Gloria Fan Duan, Mayte Gomez-Molina, and the latest production by Cultural Policy & Areyes Studio (Chris Collins, Huntrezz Janoz, Maria Dmitrova, Obso1337 + George Jasper Stone and Wednesday Kim).
None of this would be possible without the financial support from The Bonfils-Stanton Foundation, Denver Theatre District and The Arts Commission. Denver Digerati employs public LED screens through the generous support of Orange Barrel Media, Branded Cities and UAC Worldwide. Supernova Award Trophies designed by Kristin Stransky.