Max Hattler is an artist, researcher, curator and educator working with abstract animation, video installation, audiovisual performance and optical sound. He holds an MA in Animation from the Royal College of Art and a Doctorate in Fine Art from the University of East London. His work explores the relationships between abstraction and figuration, sound and image, synaesthetic experience, and expanded approaches to binocular vision.

Hattler’s films and installations have been shown at festivals and institutions worldwide, including Annecy International Animation Film Festival, Ars Electronica, ZKM Center for Art and Media, MOCA Taipei and Beijing Minsheng Museum. Awards include Punto y Raya Festival (2023, 2014), the Optical Sound Award at Flatpack Festival (2024), New Chitose Airport International Animation Festival (2024), Best Experimental Film at Diogenes Festival (2026), Exground Filmfest (2024), Cannes Lions (2013) and London International Animation Festival (2008, 2019). He has performed live at venues including Fest Anca, Anifilm Festival, Playgrounds Festival, Vienna Shorts, Animafest Zagreb, Seoul Museum of Art and the European Media Art Festival.

His recent creative work centres on optical sound synthesis — a practice in which the entire film frame is designed to function as a sonified surface, so that every visual element directly generates sound. Key recent works include the multi-award-winning O/S (2023), Norm (2025), and the live performance Pattern/Sound: Live (2024–). His experimental animated documentaries TWENTYTИƎWT / 二〇二〇 (2023) and Serial Parallels (2019) interrogate Hong Kong’s cityscape through the lens of expanded stereoscopy and photographic re-animation, respectively.

Hattler founded and curates Relentless Melt, an ongoing series dedicated to abstract and experimental animation from Hong Kong and beyond, which has presented over 45 programmes at venues in Hong Kong, London, Berlin, Taipei, Ningbo, Denver, Serbia, Iceland and elsewhere since 2017. He serves as Leader of the Bachelor in Creative Media (BACM) programme. He is a Fellow of the International Institute of Film Science and Art and has served on juries for Animafest Zagreb, SIGGRAPH Asia, Vienna Shorts, IFVA, Punto y Raya Festival, Feinaki Beijing Animation Week, Stuttgart International Animation Festival, and others.

Prior to joining the School of Creative Media in late 2014, Hattler was a Lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London (2006–2014) and a Visiting Lecturer at the Royal College of Art (2012–2014). In 2023 he was Visiting Artist at Film University Babelsberg, Germany.

His research focuses on visual music, optical sound and graphical sound, abstract and experimental animation, expanded stereoscopy, experimental animated documentary, and the use of generative AI in animation pedagogy.