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Barbican's Anime Season Includes Shoji Kawamori Talk on September 17

The upcoming season of anime films in September at London's Barbican centre, called Anime's Human Machines, is listing a screen talk by Shōji Kawamori (The Super Dimension Fortress Macross) on Tuesday September 17 at 6.30 p.m. The talk, which will run approximately 90 minutes, is described on the Barbican website:

"We are delighted to welcome special guest Shōji Kawamori for an illustrated talk looking back over his career. Executive director at the animation studio Satelight, Mr Kawamori has worked in the anime industry for over forty years as a director, screenwriter, creator of original stories, mechanical designer, and story-boarder.

"Part of the team involved in the creative planning for The Super Dimension Fortress Macross anime series, he designed its iconic transforming “variable fighter” mecha, known as “Valkyries”, wrote its central story lines and oversaw most of the main instalments in the franchise. He has also worked on many television series, and contributed mechanical design work to many films, including two in our season Patlabor: The Movie (1989) and Ghost in the Shell (1995).

"His talk is illustrated with images and clips from his work and includes a Q&A with the audience."

The Barbican season also includes a screening of Ghost in the Shell (the original 1995 film) on the following day, Wednesday September 18 at 8.45 p.m., which will be introduced by Kawamori.

The Anime's Human Machines season will include the following events:

Thursday September 12 - 6.30 p.m. Tetsuo, The Iron Man, preceded by panel discussion including Jasper Sharp, Nicole Coolidge Rousmaniere and Rayna Denison.

Saturday September 14 - 6 p.m. Macross Plus Movie Edition, pictured right

Sunday September 15 - 4 p.m. Patlabor: The Movie, pictured left

Tuesday September 17 - 6.30 p.m. Shōji Kawamori illustrated talk

Wednesday September 18 - 8.45 p.m. Ghost in the Shell, with introduction by Shōji Kawamori

Tuesday September 24 - 6.45 p.m. Roujin Z (with introduction)

Saturday September 28 - 6 p.m. Summer Wars (with introduction)

Sunday September 29 - 4 p.m. Metropolis (with introduction)

Monday September 30 - 8.45 p.m. Paprika (with introduction)

The curator is Helen McCarthy. The season is described as follows:

In 1963 Osamu Tezuka's TV series Astro-Boy brought a new kind of robot to Japan. The robot child with a loving heart began a line of compelling, conflicted cyborgs whose existence challenges humanity.

Japanese animation has embraced robotics, cybernetics and artificial intelligence as major themes. More interestingly, it uses these themes to explore complex moral and social questions: humanity's responsibility for its actions, response to the other, greed, short-termism, failure to care for the ecosystem that sustains us.

Our season examines the challenge of the man-machine interface through eight films on various aspects of humanity's response to technological change. One interesting factor to emerge from these films is how our own view of technology has changed since the earliest was released. Another is how humanity still refuses responsibility for the impact of our actions. These films give no answers, but suggest responses.

Anime's Human Machines is part of the Barbican's Life Rewired season exploring what it means to be human when technology is changing everything.