Animation Universe

Introduction: Maureen Furniss, CalArts, USA

Panel Chair: Dr. Suzanne Buchan, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, UK

Panelists:
Dr. Paul Ward, Arts Institute at Bournemouth, UK
Bob Rehak, Swarthmore College, USA
Dr. Karin Wehn, University of Leipzig, Germany

With its unlimited potential to visually represent events, scenarios and forms that have little or no relation to our experience of the ‘real' world, animation is implemented in many ways in many disciplines. Yet especially since the digital shift, the uses of animation are no longer exclusive to narrative cinema. Artists increasingly incorporate animation in installations and exhibitions, and star architects use computer animation software to visualise interactive architectural ‘walk-throughs' or to create narratives of space in time. And creative output finds its way into games design and avant-garde high-tech computer sciences too. In institutions like IMTEK and MIT, researchers are exploring games industry software to interpret abstract concepts and nanoworlds for a breadth of industries ranging from biomedicine to structural engineering. The impact of this on animation's makers and audiences are and will be increasingly pervasive.

These themes are closely linked to the SAS conference theme and to core editorial aims of animation: an interdisciplinary journal: to reveal the multidisciplinary nature and cultural impact of animation; to support interdisciplinary approaches and methodologies; to foster collaboration between disciplines and cultures; to generate debates around the animated form, and to inform a wide readership about the contexts and innovations of animation. The panel, that includes members of the journal's editorial team and is chaired by the Editor, will open a discussion about animation in its myriad forms and applications across a wide band of creative and professional practice and industrial implementation, and will open to a discussion with the about how it will occupy increasing influence on our understanding of how we see the world through these fields.

Animation Universe - Session One Papers: Histories

Discussion Moderator: Hua Wang, Nagoya University, Japan

Animating The Inanimate And Making It Sing: The Genesis Of A Hollywood Cartoon Genre

Richard Leskosky, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

In the 1930's, chiefly at the Schlesinger animation studio, there arose a distinctive sub-genre of animated musical in which various inanimate objects (most often toys or figures on book covers) came to life and performed musical numbers involving singing and dancing. This sub-genre had its roots in the object animation of the silent cinema while sharing elements with the more straightforward musical revue cartoons of the time made to take easy advantage of recent developments in sound-on-film technology. This fantasy of vivified inanimate objects in turn contributed to the genesis of at least one other sub-genre (which I have called in an earlier paper the single invader saga) and occasionally formed hybrids with other sub-genres. It effectively disappeared in the mid-1940s. This paper relies on a modified version of Vladimir Propp's fairy tale analysis to describe the structures characterizing the sub-genre (as I have done previously in characterizing other animation sub-genres) and further examines this sub-genre, its genesis, its dynamic relationships with other sub-genres, and the possible reasons for its disappearance.

The Two Golden Ages of Animated Music Video

Gunnar Strøm, Volda University College, Norway

Music videos have been made since the mid 1960s and had its breakthrough in the mid 1970s. While animated images to music have been made all through film history, the animated music videos did not arrive until the mid 1980s with highlights like ‘Sledgehammer' by Peter Gabriel and ‘Take on Me' by A-Ha. They initiated what I call the first golden age of animated music video. In the paper I will discuss this surprisingly late arrival and the qualities of the animated music videos of the late 1980s. In the 1990s, the prestige of the music video format declined, and the animated music videos almost disappeared. In the last decade they are back with magnificent animated music videos by directors and producers like Michel Gondry, Jonas Odell, Jonathan Dayton/Valerie Faris, Shynola and H5. The paper will discuss these new animated music videos and compare them with the ‘classic' videos of the first golden age. Using a triangle model for analyses of music videos (Strøm 1988, Strøm 1992) an argument will be made that both groups of golden age videos belong to the concept kind of music videos (as different from concert and collage videos) and where the directors (more than the artists or the record companies) are the major reason for the success of the videos.

The Movie Brat Generation and the Animation Renaissance

Harvey Deneroff, Savannah College of Art and Design, USA

In this paper I propose to explore the role played by animation schools and live-action producers in the renaissance of American animation that began in 1979. Conventional narratives usually focus on Don Bluth leading an exodus of animators from Disney in 1979 and Roy Disney convincing Michael Eisner not to abandon feature animation at Disney in 1984. However, I believe the role played by several producers (some who are associated with the Movie Brat Generation) and animation schools also merit attention.

It was a time when graduates of Sheridan College's Classic Animation and CalArts's Character Animation programs started entering the industry in large numbers; these young Turks included Brad Bird, Henry Selick, John Kricfalusi, Tim Burton and John Lasseter; in a very real sense, they were following in the footsteps of film school graduates of the 1960s who made up the Movie Brat Generation, and were eager for change.

At the same time, several important producers, including Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Gary Kurtz (Star Wars, episodes 4-5), moved into animation. Spielberg, of course, produced the Family Dog episode of his Amazing Stories TV series, as well as An American Tail, Land Before Time (with Lucas) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Lucas founded what became Pixar and digital effects pioneer ILM. And Kurtz, among other projects, funded the legendary 1984 attempt by Brad Bird to adapt Will Eisner's The Spirit as an animated film.

Finally, I will also explore the role of Tom Wilhite, who, while at Disney, backed John Lasseter's post-Tron and pre-Pixar attempt to make The Brave Little Toaster using both drawn and computer animation; he also buys Who Censored Roger Rabbit? for Disney, before going on to co-found Hyperion Studios (The Brave Little Toaster, Bébé's Kids and The Proud Family).

Glory Box Folksonomies—Immanence and Martyrdom in Modern Animation

Amalia Levari, CalArts, USA

The difference between the production experience in traditional filmmaking and animation is that in the latter, the process is slowed down to a molecular degree. A typical film might contain 100 cuts, while a feature-length animation might contain 144,000 frames, each considered with relatively exhausting discretion. Filtering one's vision through the medium often requires animators to allot a great deal of attention to each moment of expression. In this way, the act of releasing that message to an audience takes on a rare weight, an intimacy and vulnerability; the film develops the precariousness of the compilation of a hope chest for a marriage which might never materialize.

I aim to address the audience-animator dynamic by examining two films— one which reached audiences in the form its creator intended, and one which did not. The former, Tale of Tales, directed by Yuri Norstein, was nearly prevented from reaching completion, then release, before being chosen by an international jury as the greatest animated film of all time. The latter, The Thief and the Cobbler, directed by Richard Williams, experienced a slow, painful death at the hands of studios, but has been resurrected by its fans using open-source technologies. Both conceptually ambitious and innovative in the scope of their technique, the films made living martyrs of their creators, and prompted the birth of folksonomies to perpetuate the myths, rumors, and puzzled investigations the pieces elicited. Though both men continue their work, their respective experiences with these films steeled their reputations as tragic dreamers.

Animation Universe - Session Two Papers: Works in the Making

Discussion Moderator: Luke Baldwin Dubin, Brock University, Canada

"There is no place like Quickdraw, there is no place like Quickdraw": Calgary Alberta's Quickdraw Animation Society

Lynne Perras, University of Calgary, Canada

Canadian animator Richard Reeves has said this about the Quickdraw Animation Society: "'Even now...I click my heels together three times and repeat, there is no place like Quickdraw, there is no place like Quickdraw, there is no place like Quickdraw.'" Chris Robinson, writer and Artistic Director of the Ottawa International Animation Festival, argues that QAS (Quickdraw Animation Society) resembles the National Film Board in its glory years for the former's "wealth of creativity, dedication, passion and generosity." Andy Jaremko, animator at QAS, believes the place at which he works and the group of artists to which he belongs are not only unique in Canada, but unique in the world. Such praise and admiration are not unusual for QAS that calls itself "a unique organization operated by animation artists, dedicated to the production, education, and appreciation of animation" (QAS pamphlet, 2006). It is neither an institute nor a school per se, but elements of each exist. The society encourages, supports, and trains both aspiring and seasoned animators in a multitude of ways, whether they be artistically, philosophically, or technically.

What makes QAS unique and noteworthy, however, is not only its friendly and inclusive atmosphere; the fact that the society has been able to progress and thrive since 1984 given its location is remarkable. Calgary, Alberta is a prairie city whose focus centers almost exclusively on oil and gas and the corporate sector. Although there is an artistic community, its strength pales in comparison to that enjoyed by big business. That QAS flourishes in such a location speaks to its tenacity. Canada's main center of animation, the National Film Board, has traditionally been in Ontario and Quebec, provinces that are both geographically and ideologically separated by great distances. The fact that QAS is happily sustaining itself so far removed from the heart of Canadian animation also points to the society's perseverance and appeal.

Advertising and Animation Auteurism

Phil Anderson, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, USA

This paper proposes a renewed analysis of animation in a contemporary, "cluttered" visual marketplace. It will focus on recent advertising campaigns while keeping an eye on the historical context.
Animation's usefulness in advertising was established long before television's arrival, as print and billboard advertisers recognized the distinctive persuasive abilities of illustrations, as opposed to photographs. Drawings have the advantage of showing surrogates or idealized characters, compared to photographically recorded models; they also, as advertising pioneer David Ogilvy claimed, "represent fantasy, which is less believable."
Despite Ogilvy's assertion, animation inherited drawing's persuasive potential once television arrived. And as filmed or video ads matched their Classical Hollywood film counterparts by keeping directors invisible, animated ads always had the potential to be better remembered for their styles and techniques if not also (belatedly) for their directors or designers. We know and treasure today the animated advertising work of Messmer, Fischinger, the Hubleys, Tex Avery, and the like.
Today, as digital manipulation has married photography with "fantasy"- often through surreal collages - animation seems resurgent as a special branding tool. It offers a quirky, whimsical self-definition for products and services, and applies a more auteurist approach in both materials and technique.
This presentation will primarily examine the recent, post-2002-bankruptcy United Airlines campaign, analyzing why the use of significant, globally established and esteemed animators was considered suitable for a resurgent branding effort. Among the animators involved are Paul Fierlinger, Alexander Petrov, Jamie Caliri, Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis, and Joanna Quinn.

The Ethnographical Imaginaries and Animating on the Internet: An Ethnography of Subcultural Communities in China

Weihu Wu, International Center for Advanced Studies, New York University, USA

This article reconceptualizes subcultural experiences and social imaginaries based on an ethnographic examination of the non-professional independent animators. Employing the subcultural and post-subcultural theories, the author's analysis builds on new subcultural theories and suggests a framework for how the animation communities initiate, structure and transform their subjectivity and aesthetic/socio-cultural images of being a part of a subculture.

Process And Product: A Pedagogical Praxis

Tony Tarantini, Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, Canada

In the 21st century, technology is changing the way in which we create in animation and the way in which we do business in the industry. In addition, technological advances make it possible for educational institutions to extend their sphere of influence and interact with industry. As important as these new technology tools and approaches are, technology in and of itself will not result in better animation products. If we neglect to develop the softer side of animation, we will be assisting in the development of animation products that are limited in vision and cold and dispassionate in delivery.

It is the intention of this paper to present a model that integrates the cognitive and skills requirements of an effective animator with qualities and characteristics from the affective domain. It is these latter skills that are as crucial to an individual's success as is his/her ability to contribute in a vocational capacity to animation projects. I would argue, in fact, that it is the combination of knowledge and skills related to the field and informed by technology with the interpersonal and collaborative skills essential to working in a field as dynamic as animation that elevate the process from vocation to craft profession.

This paper examines a particular case study—designed and developed by a team of faculty with industry expertise—which was the collaborative effort of teams of students engaged in developing and managing an animated film process and product from concept to production. The case study provides a model for designing and facilitating the development of animated group projects. It actively targets the development of collaborative skills and effective team dynamics to create a quality animated product and prepare students for the reality of collaborative industry projects.

Animation Universe - Session Three Papers: Reading the Action

Discussion Moderator: Amalia Levari, CalArts, USA

Spinning Pizzas and the Invisible Bus : 'Event Analysis' in Animated Storytelling

Paul Wells, Loughborough University, UK

As part of the preparation for a book on scriptwriting for animation, I interviewed a number of animators about their approach to writing, devising and creating animated films. Adam Elliot, creator of the Oscar-winning short, ‘Harvey Krumpet', spoke eloquently about his own work, for example, stressing that he avoided ‘spinning pizzas' - visual spectacle or virtuosity in animation for its own sake - and prioritised representing truthful observations of human foible and absurdity - literally the ‘invisible bus' that Harvey waits for at ‘Pleasant Paddocks', the care home he lives in. These were striking metaphors that seemed hugely correspondent to some key aspects in the creation of animated narrative that I was considering as part of a conceptual practice called ‘Event Analysis' - both a tool for the practical construction and critical deconstruction of animation texts.

This paper will, therefore, look at the particularities of developing and analysing animation texts through a structural model entitled ‘the Animation Matrix', and define the five point ‘Event Analysis' in relation to the distinctive language of animation, applying it to three models of visualisation in the animated text. Using the work of Barthes, Sobchack, Klein and Parker, as well as my own experience in scriptwriting for the broadcast industries, and aspects of narrative I explore in my text, ‘Understanding Animation', I wish to engage with animated storytelling as a design-based, objective-led imperative played out upon an axis of codified image-forms and motion, and the traditional conditions of script-development practice.

This approach will look at the determinants and discourse underpinning the development of animated narrative, and address form, objective, execution, and reception, inevitably taking into account the cross-disciplinary interfaces between performance, choreography, design, cinematography, etc in the definition of ‘the event' as a core aesthetic and conceptual premise in animated texts.

Finally, ‘Event Analysis' will be discussed as a working model which effaces theory and practice, as pertinent to the scriptwriter as the academic critic, rendering both as devisers of animated ideas.

The Use of Structuralism in Animation Analysis: Structural Relationships of Music and Images in Spirited Away

Hua Wang, Nagoya University, Japan

The general goal of my research is to find out how audiences enjoy animation. I would like to use the structuralism's methodology as one of my analyzing approach, and the animation will be Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away, 2002 Academic Award winner. Structuralism is an approach in academic disciplines that explores the relationships between fundamental elements of some kind. "structures" are built, through which then meaning is produced with in a particular person, system, or culture. Structuralism focused on the way that human behavior is determined by various structures. Since Joe Hisaishi (film music composer of Spirited Away) is acknowledged as a minimalist composer, and many people, especially popular music fans, find minimalist music less difficult music to listen to than serialism and other avant-garde classical music. So the purpose of my essay is aimed at demonstrating both the range of possible different types of such relationships, and their relative ‘openness' to varying kinds of reception and interpretation, depending on the mode of listening/viewing applied. By doing this, I hope it can help me to understand the complex relationship between image and sound and their final effect of combination bringing to audiences.

Half-Breed Dog, Half-Breed Film: Balto as Animelodrama

Amy Ratelle, Independent scholar, Canada

This paper will focus on the tensions inherent in the relationship between live-action and animation in the film Balto (1995) to examine how the indexical relationship of the live footage ostensibly serves to underscore the "based on a true story" aspect of the film that is seemingly undercut by the "core" animated text. However, if the animated narrative is examined as melodrama, then this live/animated relationship becomes fraught with deeper meaning.

Bookended between two live-action sequences of a grandmother and granddaughter visiting the memorial statue of Balto in Central Park, the core text of Balto is animated. The film is (loosely) based on the true story of the Great Serum Run of 1925, but the real focus of the narrative is Balto's reconciliation of his hybrid wolf/dog heritage. Marginalized, Balto seeks to win both canine and human societal acceptance by participating in the relay of crucial anti-toxins to Nome, Alaska.

Linda Williams, in "Melodrama Revised," notes that melodrama seeks the "dramatic revelation of moral and emotional truths through a dialectic of pathos and action" (42). Using this as a starting point, and given that the second live-action sequence reveals that the grandmother is the little girl of the animated text, this paper seeks to contribute to the discourse on the relationship between the live and the animated image by examining what is, arguably, a "hybrid" film, in that the animation and the live-action are kept separate, yet are both crucial to the understanding of Balto as melodrama.

Words, Gasps, and Beyond Articulation: Michaela Pavlatova's Erotic Universe

Miriam Harris, Unitec New Zealand

The theme of communication between the sexes, whether it be awkward or euphoric, is frequently employed by the Czech animator Michaela Pavlatova. In her 1991 animation, ‘Words, Words, Words', which was nominated for an Oscar, actual words are never spoken, but are embodied through symbols and body language to articulate whole personalities, shared histories, and relationships that are either budding or fizzled out long ago. In her most recent animation, the 2006 ‘Carnival of Animals', both animals and people inhabit the same erotically charged space with no differentiation created between the species, so that the vernacular phrase ‘bonking like bunnies', is literally realized.

It could be said that such symbolism is useful for an animator whose mother tongue is an Eastern European language; motifs rather than definitive Czech words universalize her subject matter, and the recurring theme of romantic relationships is an age-old concern shared by all cultures. However, while such an argument has validity, I think that Pavlatova's use of symbols goes even further than an understandable wish to appeal to a broad audience. Just as the artist Saul Steinberg drew attention to the arbitrary nature of language and communication by concretizing abstract concepts through drawn symbols, Pavlatova also raises questions about our reception of words and images, and invites a thoughtful interaction from her audience.

This paper will explore the issues outlined above by referring to a variety of Pavlatova's animated films, and semiotic theorists such as Roland Barthes and the text/image theorist W.J.T. Mitchell.

Animation Universe - Session Four Papers: Meaning within Movement

Discussion Moderator: Jeremy Schwartz, CalArts, USA

Animated Cycles and Modern Life-Machines

Victoria Meng, University of California, Los Angeles, USA

This paper specifies the mutually reinforcing relationship between a foundational technique in animation practice—cycles—and a key topic in animation theory—the illusion of life. Cycles are looped frames that may be regularly and infinitely repeated without an impression of discontinuity; animators generally use cycles to save labor and to simplify complex actions such as walks. Characterized by a high degree of automation and mechanical precision, cycles nonetheless excel at representing organic effects. Because animals perform many cyclical movements—a bird flaps its wings again and again to remain in flight, for example—there exists a felicitous convergence between animation's frame-based production apparatus and cinema's tendency to privilege anthropomorphic/anthropomorphosizing narratives. Moreover, the prevalence of cycles and modified-cycles in animation lend even inorganic objects an aura of vitality.

Animation cycles can therefore serve as an almost magical device or structure, a "life-machine" that help to sustain the "lifelike" qualities of animated characters and objects. On the other hand, cycles display a strict periodicity that rarely occurs in nature. Cycled animated movements thus perform an uncanny visual condensation of organicism and materialism, providing animators with the means to create preternatural hybrids of life and machine. Meanwhile, contemporary developments in digital and biological technologies have begun to transcend and transgress long-established distinctions between the living and non-living. Animated cycles thus exemplify the ubiquity of lifelike machines in contemporary society, and also provide a powerful visual metaphor for the inextricable relationship between our lives and our technologies.

The Uses and Abuses of Cartoon Style in Animation

Leslie Bishko, Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design + Media, Canada

"Cartoon style" in animation broadly refers to character design and movement that adheres to the 12 Principles of Animation, defined at the Disney Studios by the 9 Old Men. The Principles evolved through trial an error, by observing motion on-screen and noting what aspects of animated movement served the believability of the characters. To this day, the 12 Principles of Animation are known by all animators and used as a benchmark for good animation. Yet, these principles are not complete movement concepts. They influence a specific movement style that colors what an animated character expresses.

This paper explores the elements of cartoon style animated motion through the lens of Laban Movement Analysis (LMA), a conceptual framework for the observation, description and interpretation of movement that offers a robust movement vocabulary, addressing the relationship of intent to action. Cartoon style is outlined through its progression from Disney through Warner Brothers, and the influence of contemporary commercial production practices. LMA is used to uncover whether cartoon style influences a typified expressive modality among animated characters.

The paper exposes the fact that subtle layers of meaning are embedded within animated movement. Animators are encouraged to take creative responsibility for the movement design of their characters. It is an essential aspect of craft within the medium.

Lord of the Rotoscope

Ethan de Seife, Gettysburg College, USA

The popularity of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy has overshadowed the fact that J.R.R. Tolkien's story had been filmed about 25 years earlier. Perennial outsider Ralph Bakshi made an animated version of the story in 1978, in which he relied heavily on rotoscoping to create the movements and personalities of his characters.

Interestingly, the three films in Jackson's trilogy make significant use of rotoscoping's modern, digital manifestation: the creation of the animated character Gollum through a combination of motion-capture and digital animation.

A comparison of these films on a strictly technical level, though, tells us only that rotoscoping, in its many forms, is a useful and enduring technique. More interesting is a comparison of the ways in which these films use rotoscoping and/or digital animation for the purposes of characterization. The ways in which animated characters are designed—and, even more importantly, the manners in which they move—are significant factors in establishing their personalities. Character design and movement communicate to the audience animated characters' intentions, moods, and goals.

My paper focuses on the two film versions of The Lord of the Rings—specifically, on the ways in which rotoscoping is used for the purposes of character animation. The basis for the comparison is simple: same story, same characters, but significantly different characterizations. My goal is to study the role played by animation technique in marking these differences.

Pixilation and the Uncanny

Jeremy Schwartz, CalArts, USA

Pixilation, a rarely used stop motion technique utilizing human or animal actors as objects, bridges the gap between live action and animation. While often appearing in concert with live action, pixilation retains a sense of the uncanny—an uncomfortable strangeness—due to its connection with the ‘normal' of time, space and the body. Attempts to use or hide the uncanny in pixilation differ wildly between films such as ‘Tetsuo' and ‘The Wizard of Speed and Time.' This same relation to strangeness extends even to those disconnected from the history of the medium, such as the pixilation films found on YouTube.

Animation Universe - Session Five Papers: Identity and Character

Discussion Moderator: Ethan de Seife, Gettysburg College, USA

The Man in the Gray Flannel Cat Suit: Anthropomorphic Anxiety in Hanna-Barbera's ‘Tom & Jerry' Series

Michael Dow, Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, USA

This paper examines the significance of anxiety as an expressive mode in the "Tom & Jerry" cartoon series, created and produced at MGM by Joseph Hanna and William Barbera from 1939-1958. By considering recurrent themes throughout these cartoons, it examines the role anxiety plays in the shifting sensibility of the cartoon character in the post-World War II era. It sheds light on these concerns in two primary ways.

The first is the juxtaposition of the cartoon character against the "everyday" and graphically realist depiction of the then-contemporary world, whether it be the domestic arena of the suburban household, or the leisure arena of the bowling alley, pool hall, fishing hole, golf course, etc., spaces that are inscribed with codes of leisure, domesticity, and social propriety. It is against these aesthetically "normative" arenas that acts of violence and moral deviance are repeatedly committed by the two main protagonists. The loaded significance of these spaces function as counterpoint to the animist spirit of the cartoon character and the purpose-driven ritual of the chase/hunt, a schism that produces an irreconcilable disruption between instinct and the imposition of socially coded, behavioral normativity.

Specifically, the character of Tom is considered. As the primal embodiment of the aforementioned instinctive/socially normative schism, Tom is driven by the unthinking, predatory desire for pursuit while simultaneously intoxicated by the trappings of domesticity and modern leisure. The virility of the archetypal tomcat becomes questioned as a metaphor for the emasculation of the post-war American male, a condition which is exacerbated by Jerry, whose lack of gender fixity becomes a tool for transgression and a weapon against both Tom's fluctuating masculine inflexibility and his desire for "all the comforts of home."

Advances in then-contemporary sociological theory, and those developed by Robert K. Merton and the advancement of anomie and strain theory in particular, serve as models for my analysis. Merton, in taking a cue from Emile Durkheim, suggests that the increasing social pressure to conform results in varying iterations of sociopsychological strain, violence and criminality. The inevitable thwarting of Tom's efforts to be a great mouse catcher, to "impress the ladies," and to retain patriarchal dominance, I argue, results in an uncontained anxiety that is sociologically pertinent to the shifting paradigm of the mid-twentieth century American male.

Masculinity, Isolation and Reassertion within Link and Bunnage's Modern Toss

Van Norris, School of Creative Arts, Film and Media, University of Portsmouth, UK

This paper will address the relevance of the Channel Four show Modern Toss (2005/6). This is a show that presents three distinct areas for discussion in its conceptualisation of aspects of British identity allied to a unique animation aesthetic.

Modern Toss, as created by loaded contributors Jon Link and Mick Bunnage, is a ‘live action'/animation hybrid that can be seen as a stage in an ongoing mapping of 21st Century British attitudes within UK television animation. The show itself has evolved from a diverse cross-media pathway, from greetings cards to books to on-line cartoons and it is a concept that offers very distinctive acknowledgement of aspects of contemporary British life in collusion with a very deliberate marshalling of a self-conscious minimalism in dialogue, structure and design.

The show is informed by themes of ‘discomfort' and ruptures of a communal stability that we see propagated within recent UK sitcom fare like I'm Alan Partridge (1997-2002) and The Office (2001-2003). It builds on a traditional sketch show structure and through comic use of repetition, but primarily it is founded upon naturalistic performance modes derived from the 1990s work of Ianuuci and Morris and Linehan and Matthews' Big Train (1998-2002). It uses these devices to set out a line of recurrent preoccupations that detail a fragmentation of contemporary identity and offers a particular take on social and comic ritual.

Modern Toss also offers a variation on the familiar animation theme of masculine dysfunctionality and rebellion by looking at how Link and Bunnage's characters negotiate staged miniature rebellions aimed at managing a social order now gone beyond their control. Each of the self-contained narratives are defined by dialogues of ineptitude, isolation and disenfranchisement and this then feeds into established British comic preoccupations based around failure, apathy and non-communication. These are models who have chosen with a set of futile gestures to dispense with any attempt to repress, "...the desires which threaten social order". (Billig, 2005, 217)

This paper will not only assess this distinctive approach to animation form but will also frame the themes outlined above within a lineage of contemporary British Identity and Representation that can be found within mainstream UK Television animation.

Breaking Boundaries: the Representation of Fragmentary Identity in Japanese Animation

Caroline Ruddell, St Mary's College, University of Surrey, UK

This paper addresses the representation of unstable identity in a variety of animated films from Japan. Split identities in the cinema generally (live action and animation) are often indicative of specific cultural concerns; the dichotomy that is often apparent in the animation I discuss is that of the past intruding on the present and vice versa (which relates to aspects such as technology, urban space, postmodernism etc). For example, modernity and the changing of the world in to a perhaps more ‘Western' society is a problem that haunts Japanese animation (and many Japanese films more generally) and suggests that there is still unease that sits with an increasingly modern and consumer-based society; this has implications for both individual identity and the issue of nationality and is expressed in many instances through a split identity. I aim to show, however, that the split subject in Japanese animation brings to light many cultural concerns that are transnational, which is arguably bound tightly to the transnational nature of the media industry. The generic conventions of horror (that many Manga films draw on for example) transcend cultural boundaries, and often an opposition between good and evil is central to a tale of the double or fragmentary identity in a more general way. A central aim of this paper is to address the spectacle that animation can provide in relation to representation of identity and bodily ‘wholeness' and to critically appraise the crossovers in generic trends, stylistics and cultural concerns that are apparent in Japanese animation (as well as live action film).

The paper takes into account the ever global/transnational media industry, in particular the increasing popularity of Japanese animation (such as Studio Ghibli). However animation is largely interdisciplinary and can be considered as ‘outside' of many disciplines or spanning a variety of disciplines but not fitting comfortably into any. The paper therefore underscores the problematic relationship animation has to film/media theory and the film/media industry.

(The) Death (Of) The Animator, Or: The Felicity Of Felix, Part II: A Difficulty In The Path Of Animation Studies

Alan Cholodenko, University of Sydney, Australia

Taking off from my paper at the SAS conference in Melbourne earlier in June, I will begin by reprising its key points on the singular importance of animation to culture (not only contemporary but ‘as such'). I will then consider the singular importance of animation to the individual within culture, that individual placed at the ‘core' of animation by animation studies in the very figure of the animator as supreme individual, as author/creator fashioned in the mold of God himself: the all-controlling, master subject par excellence for a field that reads animation almost exclusively through the subject and the subject's desires, intentions, affects and effects, where identity is the key if not sole focus and attractor, strangely drawing to it, while at the same time subordinating to it, all else, at the same time ignoring the other, and for me superior, side of the ‘equation': the object and its games.

In consequence, taking off from my proposal of a quantum cosmological Cryptic Complex in my ‘The Nutty Universe of Animation' (presented in two parts at the Society for Animation Studies' '02 and '04 conferences) and the great decenterings of the human (species) and the individual in the history of the world (Copernicus, Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Einstein, quantum mechanics, quantum cosmology, chaos theory, cybernetics, systems theory, computer codes, molecular biology (the work of Watson, Crick et al. in cracking the DNA code), robotics, French ‘poststructuralist' and ‘postmodernist' thought, etc.), I will offer an other reading, one deconstructing and seducing the human, the individual and identity, hence the model of the animator as supreme individual/identity, and that does so with (reference to and by mobilizing) the very logics, processes, and operations of animation, of the animatic.

The paper will focus especially on Freud and the treatment of Freud in key writings on his ‘metapsychology' in animation studies. The paper will extend my work over many essays on Freud, his notion of the uncanny and his contribution to the theorizing of animation. En route, it will traverse the work of Barthes, in particular his ‘The Death of The Author', and Eisenstein, offering a new reading of the psychology of animation and the animation of psychology.

In the process of its cross-disciplinary work with psychology and animation, the paper will also take off from my comments regarding animation as a ‘discipline' in ‘The Nutty Universe of Animation' (whose full title as published is significantly for this conference ubiquitously ‘The Nutty Universe of Animation, The "Discipline" of All "Disciplines", And That's Not All, Folks!', INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BAUDRILLARD STUDIES, vol. 3, no. 1, January 2006 on the web) to elaborate how, in the ‘animation universe', animation is prior to and animator of all disciplines, with the most profoundly deconstructive consequences for them individually and collectively, consequences whose animatic logics likewise apply to the privileging of the sovereignty of the human, the individual and identity by animation studies.

Animation Universe - Session Six Papers: Drawing from Art

Discussion Moderator: Charles daCosta, University College for the Creative Arts, Farnham, UK

The Italian Neo-Pictorial Animation Wave

Giannalberto Bendazzi, University of Milan, Italy

Between the last decade of the XX century and the first years of the current one a rather unusual animation production took place in Italy.

The films were very short, often somehow hermetic, signed by film-makers so shy that barely accepted to screen them, self-produced, made using inexpensive technology. Those films had in my opinion various things in common. You could see the same longing for solitude, the same digging into the artist's intimate self, the same interest for everyday's life.

Was this a Movement, a Trend, a Wave? A Movement is not only collective, but primarily conscious of its will and its characteristics. It proclaims Manifestoes. Being our case purely accidental (the film-makers were scattered between Urbino, Pisa and Turin, and barely knew each other) I chose to consider it a Wave, and named it «Neo-Pictorial» as it used painting's traditional means in a new cinematic way.

One of my best students, Priscilla Mancini, accepted the Neo-Pictorial Wave as the subject of her university dissertation, which she eventually defended magna cum laude. She evidenced various characteristics. The first one (obviously) is the use of pictorial art as a basis for the making of a film. Sometimes the colour is rich and dense (Ursula Ferrara), sometimes it is smeared (Toccafondo, Catani), sometimes it appears to complete the black and white drawing (Massi).

Second point: memory. Memory of ancestral popular traditions (La Sagra of Roberto Catani), of personal inner life (Ecco, è ora of Magda Guidi, Quasi niente of Ursula Ferrara, 1998 of Massimo Ottoni), of historical situations (Tengo la posizione de Simone Massi).

Third point: word. Almost always we see on the screen fragments of letters, floating words, intertitles; we hear poems from the soundtrack.

Fourth point: escape. Towards an unknown horizon, or towards time past and lost (Io so chi sono of Simone Massi; La funambola, of Roberto Catani).

In my opinion the Neo-Pictorial Wave is the only original contribution that Italy has ever given to the world art of animation.

Early Connections Between Film and Emerging Media Theory as Evidenced in The Animated Worlds of Adam Beckett
Pamela Turner, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA

The purpose of this paper is to revisit the early connection between film/animation and emerging video art and computer graphics, through an investigation of the animated work of Adam Beckett and to thus position animation in a more ‘universal' context.

Beckett attended California Institute of the Arts in the first year it held classes, 1970. His work made an immediate impact at CalArts and soon in the broader animation community. His work screened nationally at festivals and in the New American Filmmakers series then curated by John Hanhardt at the Whitney Museum. His work was unique. The imagery was almost entirely abstract and, although it was hand drawn it made heavy use of processing via the animation stand and the optical printer.

In the initial viewing of Beckett's work, especially for contemporary audiences, there is the question of the use of video synthesis or computers. While Beckett did not use this technology he had first hand exposure to it through a class taught by Nam June Paik and Shuye Abe. Beckett was familiar with early computer capabilities through the work of John Whitney, Sr..

Beckett's work evidences not only knowledge of the visual outcome of these technologies but also of the underlying attitude of structural film and emerging media theory. To illustrate this thread I will make a theoretical connection between the early film "Dead Reckoning" by David Wilson, Beckett's work—in particular "Heavy-Light" and the early video synthesis work instigated by Abe and Paik's video synthesizer.

The Double Sense Of Animation Innovative Storytelling Through The Ambiguity Of Animated Images

Maria Lorenzo, Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain

The double sense of animated images is revealed when animation calls attention to itself as a visual trick. Although animation itself is the product of a misleading perception, such condition is a secondary issue for mainstream production of serials or long features that utilize a remarkable number of comical gags. However, for independent works and especially auteur short films, the use of graphic forms can support possibilities for innovative storytelling when the structure of narration and its final significance is determined by the ambiguity of animated objects, characters, or their surroundings.

Ambiguity of animation doesn't only come from two-dimensional or abstract appearance of images, but may also be expressed by the intense mimesis of live-action based cartoons and more recently by computer graphics. An approach to the contemporary art of animation passes through a comprehension of this perceptual experience, in order to understand how intimately these representations fit our subjective and emotional vision of the world.

Frequently we will find that the object of our analysis doesn't belong exclusively to animation but may also be located in live-action features, commercials, and video-clips based on narrative solutions previously developed by short animated films. Consequently, this analysis will also discuss the traditional borderlines between animation and live-action cinema, as animation cannot be uniquely defined as a technical process to generate motion pictures, but rather as a whole philosophy that takes into consideration the possibilities of representing movements by pictorial images as the main focus of narration.

Animation in the Gallery: Between Artefact and Moving Image

Dr. Suzanne Buchan, University for the Creative Arts, UK

As an art form, animation is at a crossroads. In its pre-digital manifestations, animators have created an astonishing amount of materials using a variety of artistic practices to create their works in time-based form. With the increasing implementation of digital technologies, production artefacts and artwork that reveal the filmmaker's creative process are becoming increasingly rare. As a moving image form, audiences will continue being able to enjoy animation. But if we reflect on animation as an art form, there is true cause for alarm.

There are a number of ways to ensure access to and awareness of the enormous amount of artwork produced for every non-digital short film. These range from radical artist-led gallery installations (George Griffin in New York in the 70s) to festival-supported themed exhibitions or extensive solo exhibitions in renowned galleries (William Kentridge at the Serpentine Gallery, London). Since the widely publicised recent fire at Aardman in Bristol that destroyed most of the studios' artwork and puppets, audiences have become aware of the existence and the irreplaceable cultural value of such artefacts.

Yet curators' understanding and treatment of the materials available to them varies widely: and animation's range of techniques means it occupies a liminal position in the art world. Exemplified by the 2005 ‘Trickraum / Spacetricks' exhibition at the Zurich Museum of Design, that is currently touring internationally, this paper explores different approaches to curating animation in diverse exhibition spaces, methods of artefact selection and exhibition strategies. It aims to provide insights into the challenges of curating this extremely rich and artefact-based film form. The paper also takes into account the increasing urgency for collecting and archiving artwork and other pre-production materials that may very well form the basis of future exhibitions.

Animation Universe - Session Seven Papers: Technique and Style

Discussion Moderator: Maria Lorenzo, Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain

The Newly Developed Form of Ganime and Its Relation to Limited Animation for Adults in Japan.

Sheuo Hui Gan, Kyoto University, Japan

This paper examines a group of works recently released by Toei Animation in year 2006, which the company refers to as "Ganime." "Ganime" is a new movement that emphasizes the artist's freedom of creation to seek for different possibility by focusing on the high quality of drawings done in different techniques, and its combination with narratives by famous authors and music. Furthermore, the "Ganime" project also intends to start providing a space to restore the auteurist role in the process of creation, which they felt, had drifted away long ago when the Japanese anime industry started to bloom. This is an ambitious project that is worth looking into, especially since it represents the current form of a trend towards limited animation that began with Tezuka Osamu's Mushi Production, that was established in 1961 with the intent of becoming a non-profit company fully involved in exploring the various possibilities of animation. It was the work of Mushi Production, especially their three adult-oriented theatrically released animations, One Thousand and One Nights (1969), Cleopatra (1971) and Belladonna (1973) that first explored the techniques of limited animation for adult audiences. Later directors continued to develop limited animation for adults reaching to the current introduction of Ganime. This paper will examine the current state of this trend seen in today's alternative anime.

Little Chinese Dog

Lucy Childs, National Centre for Computer Animation, Bournemouth Media School, Bournemouth University, UK

This paper takes the form of a case study of a film currently under production: "Little Chinese Dog", a piece of practice-based research being carried out at the Computer Animation Research Centre at Bournemouth University in the U.K. This research is taking place within the context of a recent agreement between Bournemouth University and China's Ministry of Science and Technology. The aim of this initiative is to strengthen the emerging New Media industry in China, particularly the rapidly expanding area of 3D Computer Animation, whilst contributing to the University's creative and scientific agendas. This agreement facilitates a series of projects with top Chinese academic institutions which are located at the convergence between art and science represented by 3D computer generated imagery as well as between the differing cultures of China and the U.K. Any cultural divide is traversed by the particular focus of interest: puppetry, which serves as a meeting point for work surrounding quality of motion and the expression of ideas.

The work is a continuation of that outlined in the paper: From Puppetry to Computer Animation: The Puppet as Human-Machine-Interface, presented at the 2006 SAS Conference, which focused on the development of virtual puppetry as a method of character animation. In it Lucy Childs argues that this animation technique's particular aesthetic results from the fact that it is derived from live performance.

"Little Chinese Dog" uses both virtual puppetry and incremental 3D animation. The paper will outline aspects of the processes surrounding the cross-cultural collaboration indicated above as well as answering the question: "why is the use of these techniques appropriate in terms of content, technique and style."

Feasibility Study on Reappearance of Chinese Ink Painting Animation Accustomed to Progressive Computer Graphics Simulators

Ann Leung, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, PRC

There is once a golden age of Chinese animation and tremendous credit is given to the distinguishable artistic style associated with traditional Chinese aesthetics. The first world recognized ink painting animation Little Tadpole looking for Mum (Where is Mama) (1960) created by Te Wei who imitated and transformed the contemporary Chinese painter Qi Baishi's expression with ink and brush strokes into animation. It was since many ink painting animations were published with similar visual novelty. Recently, The Way (Tao) was produced making use of the cutting edge computer generated "Painterly Effects" to represent the six essentials of Chinese painting so as Brush which applied another fashionable computer graphics(CG) feature "Non-photo realistic rendering" to create a lively 3-D Chinese-brushed horse. Both software features are available in most major 3D applications nowadays.

3D computer animation has been misapprehended merely favorable to photo-realism since CG software programs are described mechanics of physics simulation or rigid equations rather than interpreting the philosophy underlying its visual styles animators pursue. In fact, a lot of interesting researches and projects are undertaking in order to reconcile creation with CG technology, they include new algorithms and feature tools; software packages or even hardware appliances such as haptic input and innovative tablet device, like "MoXi", a complete package developed by Nelson Chu, et. al., in the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. It is a real-time digital ink dispersion simulator using a pressure sensitive pen and tablet to simulate Chinese ink painting and calligraphy with absorbent paper effects displayed on computer screen.

My paper will firstly examine the artform of Chinese ink painting animation evolved from traditional Chinese art. Thereupon, I will study the feasibility synthesizing contemporary CG technology with Chinese ink painting animation and would elaborate my study with MoXi as a case study. Could technology facilitates traditional animators to recapture original ink painting spirit by adopting the craft of CG animation or such hybrid metaphysical notion is itself a new artform for CG animation?

Composing Visual Music (with Digital Data)

Brian Evans, University of Alabama, USA

The basis of digital technology is the abstraction of information to numbers. With computers we sample our experience, reduce it to discrete measurements and store the measurements as simple binary codes—numeric data. A digital artist can re-purpose that data in a variety of ways. Number becomes the medium. It can be manifested to our ears as musical pitch. It can be seen as color. The number 255 can represent a saturated red, heard as middle C, or both simultaneously! Thus any image can be heard, any sound can be seen. Monet's Water Lilies can be a symphony, Beethoven's Ode to Joy a wash of pigment on canvas.

The work can be static or time-based. In temporal work we can also apply musical structure to visual elements. We can compose abstract animation—visual music. Color harmony can move us though time just as music harmony does. Visual composition and design can be applied temporally to establish musical motif, phrase and cadence. There are visual equivalents to the musical ideas of consonance and dissonance, and tension and release. We can codify and apply these ideas to the composition of abstract animation. Musical time can be experienced visually. And, as digital sound and image are both represented as number, with simple arithmetic each can inform the other, as they unfold together. We can hear the colors. We can listen with our eyes.

Animation Universe - Session Eight Papers: Interactions and Current Trends

Discussion Moderator: Weihu Wu, International Center for Advanced Studies, New York University, USA

Playing an Old Toon: Interacting with Classic Animation in Kingdom Hearts

Jason Mittell, Middlebury College, USA

Animation is moving from the margins of the media industries toward an ubiquitous role in every moving-image medium, from animated effects in live-action filmmaking to immersive animated worlds in videogames. However, the majority of these uses of animation mask their own animated techniques and traditions to audiences, applying the latest technology to create the illusion of mimetic naturalism, even for fantastic subject matter. However, the tradition of animation in the iconic tradition (see McCloud) can persist within these new forms, with the intersection between naturalistic and iconic animation traditions as a crucial factor in animation's contemporary role as both a technology and genre. This paper explores a site where the techniques and discourses of computerized naturalism collide with the expectations and assumptions of classic and contemporary Disney cartoons, the popular videogame series Kingdom Hearts (KH).

KH is based on an unusual synergistic juxtaposition, combining the role-playing aesthetics of the Final Fantasy games with the characters and storyworlds of Disney cartoons. Playing as a human hero with sidekicks Donald Duck and Goofy, players explore a range of animated worlds and characters from Disney films including Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland, Mulan, Nightmare Before Christmas, Winnie the Pooh, Tron, and Steamboat Willie. By analyzing KH's aesthetics and modes of interactivity, I will extend Paul Ward's account of games as remediated animation, in combination with my own work on the generic assumptions tied to animated cartoons, to explore how KH plays with the boundaries between naturalistic and iconic animation, fantasy and verisimilitude.

"Homestar Runner.net, It's Dotcom!"

Nichola Dobson, Independent scholar, UK

This paper examines the animated universe of Homestarrunner.com since 2000. The website features comedic shorts starring Homestar Runner, a dim witted sports star and his friends and acquaintances. The shorts are divided into sections such as the episodic shorts of the Strong Bad Email, where fans email one of the main characters questions, (in what could be argued is a precursor to video podcasts), seasonal holiday specials, archives of past ‘toons' and biographies of characters, as well as interactive fan areas, games and merchandise.

The paper discusses the generic characteristics of the sections which form a larger mythology within the site. The fictional historical archive on the site in the form of silent era toons, spoofs the classics of early animation, demonstrating both the creator's vast knowledge of animation history while retroactively forming a mythology which is constantly being updated and re-written with each newly added short. In addition to this the holiday specials create a sense of temporality which enables the fans to relate to the site as though it were a live action serial situated in real time.

By focusing on the entire created mythology of the site, the paper explores the concepts of fan interaction through participation, as well as merchandise, and the world within the world in which the characters produce their own toons and games which visitors to the site can view. The paper will demonstrate that by creating an entire universe for the characters to inhabit, homestarrunner.com has its own verisimilitude out with the proliferation of web based animation.

In the ‘welcome' section of the site, Homestar tries to tell the viewers about the website. His line is Homestarrunner.com, but instead he delivers homestarrunner.net. He is corrected by an ‘off screen director' but still gets it wrong.

Web Animation 2.0: The New Generation of Animation on the Internet

Dr. Karin Wehn, University of Leipzig, Germany

Both the recent boom of Web 2.0 and social software have led to a second boom and a renaissance of Web economy. It has also heralded a new era of Web animation. The year 2006 saw the rise of several hundreds of video portals where users can upload videos, share them with friends and rate them. The most successful of them is YouTube with exponentially growing viewing numbers. The site has been a tremendous success: It was officially only launched in December 2005. Eleven months in November 2006 later 70.000 videos are uploaded and 40.000.000 are watched each day. Currently, it holds Top 5 in the Top 100 worldwide (November 23, 2006).

YouTube and other video portals have created numerous opportunities for artists and amateurs alike so that some speak of a renaissance of amateurs" (Terry Fisher) and others of the diminishing gap between professionals and amateurs (Lev Manovich).

This talk gives an overview of the huge video portal landscape that has evolved focussing specifically on animation-related sites. It also introduces the theoretical principles of Web 2.0 software and describes how they are implemented into the individual application.

It will also feature what kind of techniques blossom under these conditions (Flash, Machinima), how the online portals relate and affect the traditional media TV, cinema and what kinds of animated films are available (basically everything: Independent classics, amateur culture, video clips and feature films cut up in small segments). Finally, it also critically evaluates the benefits and the drawbacks for animators and animation studies alike.

Animated Appeal: A Survey Of Kids' Educational Software

Tom Klein, Loyola Marymount University, School of Film and Television, USA

Educational software for kids relies heavily on animation and the appeal of cartoons to promote children's learning. Software development has provided a niche for animators that has seen both significant progress and setbacks in its 25-year history. This presentation will identify those aspects of commercially released software which have demonstrated positive results in children's learning, including a look at the prominent role that animation and visual design plays in this. There now exists certain general principles that have been widely practiced by successful software developers. These practices, and the opinions of reviewers, pediatric groups, animators and researchers will be taken into account in providing this survey of the past, present, and future of educational software for kids.