The Persistence of Animation

Kinesic constructions: an aesthetic analysis of movement and performance in 3D animation

Abstract: The issue of movement is central to any discussion of the nature of animation. This paper will neglect abstract movement, focusing on performance in narrative animation and considering this concept in animation films expressed in the kinesic performance of the character(s). The analysis will focus on 3D digital animation, specifically Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and Final Fantasy VII Advent Children. The paper will draw on the work of Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen, utilizing their lexicon for reading images, considering the appropriateness of their use for the moving image in general and the animated moving image in particular.

Biographical Statement: I am presently completing a PhD in Film Studies focusing on animation theory. My interest lies in understanding the nature of animation as and in film and how this is aesthetically interpreted. My focus is on narrative animation and the various forms and styles that can be applied to this type of animation. The analysis in this paper uses the work of Kress and van Leeuwen. Their work, discussing two and three dimensional imagery, is central to my thesis.

Primitive Movers: Live Performance in Digital Animation

Abstract: This paper focuses on the developing contemporary genre of live animation performances, which include the body of the animator alongside projected images of his or her making. I examine these live performances within the context of the self-figurative animation tradition, but also within the context of current digital cinema debates and practices. As I argue in the paper, corporeal expression remains an important feature of traditional animation — one that insists on maintaining an embodied creative presence within moving image representations. Although the paper touches on the works of numerous contemporary artists, the paper focuses on the works of Kathy Rose and Pierre Hebert.

Biographical Statement: Alla Gadassik conducts research on hybrids of live-action and animation, early animation history, and digital cinema theory. She is particularly interested in animation as a form of embodied filmmaking — one that resonates with other filmmaking practices, but also suggests distinctive transformative possibilities within digital cinema. Alla holds an MA in Communication and Culture from York/Ryerson Universities (Toronto), and is currently pursuing her PhD in Screen Cultures at Northwestern University (Chicago). In addition to pursuing an academic career, Alla is a digital filmmaker/animator. She has taught digital media in the Radio and Television program at Ryerson University (Toronto), and hopes to combine theory and practice in her future teaching projects.

High Definition, Moderate Definitions and Low Level Analysis
(Preconstituted Panel: Anime Experiences)

Abstract: From the false monad of the pixel, we now zoom out to the polygon as candidate for stable signifier of digital processes. In the post-polygon digital image, tropes of the analogue are retrieved, in the form of perceptual cues and intellectual caveats. Lens flare, shaking camera, focal depth defer to the authority of the cinematic analogue, but highlight the intellectually and creatively precarious nature of the digital image which, like the roman mosaic, cannibalises the material terms of its own image to remain contemporaneous with its referent culture.

Biographical Statement: David Surman is Senior Lecturer in Computer Games Design and Course Leader of the BA (Hons) Computer Games Design degree at the University of Wales Newport. He holds degrees in fine art, animation and film. He is primarily interested in the relationship between theory and practice in digital visual culture, with an emphasis on computer games design. His writing on games and animation has featured in The Times, The Boston Globe, Gamasutra, Edge and Vertigo. He is an editorial board member for Games and Culture and Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal. His current interests include contemporary Japanese visual media, digital aesthetics and games design. He is author of The Videogames Handbook (Routledge, 2009) and co-editor of Animated Worlds (John Libbey, 2007).

It’s a Bird. It’s a Plane. It’s Bob Parr? Narrative Discourse in The Incredibles

Abstract: As Pixarʼs first film concentrating on humans rather than anthropomorphized characters, The Incredibles questions the similarities — and differences — between live-action and computer- animated films. The Incredibles blurs the line between live-action and animation, but, complicates vocabulary in traditional animation and live-action contexts, creating a new vocabulary. A close analysis of The Incredibles’ mise-en-scene reveals the film questions semantic/syntactic uses of super-hero genre. Pixarʼs style of animation forgets the cartoonal, moving the image from spectacle to a suitable cultural text, reflecting reality. I propose that The Incredibles exemplifies the growing relationship between live-action and computer animation

Biographical Statement: Chris is a NYU Graduate Student in Cinema Studies. His collegiate career began at Clemson University, receiving a BA in Computer Science. His real degree should have been dabbling since he took courses across the spectrum of studies: Art, Programming, Animation, Creative Writing, and Theatre. Graduating, getting married, and moving to Brooklyn, May 2008 was a busy month for him. Since things have settled, Chris has noticed that many of the theories, histories, and readings fail to address, or justify, his love of Goofy shorts, Pixar, and Frank & Ollie. He is currently trying to find how his love for animation can fit into his academic pursuits. As part of his inquiry Chris is presenting a paper on The Incredibles at Yale in late January. As an undergraduate he used eye-tracking technology to see how edits affected spectatorship in Toy Story.

“Softspace” and Hybrid Images: Animated World as Media Interface in Speed Racer

Abstract: This paper aims at theorizing the ways in which today’s software-generated feature filmmaking creates the space for reassembling a very rich set of heterogeneous media images, by examining Speed Racer, directed by the the Wachowski brothers in collaboration with John Gaeta, in terms of demonstrating how a software-driven representation plays an integral part in combining and structuring multiple ways of image making—2D photographic image, 3D computer graphic imagery, 2D motion graphics, lens-based video image, and simulated image. I would argue that the computer-generated frame for animating different media images needs to be articulated under a new spatial parameter for movement—what I would call “softspace.”

Biographical Statement: Ji-hoon Kim is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Cinema Studies at NYU, where he is currently working on a dissertation entitled “Intermedia Arts and the Moving Image: Photography, Film, Video, and the Digital.” His research interests include film/media theory, experimental film and video, expanded cinema, and digital moving images. His essays will be published in the 50th anniversary issue of Screen (Spring 2009) and two anthologies, Global Art Cinema: New Theories and Histories (eds., Rosalnd Galt and Karl Schoonover, Oxford University Press) and The Place of the Moving Image (eds. John David Rhodes and Elena Gorfinkel, University of Minnesota Press).