Devon Damonte

Devon Damonte is an independent experimental animator who makes, teaches, and shows handmade direct motion graphics on film. He also frequently teaches workshops and lectures on direct animation at such venues as Harvard University, Ottawa International Film Festival, Rhode Island School of Design, and the Northwest Film Center (Portland, OR). Damonte was formerly the program director for Boston Film Video Foundation and the Olympia Film Festival and has worked as an arts administrator, programmer, and educator on both coasts. His animation works have screened as part of various exhibits, including Animations at PS 1 Contemporary Arts Center in New York, the Telluride International Experimental Cinema Exposition, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, and the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Lisbon, Portugal. His films were recently included in screenings as part of the Visual Music exhibition at MoCA in Los Angeles and the Holland Animation Festival in Utrecht, Holland, as well as Independent Exposure at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, among others. His film Catcycle screened at the 11th Cairo Benniale. Damonte frequently writes about experimental animation for various journals. He has worked previously as a film programmer and arts administrator, and studied at San Francisco State University and The Evergreen State College.

As part of his Fellowship’s Meet the Artist requirements, Devon visited the NOVA School in Olympia where he showed his 16mm handmade camera-less motion graphics. He projected one film on the stage of the school auditorium (a converted church sanctuary) to show the mechanics in action, and the other at the back of the room for a giant image with surround sound. “It was fun to interact with kids that are more media savvy than any generation in history, with an incredible range of tools at their fingertips, but a generation removed from the ‘old school’ clunky projectors and scratchy film that you can touch.” Putting the technology center-stage helped the students appreciate their place in technological history, and encouraged them to think “outside the box” about using tools in alternative ways to realize new visions.