Archive notice: This article was originally published on July 21, 2009. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
“Rebel with a Cause,” the graduation film by Kristian Labusga from the Audiovisual Media programme at Stuttgart Media University (HdM), has been selected as an entry for the 36th international SIGGRAPH conference in New Orleans, USA.
The HdM graduate’s thesis project, created during the 2008 summer semester, will be presented to a public audience there as part of the Computer Animation Festival from August 3–7, 2009. This is the third time that work by HdM students will be shown at the renowned specialist conference for computer animation. For universities and research institutions, as well as the film and animation industry, SIGGRAPH is the world’s most important conference for computer graphics and animation. Two hundred exhibitors are taking part in 2009. The organisers expect around 20,000 visitors from six continents. “Participation is a wonderful honour,” explains Professor Dr Bernd Eberhardt, who supervised the project.
“Rebel with a Cause” depicts the journey of a T-shirt. Beginning in the cotton fields of Texas, through further processing in India, Taiwan and China, the T-shirt travels a long way and passes through many hands. The consequences are multilayered and complex; the prices are low. The elaborate production journey and usage cycle make the T-shirt virtually heavier. Its ecological rucksack—the total quantity of all resources contained in a product—grows to as much as five tonnes. Once the T-shirt falls out of fashion, it usually ends up in a used-clothing collection. It begins a second journey to Africa, South America or Asia, where it is sold again at used-clothing markets. Africans call it Mitumba, “the dead white man’s shirt,” because they cannot imagine someone throwing away clothing that is still in such good condition. People there therefore wear used clothing themselves while producing new T-shirts for the Western market in textile factories.
Kristian Labusga is taking part in the SIGGRAPH Computer Animation Festival for the second time with his film “Rebel with a Cause.” At the 35th conference in Los Angeles in August 2008, the computer animation “Morula,” which he produced with Anja Hartmann and Stephan Schäfholz, was shown. In “Morula,” a mulberry serves as a symbol for the life cycle from birth through youth to maturity.
For Stuttgart Media University, “Rebel with a Cause” is the third SIGGRAPH entry. In 2007, the computer animation “Video 3000” by Jörg Edelmann, Jörn Großhans, Jochen Hausecker, Simon Schleidt and Marc Schleiss was shown there. It depicts the lead character Rolf attempting to inaugurate a new video recorder in his living room at home. He discovers that he can control the real world from his television chair using the remote control.
Further links:
- “Rebel with a Cause” – the film online
