[Commlist] CFP: 3# Ink and Motion Conference

Ink and Motion #3 – Invisible Animation

International Conference on Animation and Comics

8–10 April 2026 | School of Arts, Portuguese Catholic University, Porto

Ink and Motion – International Conference on Animation and Comics 
provides a shared platform for artists and academics to explore the 
intersections between animation, comics, and other artistic forms, 
including videogames, photography, live-action cinema, and music.

The third edition of the conference will take place April 8–10, 2026, at 
the School of Arts of the Portuguese Catholic University (Porto, 
Portugal). The theme for this edition is:

Invisible Animation

Conference Theme

The theme Invisible Animation invites participants to examine and 
question the phantasmagorical nature of animation and its many 
relationships with the unseen.

Since the earliest animated works by Émile Reynaud and Émile Cohl, 
animation has been tied to a dual movement:

Revelation — giving autonomous life to the inanimate and making the 
invisible perceptible

Concealment — hiding its creative processes and the animator’s own presence

These tensions form a core foundation of animation practice, described 
by Pierre Hébert (2006) as the “dramaturgy of simulacra.” The invisible 
in animation is not only what lies off-screen, but also what structures 
its very substance: time, intervals, gesture, imperceptible 
transformation, and the technical and conceptual labor often hidden from 
view.

Making the Invisible Visible

Animation can produce the non-existent and imaginary, while also 
rendering visible what is otherwise uncapturable. Examples include:

Scientific animation (e.g., molecular processes)

Documentary animation, which helps represent distant, abstract, or 
psychologically complex realities

As Annabelle Honess-Roe (2013) notes, documentary animation enables the 
visualization of “invisible aspects of life, often in an abstract or 
symbolic style… allowing us to imagine the world from someone else’s 
perspective.”

Revealing Hidden Processes

The theme also encourages attention to what remains unseen within 
animation practice:

Creative processes and material gestures

Marginal and experimental techniques (direct animation, pixilation, 
mixed media, etc.)

Frame-by-frame construction, as defined by André Martin (1953)

Animator Alexandre Alexeieff (1970) compared animators to biologists:

“For animators—those microscopists of the cinema—the substitution of 
images contains the very fabric of their art, just as, for biologists, 
the behavior of cells contains the secrets of living organisms.”

Invisibility and Representation

“Invisible Animation” also addresses invisibility as historical 
underrepresentation, including:

Gender and identity issues

Women’s authorship

Marginalized voices and resistance practices

Additionally, the conference considers:

The cultural marginalization of animation as a “minor” or “childish” genre

Animation’s expansion into related arts, including visual effects in 
live-action cinema and its relationship with comics

Conference Organization

Ink and Motion is organized by CITAR – Research Center for Science and 
Technology of the Arts. The event brings together national and 
international researchers and artists in a cross-disciplinary environment.

Call for Abstracts

Extended Deadline: February 13, 2026

Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit proposals related 
(but not limited) to the following topics:

Suggested Topics

Animation and the Documentary

Animation, Memory, Post-memory, and Trauma

Animation and Science

Animation/Comics and Censorship (political, economic, self-censorship)

Animation and Academia

Representation from an intersectional perspective

Expanded Animation

Animation and the Archive

Labour issues in the animation industry

The gutter and the in-between as narrative devices

Liminal spaces and the Uncanny

Pentimento in animation: marks of drawing

Music, sound effects, and the animated image

Ephemeral drawings and the homogenization of authors’ concept art

The relationship between animation, cinema, and VFX

Film conservation: restoration, preservation, media obsolescence

Production processes and the “scaffolding” of animation (below-the-line 
work, etc.)

Animation as invisible choreography (Len Lye, Norman McLaren, Pierre Hébert)

Pre-production underdrawings

Centralization of distribution and monopolies in animation, games, and 
comics

Other related topics are welcome.

Submission Guidelines

Language: English only

Conference Format: In-person

Presentation Length: 20 minutes

Each proposal must include:

Title

Author(s) name(s), affiliation(s), and contact(s)

Abstract (max. 3000 characters including spaces)

3–5 keywords

3–5 references

Short author bio (max. 1500 characters including spaces)

Submission link: (insert link here)

Review Process & Notification

All abstracts will undergo blind peer review by the Scientific Committee.

Authors will be notified of the results in the first week of March 2026.

Contact

For inquiries, please email: (skunz /at/ ucp.pt) <mailto:(skunz /at/ ucp.pt)>


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