Fragmented Narratives: Exploring Storytelling approaches for Animation in Spatial Context

Animation is considered a prevalent medium in contemporary moving image culture, which increasingly appears across non-conventional surfaces and spaces. And while storytelling in animation films has been extensively theorized, narrative forms that employ physical space as part of storytelling have been less explored. This paper will examine the narrative aspect of animation works which are screened outside the traditional cinematic venues. It will look at how these animation works tell stories differently - using the full potential of the space, as a narrative device, a tool, and a stage where the narratives unfold. This paper will look at the historical perspective and the state of the art in animation installation today, exploring the relationship between the space and narrative in pre-cinematic, cinematic and post-cinematic conditions. It will examine how narrative structures in animation have changed over time, on their way from the black box of the cinema to the white cube of the gallery and even further, where they became part of any space or architecture. Through case studies of works by Tabaimo, Rose Bond, William Kentridge and other relevant artists, the interdependency of the narrative and the space where it appears will be explored, in order to identify new strategies for storytelling in animation. The aim of this paper is to emphasize the storytelling novelty that animation installations offer, which goes beyond the narrative structures that we are used to see on a single flat surface.

Dance

The study of dance can be summed up as the four Ps: patterning, partnering, pacing, and person. Patterning is about the intra- and interpersonal processes used in creating complex movement patterns in space and time. Partnering in dance involves the coordinated movement of multiple dancers, generally in defined spatial configurations, sometimes occurring through direct body contact. Next, pacing in dance refers to the synchronization of movement patterns with both musical beats and interaction partners. Finally, the person aspect of dance deals with how dancers are able to engage in acting by portraying characters in narrative forms of dance and to tell stories with their bodies in a wordless manner using iconic and affective gestures.

“The Story is My Life”: Bridging Symbol to Self in a Novel Creative and Reflective Writing Task

This article describes the development and testing of a novel creative and reflective writing task. Following the rationale of sand-tray and play therapies, participants were asked to meaningfully incorporate four objects from a randomly generated matrix of options into a creative short story. They then composed a second story that incorporated four possessions from home associated with important memories. Afterwards, participants produced interpretive statements or reflections on what the stories meant to them. An exploratory qualitative study was conducted based on narrative data from 15 young adult participants in Canada. Our goals were to: (a) explore the extent to which object familiarity was associated with qualitative differences in stories and interpretations, and (b) investigate for connections between features of participants’ stories and depth of interpretation. Analysis of creative stories resulted in a scheme of four response categories with ten subcategories. Participants’ interpretations of their own stories were coded based on self-described sources of inspiration, such as critical life episodes or popular media. Results are accompanied with excerpts of participants’ stories and reflections, and percentage comparisons are reported. Findings are presented in dialogue with established interpretive frameworks originating in depth psychology. Manipulation of object familiarity resulted in demonstrable differences at the levels of word length, point of view, narrative forms and features, self-disclosure, and reflection. Use of familiar objects in such a task appears to be a largely untapped resource that shows promise as a route to insight.

Pengaruh Narasi pada Seni Lukis Tradisi Bali: Studi Bahasa Rupa Lukisan Wayang Kamasan dan I Ketut Gede Singaraja

Traditional Balinese painting elements contain narrative, illustrative, figurative, functional, these formed the structure of Balinese art which is closely related to the existence of the text as the background of its creation. This study aims to read the influence caused by narrative as things that affect the “wimba” and the “cara wimba” in traditional Balinese painting which is focused on Sutasoma's painting in the Kamasan painting style in Bale Kambang Kerta Gosa, Klungkung and the painting of Prabu Salya by I Ketut Gede Singaraja. This research method uses a qualitative art research with analytical descriptive, the theory used as an analysis is the system namely Ruang-Waktu-Datar from the theory of Bahasa Rupa. The results of the analysis show that the narrative forms a system of procedures for depicting traditional Balinese paintings which can be seen from the way the perspective is applied from various sides, the pattern of depiction of figures that replace facial expressions with gestures, as well as the presence of a symbolic time dimension. Through reading with the Ruang-Waktu-Datar, it is found that traditional Balinese paintings are influenced by narratives that are very strongly reflected in their language of appearance.

THE ANALYSIS OF SARTRE’S ‘ESENSE’ AND ‘SUBJECTIVITY’ IN DISNEY PIXAR’S SOUL ANIMATION

<p>From the start, the philosophical movement that came to be known as existentialism was associated with literature. This possibility happens because there is a natural affinity between existential philosophy and narrative forms of art. On one hand, existentialist concur on the primacy of individual existence, of the lived experience of concrete human beings. On the other hand, cinematic narratives tell stories of beings such as ourselves, helping us to make sense of our existence and opening up probabilities that we might never have pondered otherwise (Shaw, 2017). Interestingly, Time.com stated that Pixar films are the philosophical of the animation world. Here lies the reason why the writer decided to analyze the portrayal of Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous phrase ‘Existence Precedes Essence’ in the latest Disney Pixar animation, Soul. Sartre argued that for human beings, our existence precedes our essence. In addition, Sartre’s notion of ‘existence’ characterized in terms of consciousness, free choice and ‘subjectivity’. For Sartre, the first act of consciousness is to choose. This study shows that Disney Pixar’sSoul does portray Sartre’s ‘existence precedes essence’ through Joe’s life – human beings have no fixed preordained essence or definition. Moreover, Sartre’s idea of consciousness or subjectivity can be seen from 22’s decision to be dared to live.</p>

A Place for Shadows: A Prolegomena to the Authorship Practices and Films of Joanna Margaret Paul

<p>This is an "authorship" study of New Zealand artist Joanna Margaret Paul, with specific reference to her "experimental film" works. Though I will draw on a wide range of theorists, my overall approach is what Laura Marks calls "intercultural cinema." For Marks the term "intercultural cinema" refers to a specific "genre" or "movement" of experimental films created by authors caught "between two or more cultural regimes of knowledge." Intercultural film-makers include feminist, queer, indigenous and immigrant authors (any "minority" which possesses its own "regime of knowledge" and makes experimental film) living in "Western metropolitan areas," whose dominant culture is capitalist, masculine, "hegemonic, white and Euro-American" (a second regime of knowledge). What draws intercultural cinema together (and indeed, one could argue, experimental film in general) is an oppositional stance toward capitalist ideology, the commodification of the art object and the uniformity of classical narrative forms. As David Bordwell and Kristen Thompson write, experimental films are "often deliberate attempts to undercut the conventions of commercial narrative filmmaking" and, as Marks writes, intercultural cinema "flows against waves of economic neocolonialism," and is "suspicious of mass circulation... [as] making commercial cinema still involves significant compromises."</p>

A Place for Shadows: A Prolegomena to the Authorship Practices and Films of Joanna Margaret Paul

<p>This is an "authorship" study of New Zealand artist Joanna Margaret Paul, with specific reference to her "experimental film" works. Though I will draw on a wide range of theorists, my overall approach is what Laura Marks calls "intercultural cinema." For Marks the term "intercultural cinema" refers to a specific "genre" or "movement" of experimental films created by authors caught "between two or more cultural regimes of knowledge." Intercultural film-makers include feminist, queer, indigenous and immigrant authors (any "minority" which possesses its own "regime of knowledge" and makes experimental film) living in "Western metropolitan areas," whose dominant culture is capitalist, masculine, "hegemonic, white and Euro-American" (a second regime of knowledge). What draws intercultural cinema together (and indeed, one could argue, experimental film in general) is an oppositional stance toward capitalist ideology, the commodification of the art object and the uniformity of classical narrative forms. As David Bordwell and Kristen Thompson write, experimental films are "often deliberate attempts to undercut the conventions of commercial narrative filmmaking" and, as Marks writes, intercultural cinema "flows against waves of economic neocolonialism," and is "suspicious of mass circulation... [as] making commercial cinema still involves significant compromises."</p>

Geographies of Identity: Geographies of Identity

Geographies of Identity: Narrative Forms, Feminist Futures explores identity and American culture through hybrid, prose work by women, and expands the strategies of cultural poetics practices into the study of innovative narrative writing. Informed by Judith Butler, Homi Bhabha, Harryette Mullen, Julia Kristeva, and others, this project further considers feminist identity politics, race, and ethnicity as cultural content in and through poetic and non/narrative forms. The texts reflected on here explore literal and figurative landscapes, linguistic and cultural geographies, sexual borders, and spatial topographies. Ultimately, they offer non-prescriptive models that go beyond expectations for narrative forms, and create textual webs that reflect the diverse realities of multi-ethnic, multi-oriented, multi-linguistic cultural experiences. Readings of Gertrude Stein’s A Geographical History of America, Renee Gladman’s Juice, Pamela Lu’s Pamela: A Novel, Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely, Juliana Spahr’s The Transformation, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictée, Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera, and Layli Long Soldier’s WHEREAS show how alternatively narrative modes of writing can expand access to representation, means of identification, and subjective agency, and point to horizons of possibility for new futures. These texts critique essentializing practices in which subjects are defined by specific identity categories, and offer complicated, contextualized, and historical understandings of identity formation through the textual weaving of form and content.

‘All of Ireland had been wiped out’: Irish Nuclear Anxiety and Éilís Ní Dhuibhne’s The Bray House

The Bray House (1990) is Éilís Ní Dhuibhne's curious and contested first novel, the story of a near-future archaeological expedition to an Ireland devastated by a British nuclear disaster. It is a book which has offered much analytical fodder to readers and critics alike, with the question of the novel's genre continually in flux since its publication. This article argues that, in The Bray House, Ní Dhuibhne consciously inverts Old Irish narrative forms to create a work of speculative writing which yokes together the seemingly contradictory concerns of the Gaelic literary tradition and contemporary Irish anxiety about vulnerabilities to the British nuclear energy industry. It examines how the author combines unease over international energy politics with native narrative structures to create a work which sits comfortably within the genre of science fiction. It considers how The Bray House brings to light what Darko Suvin calls the ‘congeneric elements in the cognitive and marvellous bias of the voyage extraordinaire’, in this case the Old Irish Echtra form. Particular attention is paid throughout to how science fiction (specifically the techno-Robinsonade model) allows Ní Dhuibhne to vividly express Irish national concerns over the presence of the Sellafield nuclear power plant in the late 1980s.

Suffering, Trauma, and Death in Anna Terék’s Poetry Book Halott nők [Dead Women]

Anna Terék is one of the most interesting Hungarian poets of the young generation. The study is focused on Terék’s third poetry book, Halott nők (Dead Women) (2017). The book is a poetry cycle that shows stories/voices of five women. Violence, physical as well as psychological and symbolic, becomes destructive to the identity of the individual but also to the identity of the community. At the same time, it demands an effort of expression. The paper analyses these issues. The study describes the speech / narrative forms and their functions, and it examines the system of metaphors and the specific poetic language. The poems are closely related to the Yugoslav Wars. The study refers to this historical background but also shows the poems’ universal dimension, which makes it possible to speak about them in terms of the life stories of today.