Aristofanis Soulikias

Thesis title: Sensing the city: revealing urban realities and potentials through handmade film animation

Aristofanis Soulikias is an architect and film animator.  He is a PhD student at Université de Montréal, in the Individualized Program in Architecture, under the supervision of Dr. Carmela Cucuzzella and Dr. Jean-Pierre Chupin, pursuing an interdisciplinary research-creation study with the title: Sensing the city: revealing urban realities and potentials through handmade film animation, which aims at evaluating the tactile qualities of crafting film-animation with regard to the possibilities of imagining but also perceiving the haptic and temporal nature of architecture – given the increasing presence of stop-motion techniques due to adapted digital technologies.  His research is conducted through experiments in drawn and paper-cut silhouette animation that are impressions of architectural and urban spaces as lived and “animated”.  His theoretical framework lies on studies on cinema and architecture, artisanal animation practices, and the importance of the human body in making and experiencing architecture.

He holds a B.Sc and a B.Arch from McGill University, an MA in Building Conservation from the University of York, UK, and a BFA, Major in Film Animation, from Concordia’s Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema.  His graduation film, Last Dance on the Main, was selected by TIFF’s Canada’s Top Ten for the year 2014.  During his initial stage of his PhD studies at Concordia University, he was the recipient of the Jorisch Family Artist Residency in Salzburg, Austria and for the academic year 2022-2023 he was named Public Scholar, assigned to promote his research and his institution to the general public through a series of public events and publications.  His research is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.