Paper: animation and sound by Fin McMorran
additional "boring lecture" material by Nick Round (thanks)
the convenor - Warrren Harrison
the speaker - Paul Baldwin
the fish - Mark Hill

The speaker is giving a paper on Cervantes, or Gabriel Tarde, or possibly goats. He definitely mentions "imitative rays springing from the head of the genius".

Backstory: This short was inspired by a conference paper I attended but failed to understand, due to having missed the beginning by rudely talking. The speaker was rather dry, and I struggled to follow so instead started doodling, inspired by the phrase in quotes. Later, I started developing the doodle into a movie idea, and told a friend I needed a Boring Lecture for the soundtrack. Bizarrely, she replied that she had just the thing, a lecture her dad (Nick Round) had written for a charity "Boring Lecture" competition at Sheffield University, which he won. He kindly gave me free run of the lecture.

Needless to say the speaker here does not represent the colleague who presented at the conference, and certainly does not represent his actual paper. Also, Mark Hill is not an actual fish.