Panoply in Canada. Adventures at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

In our last post, we shared pictures of the new ancient warfare exhibition in Warsaw which features Panoply’s Hoplites! Greeks at War. This week we have photos Olympus! Olympus: The Greco-Roman Collections of Berlin is an exhibition of Greek and Roman artefacts on loan to the Winnipeg Art Gallery in Canada. The exhibition includes several Panoply vase animations which are displayed in specially built viewports.

Above, Olympus catches the eye on the exterior of the Winnipeg Art Gallery

There has been a lot of excitement surrounding Olympus, as it's the first exhibition of classical artefacts to be shown in the Manitoba region in more than 50 years. Over 160 artefacts have been leant by the National Museums in Berlin, including sculpture, vases, jewellery, and armour from sites such as Olympia, Vulci, and Pergamon.

Above, inside the exhibition, with children looking into one of the Panoply viewports at the back

The Panoply animations appear in special viewports throughout the exhibition, where visitors can watch the animations in-between the artefacts.

Above, children and adults see vase-scenes come to life

The exhibition is on display until the end of October. You can find out more on the exhibition website http://olympus.wag.ca/ and follow it on twitter using the hashtag #olympuswpg.

You may have noticed that we’ve made a few updates to the website. Most excitingly, we've added details of our new publications about the Panoply vase animations. Teachers and lecturers in particular might be interested in,‘Animations of Ancient Vase Scenes in the Classics Classroom’, in the Journal of Classics Teaching, which gives a survey of ways that the animations can be used in teaching and learning. You can access it for free via this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S2058631015000057. Hope you like it! Feel free to share it far and wide :)

Panoply's 'Pelops' in between some of the spectacular vases on show in the Olympus exhibition

Hoplites in Poland

Friends of Panoply will know that we are big fans of ancient warfare, so imagine how pleased we are that Panoply animation Hoplites! Greeks at War is featuring in a brand new ancient warfare exhibition at the National Museum in Warsaw!

Above, the impressive National Museum in Warsaw

‘Hoplites. On the Art of War of Ancient Greece,’ opened this month and will run until the end of December. Its curator is Dr Alfred Twardecki, Curator in Chief of the Collection of Ancient and East Christian Art. The exhibition features a fabulous collection of ancient artefacts, including a rare hoplite shield with an intact surface and interior fittings, a selection of wonderful helmets, and red and black figure vases showing scenes of ancient warfare.

Above, exhibits in the 'Hoplites' exhibition

Hoplites! Greeks at War has been included in the exhibition to provide a visual impression of hoplite warfare and to offer a creative slant on vases and iconography. The animation is on display in the exhibition gallery and received a warm response at the opening reception.

Above, ancient warfare enthusiasts crowd to watch Hoplites! at the exhibition opening.

In an exciting innovation, Hoplites! is on display with new audio. Dr Twardecki and a small team of students recorded a new sound-track based on the war poetry of the Spartan poet, Tyrtaios. Visitors to the exhibition can hear fragments 10 and 11 of Tyrtaios’ poetry sung in the original ancient Greek. I have included an English translation from fragment 11 below so that you can see just how appropriate it is for a warfare exhibition. It also provides a good example of what a confusing place the archaic Greek battle-field could be, with missiles flying this way and that as well as spears and swords taking a swipe:

You know those who dare to go into close-range
and press toward engagement at the front
die in less numbers, with ranks behind them
protected; those who run, lose all esteem.
The list is endless of the ills that hurt
the man who learns to think the coward’s thoughts…
Plant foot by enemy’s foot, press shield on shield,
Thrust helm at helm, and tangle plume with plume,
Opposing breast to breast: that’s how to fight,
With the long spear or sword-grip in your hand.
You light-armed men, wherever you can aim
from the shield-cover, pelt them with great rocks
and hurl at them your smooth-shaved javelins,
helping the armoured troops with close support.
Tyrtaeus 11 (Greek, 7th century BCE)

We hope that this will be the first step in a long and productive collaboration between Panoply and the National Museum in Warsaw. We are part of the team established by Prof. Katarzyna Marciniak of the University of Warsaw for a project called 'Our Mythical Childhood... The Reception of Classical Antiquity in Children’s and Young Adults’ Culture in Response to Regional and Global Challenges'. If the project is funded, Panoply will make a series of vase animations from the NMW's fabulous collection of ancient vases, showing how mythical creatures filled the imaginations of the ancient Greeks and how they continue to inspire art and education today. The animations would be available to visitors to the museum to watch alongside the vases they are made from and they would be posted on the Panoply site for free world-wide access. Wish us luck with the application!

The National Museum in Warsaw is open from Tuesday-Sunday. You can find out more about its exhibitions and permanent collection through its website at: http://www.mnw.art.pl/en/, and there is more on 'Hoplites. The Art of War of Ancient Greece' on the exhibition webpage. Photos courtesy of The National Museum in Warsaw.

Irish Schools’ Storyboarding Competition

This week, we’re pleased to be celebrating the winners of the Iris Schools’ Storyboarding Competition. Congratulations to Eamonn O’Broin and Frank O’Grady of Gonzaga College, Dublin! Their winning storyboard will be transformed into a vase animation over the summer and, come September, it will form part of the display in the UCD Classical Museum.

Above, at Gonzaga College: winners Eamonn O’Broin and Frank O’Grady with their storyboard, with Panoply animator Steve Simons, curator Dr Jo Day and classics teacher Dr Lucy Corcoran.

The competition challenge was to interpret the scene on the vase below and to plan a short animation based on that scene. The competition was sponsored by The Classical Association of Ireland – Teachers (CAI-T, http://www.caiteachers.com/) as a way to encourage young people to interact thoughtfully and creatively with ancient artefacts. The competition was open to all under-18s in Irish schools that study classical civilisation or ancient languages. Gonzaga College has a fine tradition of teaching both Classical Studies and Latin and Greek, and Eamonn and Frank’s win is another feather in the cap of this classics-loving school.

You may recognise the vase. It is indeed the same vase that featured in The Procession. The Procession’s story was planned by MA students studying at University College Dublin. The MA students storyboarded The Procession as part of an exhibition they put together for the museum about creating and using vases in antiquity. The exhibition provided competition entrants with plenty to think about regarding vases, while The Procession offered an example of what vase animations are and what might be going on in the scene. The chance to have two animations made from the same vase is an excellent way to show how different people interpret artefacts and respond creatively in different ways. Two isn’t the limit! Although the competition might be closed, you (or your class) can still look at the vase and plan your own alternative storyboards.

The competition was judged by curator Dr Jo Day, Dr Aude Doody and Dr Alan Ross, all from the UCD School of Classics, while Panoply animator Steve Simons flew in to offer advice on what would or wouldn’t work well in animation. The judges were impressed by all the responses to the vase made by the entrants. The winners’ entry stood out, however, and was admired for the clarity and unity of its story, its re-watchable quality, and the fact that it will help visitors to understand the vase scene. Curator Jo Day has said of the winning storyboard: ‘We really liked the inventive way the characters use the whole scene, hanging from the decorative border and dropping in to the action. As a teaching tool it encourages you to think about how the whole vase works together, front and back, figures and decoration.’


Above, a tricky decision as the winner is chosen.

Steve visited the winners’ class in Gonzaga College to talk to them about how vase animations are made. He had a special meeting with Eamonn and Frank so that the two winners could explain their vision for the animation in person.

Above, Steve talks vase animation with pupils at Gonzaga College, Dublin.

The new animation will be launched at a special event at the University College Dublin Classical Museum in September – watch this space for more details. Well done to everyone who took part in the competition. A big thank-you to competition sponsors, Classical Association of Ireland – Teachers. And finally, another massive CONGRATULATIONS to Frank and Eamonn.

Panoply Vase Animations in the Long Night of the Museums.

All over Europe, museum-lovers have been gathering for night-time celebrations of the collections and activities in Europe’s wonderful museums.

At Panoply, Steve and I have been delighted that some of our vase animations have been included in these splendid events. In Germany, 40 museums took part in Leipzig’s annual event, The Long Night of the Museums. Panoply’s involvement came via a special vase animation screening at Leipzig University’s Institute of Classical Archaeology and Antiquities Museum. The screening, including Hoplites! Greeks at War, Heracles, and The Cheat, gave visitors a chance to see vase scenes come to life and invited them to look afresh at the ancient vases in the museum’s collection. An elegant, neoclassical hall provided a charming backdrop to this celebration of classical culture.

This screening of Panoply animations was the brainchild of Dr. Hans-Peter Müller, who is a researcher at the Leipzig Museum of Antiquities, with specialism in modern conservation and restoration practices, particularly work with casts of ancient statues. The event was hosted by Marco Blechschmidt, an archaeology postgraduate student at the University of Leipzig. Marco provided an insightful commentary throughout the evening, giving an introduction to the Panoply Project, explaining the mythological and historical background to the animations, and presenting information on the vases the animations were made from. The event was attended by young and old proving once again that no one is too young for the beauty of ancient vases or too old for the joy of animation.

If you’d like to get involved in the Long Night of the Museums, visit the project website to find out about Long Night 2016 and to see images of other events from this year.

If you’d like to license vase animations for your museum or gallery, feel free to get in touch via our contacts page.

In other news, the winner of the Irish Schools Storyboarding Competition has been chosen. Photos and a full account will follow soon. Watch this space or follow us on Twitter (via the link above) or Facebook for updates.

Panoply News. New Animation Next Week

It's been a busy and cheerful couple of months for the Panoply Vase Animation Project.

We've celebrated the release of a chapter about the Panoply vase animations in Advancing Engagement: A Handbook for Academic Museums, Volume 3. Written by me (i.e. Sonya!) and Amy Smith, curator of the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology, ‘Using Animation for Successful Engagement, Promotion, and Learning’ offers details on the vase animation projects undertaken at the Ure Museum and guidance on including animation and storyboarding activities in teaching and museum practice. It’s also been a real pleasure to read the other chapters in the book, which offer insights into all sorts of projects and good practice in leading museums.

Another enjoyable development has been Panoply’s contribution to the 9th Nyon International Festival of Archaeological Films. Hoplites! Greeks at War was flying the flag for vase animation and we’re really pleased that it was shown at such a fantastic event.

This evening we’re exploring another artist’s experiments with ancient Greek pottery by attending the opening of The Labours of Herakles exhibition at the Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge. Marian Maguire has created original artwork drawing on black-figure vases, imagining Herakles as a New Zealand pioneer, taming the land. Wonderful work. You can see examples online and the exhibition is running until 15th August 2015.

In exciting further developments, we will have a new animation for you next week, and Steve is busy at work on a truly wonderful piece that will be out in the summer...

The World of Ancient Music: An Interview with Prof. Conrad Steinmann

Today we’re hearing from Professor Conrad Steinmann, a musician and musical archaeologist specialising in the instruments and music of Classical Greece. Prof. Steinmann lectures at the renowned music institute, Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland, and leads the Melpomen Ensemble, a group who create and perform music in the classical Greek style. We love Melpomen’s music so much that Prof. Steinmann kindly allowed use it on a number of our animations, including Heracles, Sirens, and Medusa.
Prof. Steinmann talks to us here about the sounds and signs of ancient music…
(Please be aware that this interview contains an image of a human burial).

1. What sparked your interest in ancient music?
It’s my curiosity to know what we can find beyond the surface, to scratch this surface and to find a look into a space where things begin. Of course I loved always, since my childhood, the ancient Greek world.

2. You’re a musical archaeologist as well as a musician. Can you tell us a little about what musical archaeology involves?
It depends whether you focus more the musical side or rather the academic side of archaeology. I’m personally a musician with empirical experiences with deep and far going interests in history and archaeology, but my starting point will ever be music making with exactly reconstructed instruments, the sensual approach also to the music of Greece in the 6th and 5th c. BC.

3. How do you use vase iconography in your work?
Many musical scenes and musical instruments are depicted on vases. I found out that vase paintings between 510 and 480 BC show in an extremely realistic way all the details and proportions of the instruments, realistic enough to be of essential help for an instrument maker, in my case the Swiss Paul J. Reichlin.

A charming example of an ancient depiction of aulos playing.

4. Is there much difference in the representation of musical instruments between black and red figure vases?
As I said before, it’s less the difference between black and red figure vases, but much more the time period which shows useable paintings. Nevertheless it has to be said, that we have finally more red figured pottery surviving from antiquity, which serves us to give a lively impression of how instruments could have been.

A burial from Pydna which, unusually, includes a set of aulos pipes (left)

5. Playing the aulos looks really difficult; is it very different to playing other wind instruments?
Well, the aulos is definitely difficult to play and difficult to get prepared with its single reeds. Then, of course circular breathing has to be learnt as well as a special technique to articulate with the fingers instead of the tongue.

6. Who’s your favourite ancient Greek?
I always liked the Athenian comedy writer Aristophanes with his specific and at the same time timeless wit and humour. As a child I admired Herakles and now, as a musician of so called Greek music, I love songwriters such as Sappho or Anakreon with their eternal beauty and wisdom.

Many thanks to Professor Steinmann for sharing his thoughts with us. For more on Melpomen and their work, visit www.melpomen.ch and check out their albums, Sappho and her Time (2010) and Melpomen(2005).

The Procession and a procession of workshops

First things first, we hope you like The Procession, our shiny new animation made for the University College Classical Museum. For more information on the project in which it was developed, scroll down to the previous post.

It’s been a busy time for Panoply. Sonya was at the lovely Loughborough High School in Leicestershire talking vases and ancient warfare with their super switched on classics loving girls.

Shortly afterwards, Sonya gave a presentation for classicists, historians and theologians at the Digby Stuart research centre for religion, society, and human flourishing at the University of Roehampton. This paper was encouraging people to use vase animations or animation related activities for teaching about ancient religion – particularly about ancient depictions of gods and religious activities.

Then it was off to the East Oxford Community Classics Centre. Year 9 sessions on vases and ancient religion led to lots of great questions and great ideas. At a follow-up public kids’ session we watched The Procession, talked about gods, festivals and sacrifices, and followed up with some arty decorating of bulls heads – the perfect offering for the gods who has everything. Always plenty of ancient action at the EOCCC.

Next stop Nottingham, for a BA students’ special workshop on communicating classics. This was part of the classics department’s independent research module. Sonya outlined what Panoply have been doing over the last few years and we watched Clash of the Dicers, The Cheat, and The Procession. Sarah Cole of Time/Image talked digital projects, not least the rise of 3D printing. And John Swogger presented the very cool work he does presenting proper archaeology in comic book format: https://johngswogger.wordpress.com. The Uni of Nottingham students will plan their own classics projects – can’t wait to see what they come up with. Great module. Thanks to Dr Lynn Fotheringham for the invite to talk.

Meanwhile work has begun on our new project; more on that soon. Our next bog will feature an interview with ancient music specialist, Prof. Conrad Steinmann.