The Persistence of Animation

Vertigo, Nausea, Menace and Grace
(Preconstituted Panel: Anime Experiences)

Abstract: This paper will build on the work of Thomas Lamarre, Philip Brophy, William Moritz, Rick Thompson and Esther Leslie to furnish a means to approach the sensibly insensible. The paper will use four extremes as points of reference — vertigo, nausea, menace and grace — each coupled with a specific five-second sequence from anime productions (Initial D, FLCL, Fist of the North Star, Revolutionary Girl Utena). By delving into close study in this way, this presentation aims to scratch the surface of extreme physical sensations in animation (and specifically, anime) forms.

Biographical Statement: Christian McCrea is a writer and Lecturer in Games and Interactivity at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. His work peers over the fences of digital culture’s sensory dimension, and his 2008 article in Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal concentrated on the radical experience of animated bodily excesses. Also, he has recently written on digital hauntology, dandy game heroes, the spectatorship of strategy and the aesthetic of bursting bodies in both games and anime.

Performing Characters: An Audience-Centered Analysis

Abstract: This paper asks how “actual” audiences understand performance in stop motion and puppet animation films, drawing methods of empirical, qualitative analysis from the wider field of media reception and ethnography. Some of the key questions I have in conducting this study are: Do our current frameworks for animation performance correspond with the viewing practices of audiences? What criteria do audiences find most importance for assessing a puppet’s or clay figure’s performance? Through a series of focus groups and interviews, participants related their interpretations of short animations, emphasizing the importance of character and raising unexpected issues for audience identification.

Biographical Statement: Laura Ivins-Hulley is a doctoral student studying film and media at Indiana University. Her research includes inquiries into animated performance and spectatorship, and this paper attempts to help widen the methodologies available in the study of both. To that end, this fall she will begin a project on adults’ memories of Saturday-morning cartoons, examining how they narrate their childhoods and identities through them.