Stefan Gruber (born December 8, 1975) is an American experimental
animator and
performance artist
Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
from
Seattle, Washington
Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...
. They create hand-drawn, digitally finished experimental animation shorts and are Animation Department founder and teacher at
The Nova Animation Project and the founder of Seattle Experimental Animation Team (SEAT).
Biography
Gruber was born into a creative environment and was exposed to animation from an early age. Raised by an inventor father and a mother involved in modern dance, Gruber is also the grandchild and partial
namesake
A namesake is a person, geographic location, or other entity bearing the name of another.
History
The word is first attested around 1635, and probably comes from the phrase "for one's name's sake",
which originates in English Bible translations ...
of William Gruber, inventor of the
ViewMaster
View-Master is the trademark name of a line of special-format stereoscopes and corresponding View-Master "reels", which are thin cardboard disks containing seven Stereoscopic 3-D pairs of small transparent color photographs on film.Mary Ann & W ...
Stereoscopic photography technology. At the age of thirteen, they spent the summer in
Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populou ...
to study at the
Saturday Academy, under the tutelage of Sharon Niemczyk. They attended high school in Seattle at
The Nova Project
The Nova Project, also simply known as Nova, is a small public alternative high school in Seattle, Washington, in the Seattle Public School District. Its aim is to be a "democratically governed learning community of broadly educated, creative ...
. While at Nova, they pursued a combination of
acting
Acting is an activity in which a story is told by means of its enactment by an actor or actress who adopts a character—in theatre, television, film, radio, or any other medium that makes use of the mimetic mode.
Acting involves a bro ...
,
electronic music
Electronic music is a Music genre, genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or electronics, circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromech ...
(with an
Ensoniq
Ensoniq Corp. was an American electronics manufacturer, best known throughout the mid-1980s and 1990s for its musical instruments, principally samplers and synthesizers.
Company history
In spring 1983, former MOS Technology engineers Robe ...
ASR10) and
illustration
An illustration is a decoration, interpretation or visual explanation of a text, concept or process, designed for integration in print and digital published media, such as posters, flyers, magazines, books, teaching materials, animations, vide ...
, which would cultivate their interest in animation as performance art.
Gruber moved to Los Angeles and pursued a
BFA in Experimental Animation at the
California Institute of the Arts
The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of bo ...
under
Jules Engel
Jules Engel (born Gyula Engel, March 11, 1909 – September 6, 2003) was an American filmmaker, painter, sculptor, graphic artist, set designer, animator, film director, and teacher. He was the founding director of the experimental animation ...
. During this time, they met many of their mentors, including
Christine Panushka
Christine Panushka is an independent filmmaker, freelance animator, artist, and teacher. She is a Professor in the John Hench Division of Animation and Digital Arts at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.
Biography
Panushka received her MFA in Exper ...
,
Maureen Selwood,
Raimund Krumme, Kathy Rose and
Suzan Pitt
Suzan Lee Pitt (July 11, 1943 – June 16, 2019) was an American film animator and painter, whose surreal, psychological animated films and paintings have been acclaimed and exhibited worldwide.
Early life
Pitt was born in Kansas City, Missouri, ...
. By their graduation in 1999, Gruber had completed their first few short films, including ''Leashlessness'' and ''Jewels''.
Career
Following college, Gruber returned to Seattle to act as ambassador for the concept of Experimental Animation. In 2001, they returned to
Nova High School
Nova High School is a public high school located in Davie, Florida and is part of the Broward County Public Schools district. It is one of four schools that comprise the Nova Center for Applied Research and Professional Development, the othe ...
to found their animation program and the Nova Animation Portal, an annual benefit to fund the department. Gruber continues to teach today as head of the Animation Department. Gruber is also founder of the
Seattle Experimental Animation Team (SEAT), a collective of animators and filmmakers who make independent, non-commercial animated work to raise awareness surrounding the independent animation scene in Seattle.
Today, Gruber creates one hand-drawn, digitally finished experimental animation short per year and spends their summers touring North America with their work—in addition to their work with
Nova
A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramati ...
and
SEAT
A seat is a place to sit. The term may encompass additional features, such as back, armrest, head restraint but also headquarters in a wider sense.
Types of seat
The following are examples of different kinds of seat:
* Armchair (furniture), ...
.
Cartoons
Edible Rocks (2012)
Charcoal, colored pencils, gel pens.
This animation recounts the time when the animator convinced their little brother that there were some rocks you could eat.
Both Worlds part 1 (2010)
Hand drawn, digitally finished animation. This animation is accompanied by a live score and improvised dialogue, so every performance is different. Both Worlds part 2 is slated for 2013.
The piece features two peaceful creatures in talks with each other about how to maintain the flora and fauna on the mountains they each live on top of.
Petting Zoo 2 (2009)
Hand drawn, digitally finished animation.
This animation concludes Petting Zoo's premise of liberating trapped animals as symbols of contained human emotions.
Petting Zoo (2008)
Hand drawn, digitally finished animation.
The main character is either the voyeur or liberator of animals trapped in a haunted abandoned zoo.
Anaelle (2006)
Hand drawn, digitally transferred, finished as 35mm film print.
This animation follows Gruber's account of a magical encounter involving resurrecting drowned ladybugs.
Fantasy Pleasure Complex (2001–2010)
This project is the collective title of a giant collection of short digital animation experiments by Stefan and guests and updated bi-yearly.
Thought City (2000)
Hand drawn punched paper animated film shot on
Oxberry 16mm.
Armies of commuters go about their routine, abstract and near-nonsensical business, within an ever-shifting cement block world. Occasionally, they get literally consumed by their own news, and they wage war against small, not entirely defenseless birds.
Leashlessness (1999)
Hand drawn flipbook animated film shot on
Oxberry 16mm.
In this animated clip, two dogs go into sensory overload, and it's up to a good Samaritan to liberate the four-legged friends from their oppressive leash-holders.
Comics
Scentagons (2021)
16-page, full color comic published by
Neoglyphic Media. The story revolves around the intrusion of empty bottle-headed beings into a pantheon of deities, aliens, cryptids, and animal characters recurring in Gruber's work.
Viking Eggling (2008)
This twelve-page, full color comic is part of the SOS comic anthology. In this comic, a Birdman rises up in ranks in some unusual outer space jobs.
Duck Lessons (2003)
Twelve-page mini comic about a person trying to get wisdom from a duck who never talks to him.
Kometes (2002)
Twelve-page mini comic about two people trying to start a radical garden.
Some Sonic Nurturing in Washington's Mystic Bayou (2001)
In this ten-page full color comic in the anthology Kramers Ergot #4, two mountainside dwellers find inspiration for new musical styles based on their encounter with legendary cryptozoological creature, Jake the Alligator Man.
Gain Way (2000)
This story consists of several one-page stories in Kramers Ergot #3
Performance Art
Lead Bunny (2012)
Evaporation animation technique was invented for this show, and dancers modeled their movements to be sampled into a 5-minute piece that accompanied the live modern dance performance at Hedreen Gallery in 2012.
Psychic Portraiture (2009)
The purpose of this performance is to create and perform a show in which the artist paints portraits of audience members with animated light on a stage arranged with a large-sized canvas. Symbols from the life of the model materialize to decorate the portrait. In banter with the model and audience, psychic details are intuited.
Real Time Comic (2008–2010)
This project was started to navigate a way of improvising with animation in the company of musicians and dancers. Three shows, at OKOK, Velocity, and On the Boards were staged. Ongoing.
Cuckoo Crow (2006)
This was a sold out show at the
Moore Theatre featured experimental performers
Degenerate Art Ensemble with several animations projected onto experimental screens, such as an animated caged bird on the underside of a dress, slot machine animations on an ice cream truck, and 4 foot tall egg shapes that slowly dropped down from the 3 story tall rigging, filled with the movements of animated birds.
Relatively Real (2005)
On the Boards featured Lingo Dance Co and Gruber's animation projected onto mobile, wheeled 'sails' which could be arranged live by the dancers to form several sets. Abstract animations based on the dancer's movements were created alongside the practice times leading up to the performance.
Slide Rule (2003–2010)
Slide Rule Digital Players hosts a community of comics makers who want their comics to be experienced as performance. Gruber and fellow comic makers built Powerpoint presentations with live dialogue and scores. Adaptations include versions of the mini comics ''Duck Lessons'', ''Viking Eggling'', ''Kometes'' and many more.
Flipbooks
In 2010, Gruber drew six different 102 page tape bound hand assembled Flipbooks. They continue to sell these at their performances and showcases.
Murals
Both Worlds is a
triptych
A triptych ( ; from the Greek adjective ''τρίπτυχον'' "''triptukhon''" ("three-fold"), from ''tri'', i.e., "three" and ''ptysso'', i.e., "to fold" or ''ptyx'', i.e., "fold") is a work of art (usually a panel painting) that is divide ...
mural installation in
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...
's
Cal Anderson Park, painted in the summer of 2012 for the Sound Transit Art Program (STart). According to the STart blog, the "wall is meant to be a cartoon place where characters from Stefan's previous films can go to relax."
Music
In the mid-nineties, Gruber was involved in a band called Soapy Grapes, which consisted of high school friend Rosten Woo and Gruber's then seven-year-old cousin, Hannah Burney. Gruber maintains the music on his site.
Inventions
Stefan Gruber's Hexagonal Chess is partially an answer to
Douglas Hofstadter
Douglas Richard Hofstadter (born February 15, 1945) is an American scholar of cognitive science, physics, and comparative literature whose research includes concepts such as the sense of self in relation to the external world, consciousness, an ...
's challenge to translate traditional square lattice chess into a hexagonal lattice version, which Hoffstadter calls, "
chesh." Gruber completed the preliminary list of rules in 1993 and created an animated accompaniment to explain the game. A group meets regularly in Seattle to
playtest the game.
Gruber invented 3 Way
Soccer at
The Nova Project
The Nova Project, also simply known as Nova, is a small public alternative high school in Seattle, Washington, in the Seattle Public School District. Its aim is to be a "democratically governed learning community of broadly educated, creative ...
in 2005.
[http://stefangruber.com/3waysoccer/ ] The game is an unorthodox sports workshop with continuously evolving rules, only loosely resembling soccer. Each game is one hour in length, during which the first forty minutes, the ball is in play, and the remaining twenty minutes are used to decide how the rules of the game should change for the next game. In each game, three teams are formed on a circular field, and a large yoga ball is used instead of a soccer ball. The interactions of three opposing teams creates what Gruber describes as a "dance-related trajectory".
Awards
*Semi-finalist: Creative Capitol (2012)
*Featured artist in Creative Capitol's On Our Radar (2012)
*The Mayor's Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs (2011)
*Artist Trust Fellowship (2007)
*Finalist:
Stranger Genius Awards (2006)
*Seattle Arts Commission (1999)
*The Princess Grace Foundation (1998)
*Finalist: Student Academy Awards (1998)
*GAP (Multiple)
*
4Culture (Multiple)
References
External links
The Official Stefan Gruber SiteNews and Performance Information for Stefan GruberVideo interview regarding Gruber's approach to hand-drawn animationVideo bio on Gruber's Mural with Sound Transit Art Program
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gruber, Stefan
American cartoonists
Alternative cartoonists
American performance artists
Living people
Place of birth missing (living people)
1975 births
Artists from Washington (state)
Artists from Seattle
Abstract animation