This article proposes a modernist post-humanist reading of the Quay Brothers' stop-motion animation Street of Crocodiles (1986). The author pursues two objectives: first, to argue that modernist literature already contains post-humanist tendencies; and, second, to demonstrate this claim through a textual analysis of the Quay Brothers' animated adaptation of Bruno Schulz's modernist story. The analysis identifies two interrelated dialectical sets-textual and contextual-connecting the Quay Brothers' work to the broader framework of modernism. The author shows that, in the film, a dialectic emerges between an anthropocentric, narrative-driven storyline and non-anthropomorphic, non-narrative animated motion. This internal tension reflects a larger dialectic within modernity itself: the automation of human life and the animation of non-human machines. The dynamics between these two dialectics give rise to a modernist post-humanist narrative in the film: while the human protagonist follows a circular path through space and ends without resolution, the non-human animated entities move cyclically through time, persisting into a post-human temporality.
Two gaps exist in the academic history of the Chinese School of Animation: the Cultural Revolution period (1966-1976) and the 1990s. These two gaps are characterized by relevant studies stagnating in these periods and later researchers doing little to explore them. The gap of the Cultural Revolution period was mainly formed by the national mandatory force. By contrast, the 1990s gap was primarily caused by Chinese intellectuals' voluntary forgetting in the particular social context. The two gaps are the outcome of historical construction, and meanwhile, they generate memories about themselves. Later Chinese researchers tend to construct the historical continuity across the gaps, which enhances the future orientation of the memory of the Chinese School of Animation's past. The major strategies of constructing the historical continuity include the homogenized narrative based on aesthetic identity and the re-interpretation based on the nationality.
This article interrogates the intersection of queer diasporic identity, collective Socio-Political Identity, and the 'algorithmic gaze' through a critical Practice-Based Research (PBR) methodology. Situated within the sociopolitical rupture of post-2019 Hong Kong, the authors examine how collective culture and the homogenizing forces of generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) enact a dual erasure of local queer narratives. To address this, the study proposes a 'Queer Social Ecology' framework, adapting Bronfenbrenner's model to map the coercive pressures exerted on the queer subject. Through the coproduction of the animated documentary Rhythms of Identity, based on the oral history of a Hong Kong migrant ('YC'), this research demonstrates how animation functions as a 'conditional space' for articulating inarticulable trauma. Furthermore, the project employs Critical Technical Practice (CTP) by operationalizing GenAI not to refine but to perform bias-generating visual 'glitches' that expose the heteronormative exclusions of machine learning. The article argues that participatory animation serves as a vital counter-archive, preserving the texture of lived experience against the sanitizing forces of state power and technological standardization.
This article offers a geopolitical labor history of the rotoscope by analyzing the technology's use by three animators-Max Fleischer and Walt Disney in the US, and Claudio D & iacute;az-Vald & eacute;s in Chile-to shape political subjects. In the first two cases, rotoscoping, an animation technique of tracing live-action footage into cartoon bodies, was used in composite-style shorts that dramatized life in the cartoon factory. Rotoscoped animations featured characters with explicit live-action referents that were infinitely plastic and hyperactive, downplaying exploitation in the Fordist workplace and its interconnection with US-imperial expansion. In the third case, the rotoscope's unique capacity to image subjects dislocated from a geography or time helped expose the psychic cost of US intervention in Chile across nations and generations. In contrast to industrial North American animation, these independent films highlighted the painstaking labor of rotoscoping to suggest ethico-political links between animation workers across continents.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, animation education in Czechoslovakia played a key role in the upskilling of workers within the state film studios. This article focuses on the under-researched work of the Cabinet of Animation at the Faculty of Film and Television (FAMU), The Academy of Performing Art (AMU), in Prague, which, through close cooperation with the state film studios and the involvement of leading figures in Czechoslovak animation, combined academic education with practice. The specific organization of the studio blurred the boundaries between the school system and the film market, with staff from the state studios often participating in the teaching process. This article shows that animation education was not just a pedagogical activity; rather, it was an integral part of the state film system, which had a major influence on the development of Czechoslovak animation.
This article examines Zbigniew Rybczy & nacute;ski's groundbreaking achievements during his 'celluloid period' (1972-1981), offering perspectives that resonate with today's media landscape. It identifies four interwoven creative directions: early abstract experiments, influenced by the Workshop of the Film Form, which systematically deconstructed cinema's fundamental components (geometry, motion, spatial dynamics); anthropologically informed observations of everyday rituals, which explored the borderland between animation and live-action cinema; experimental comedies that blend neo-avant-garde sensibility with unpretentious appeal; and, finally, polyphonic masterpieces, which challenged conventional definitions of animation. In addition to the Polish films, some of Rybczy & nacute;ski's later video and HDTV works are discussed to provide a comparative background. The artist's early works transcended the limitations of the celluloid medium, demonstrating that true innovation lies not in mere technical advancement, but in the expansion of its expressive possibilities.
Premised on matters of construction and fabrication, much of the debate around animated documentary has focused on its capacity to engage with the 'fantastical', 'illusory' and 'internal'. Supported by the philosophical position of critical realism, this article will examine the capacity of animation to address the non-empirical levels of the external world. Critical realism argues for the independence of a complex, layered reality, whilst recognizing the contingency and fallibility of knowledge. This resists the dualism of the objectivist belief in an observable and measurable reality, against approaches that foreground the subjectivism of language and discourse. In this context, animation is seen to balance the empirical and the conceptual, offering a model of reality that is located in the relationship between the indexical and the abstract. In a challenge to unitary notions of what it means to be objective or subjective, this points to the recognition of the non-dual philosophical principles underpinning animated documentary. In relation to the strategy of defamiliarization, the author argues that constructed aesthetics can function as a mode of inference towards the real but empirically undetectable structures generating actual events. The author also suggests that this can provide access to an ontological depth that is arrived at through an active, imaginative and intersubjective apprehension of the world.
Although studies have elucidated the meaning-making mechanisms of animated embodiment within film study paradigms, its medium-specificity compared to live-action imagery remains insufficiently examined. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from film phenomenology, cognitive semantics and cognitive neuroscience, this study employs the methodology of constitutive interpretation to explore how animation enhances the mechanisms of sense-making in Greatness Code (Chopra, 2020), the sports documentary series that represents the embodied memories of seven elite athletes during pivotal moments in their performances through the juxtaposition and superimposition of animated and live-action images. Ultimately, the authors argue that this documentary utilizes several embodied mechanisms, including 'haptic palimpsest', 'elaborate and expanded embodied depiction', and 'associative objective mapping'. In these mechanisms, animation demonstrates the following medium-specificity: (1) generation of digital materiality; (2) elaborate tracing abilities and expandability in sensory representation; and (3) constructedness of sensory associations. These qualities transcend the boundaries of sensory expression in Greatness Code's live-action footage and facilitate the public articulation of hidden embodied knowledge in sports competitions. Crucially, these medium specificities remain significant when juxtaposed with other professional techniques conceptualized in extant research on live-action embodiment, thereby contributing to the expansion of studies of animated embodiment. Meanwhile, this study elucidates the attribute and potential of embodied animation in mediating memory within non-fiction contexts.
This article is a discussion of curation as a state method for the selection of animated films. Four ink painting animations produced at the historically important Shanghai Animation Film Studio (SAFS) are discussed, Ink Painting Animation Films (Shuimo donghuapian (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), 1960), Little Swallow (Xiaoyanzi/(sic)(sic)(sic), 1960), Where Is Mama? (Xiao kedou zhao mama/(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic), 1960), and The Oxherd's Flute (Mudi/(sic)(sic), 1963). The early 1950s and 60s were a key period for cultural reform in the People's Republic of China (PRC), notably in the Fine Arts and Film. Ink painting animation was at once an identifiable Chinese form, an historically significant form for the newly emergent PRC nation, and a controversial form in a field that was quickly shifting to socialist realism. This article attempts to tease out the way ink painting animation films were curated by state and citizen players at the time to represent a true national painting/guohua/(sic)(sic)/ form that represented Chinese culture. For commentators, and perhaps for the animators themselves, ink painting animation represented the ultimate sinification of Western film technology and cel animation technique. Three ink painting animations were completed by 1960. However, by 1963, the fourth ink painting animation would be banned, and the animators suffered political criticism. By reading this last early ink painting animation within the context of its production, possible meanings point to a deliberate attempt on the part of the animators to suggest a critique of top-down cultural production. To this day, SAFS productions have been curated around a small number of works. This article asks: Are there more classics?
Cultural theorists across disciplines have increasingly employed metaphors of performance and explorations of theatricality to engage with digital evolutions in labor, spectating, and consumer culture. As graphic animations often form the access point for our digital world, critical explorations of theatricality have erupted around the animated screen. Performance and theatricality, often at odds with each other, offer two different approaches to animation theory, with performance dominating the field. Focusing on self-reflective performance and artificiality, recent explorations of the theatricality of cinema offer promising sites of inquiry, but there are many more applications and definitions of theatricality useful to animation. With the help of Daffy in the 1953 film, Duck Amuck, this article argues for pursuing animation historiography and theory through the lens of theatricality, demonstrating along the way how animation reveals (and revels in) the theatricality of cinema.
This article explores the impact of media space in the works of contemporary Chinese experimental animator (sic)(sic)(sic) (Tian Xiaolei) on post-human imagination. Through an in-depth study of Tian Xiaolei's experimental animation works, the authors focus on his innovative use of different media and analyse the sensory experiences of audiences in various display spaces. They pay special attention to how exhibition environments such as mirror galleries, open spaces and virtual simulations affect audiences' understanding of post-humanism. The article argues that Tian Xiaolei's multimedia experimental animation not only subverts traditional animation forms but also provides a unique sensory experience through body interaction in cross-media spaces (such as mirror reflections, multimedia perception and VR tactile feedback). This interaction prompts viewers to delve into the relationship between posthuman technology and life, belief and identity. The juxtaposition of Chinese cultural symbols with cyborg bodies in Tian Xiaolei's works reveals the conflict between capital expansion and traditional value systems in China's technological transformation, offering a localized research paradigm for cross-media practices in digital art. This not only enriches our understanding of Chinese experimental animation but also sensitizes us to the expression and reflection of post-human themes in contemporary art.
While many scholars have challenged the place of animatronics – as a combination of animate and electronics – within traditional definitions of animation, this article engages the relevance of animatronic technology to the medium as a frame-by-frame technique of illusion. While the labour of animatronics might recall techniques of cel-, computer-, or stop-motion animation whereby characters are endowed with the ability to execute any conceivable action, animatronics as a form of digital puppetry introduces new elements rooted in the real-time interaction between animator and animated. To reflect on the compromise position or designation of animatronics between multiple forms of animation, this article stages a multidisciplinary exploration of storytelling, technology and philosophy in the 12-minute short film Song Sparrow (Farzaneh Omidvarnia, 2019). The film blends live-action and recorded ‘live’ puppetry with extensive animatronics in a narrative that portrays the plight of a group of refugees. Song Sparrow ’s application of animatronic technology ultimately prompts a profound reflection on the delicate balance between freedom and limitation, considered here through the philosophical implications of control that dramatize the concealed operations of animatronic mechanisms. By drawing on the principles of Stoic philosophy and the values that it places on the inherent constraints that individuals face in shaping their destinies, this article suggests that philosophical reflections on the limitations that define human existence are well-supported by both Song Sparrow ’s refugee narrative of mobility and the unique creative possibilities engendered by its animatronics as a particular illusion of the animate.
Mirosław Kijowicz is a leading figure in the philosophical and reflective strand of Polish animation, although something of a forgotten voice, at least on the international stage. He made primarily artistic films targeted at adult audiences. This article undertakes a review of Mirosław Kijowicz’s artistic output and his interaction with the film production control system of socialist Poland. The initial, intensive period of Kijowicz’s creative career, between 1960 and 1968, is mainly associated with his work at the Bielsko-Biała Animated Film Studio. This was a period of political and social stability following the Stalinist era, marked by relative freedom in artistic expression. During that time, Kijowicz created 11 films that frequently explored socio-political themes, addressing current issues and engaging in a rather equivocal dialogue with the socialist system. The overview of Kijowicz’s creative output, with particular emphasis on the award-winning film Sztandar (The Banner, 1965) which gained recognition both in Poland and internationally, provides an opportunity to show the effects of the confrontation of the artist’s creative concept with the broadly understood cinematography system, which at the time was subordinate to the state authorities. Such confrontation often took on the nature of a peculiar game, contributing significantly to the creation of high-profile artistic works that drew on sophisticated symbolism and metaphor.
This study investigated the integration of Chan aesthetics into Chinese animation from the 1920s to the present, analysing its impact on national style and artistic expression. By exploring selected works from the Shanghai Animation Film Studio (SAFS: 1960s–1980s), the contemporary animated film Nezha: The Demon Child (2019), and the works of independent animation artist Ye Youtian (2013–2014), this research considers how Chan aesthetics manifest through traditional cultural elements, audiovisual techniques, narrative structures, and modern thematic explorations. The findings revealed that Chan aesthetics not only reinforce the national style of Chinese animation, consciously or unconsciously, but also serve as a philosophical framework that sustains the dynamic evolution of the national style. As Chinese animation continues to adapt to modernization and global influences, the enduring relevance of Chan aesthetics offers valuable insights into the interplay among tradition, innovation and national identity in the medium for artists and researchers.
