Thomas Hawranke

Thomas Hawranke, Ph.D. is a professor of Motion Design and Animation at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle. He earned his practice-based doctorate at Bauhaus University Weimar and taught in the field of Transmedia Space and Multispecies Storytelling at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. His research focuses on the representations of animal-human relationships, games, animation & artificial intelligence, and artistic research with playful methodologies.

Selected Publications: 

Dreier-Wang, Pascal Marcel, and Hawranke, Thomas. 2026. Play Vegan – Veganismus im Computerspiel. In: Veganismus in Medien, Kultur und Bildung, edited by Schluchter, Jan-René, 121–136. Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven der Vegan Studies. Munich: kopaed.

Hawranke, Thomas. 2025. The Urge to Tell: Player-designed Narratives & Machinima Making. In: Video arte Ludica – Videogioco, cinema, machinima, 41–82. Milan: Mimesis Edizioni.

Scherffig, Lasse, and Hawranke, Thomas. 2024. Gassi gehen im Latent Space. In Virtuelle Tiere: Lebewesen zwischen Code und Kreatur, edited by Bolinski, Ina, Hawranke, Thomas, and Rieger, Stefan, 101–126. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag.

Hawranke, Thomas, and Weber, Tabea Sabrina. 2024. Becoming Cat – Looking at Species, Environment, and Aesthetics in Stray. In: Tiere – Medien – Bildung: Mediendidaktische Annäherungen an die Cultural Animal Studies (Teil 2), 167–184. Munich: kopaed.