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.

The Beauty of the Fragment Reconstituted in the Great Wall

Max Hattler’s short abstract animations demonstrate an awareness of the form’s historic 1920’s European Abstract Animation precedents, is informed by the structurally focused minimalism of the 60’s and re-tools pre-cinema toys. Yet his work speaks to the contemporary technological environment he occupies and experiences directly. His move to Hong Kong and his recent Serial Parallels is also a predictive probe into future media environments. Hattler’s digital architectures are designed to make sense of the technological situation of speed and information overload which Vilem Flusser marks as amnesic and Marshall McLuhan identifies as an acoustic space readable through pattern recognition. His practice makes productive use of the flexible and modular qualities of contemporary digital image-making technologies for both production and publication purposes.

Painting With Light: Artistic Experiments into the use of Virtual Reality as an Animation Production Environment

While many researchers have examined the technical characteristics of using VR as a production environment for animation, its artistic potential has only sporadically been investigated. We want to contribute to this line of thought through reflection on a number of expanded animation workshops organized in the context of the Painting With Light project. In this paper we use flow theory in order to discuss the experience of using VR as a 3D prototyping tool. Our findings suggest that this practice can add an improvisatory and co-creative dimension to animation.

Augmenting the City: The Photo-Realistic Animation of a Historic Building and its influence on spatial perception and meaning

Augmented Reality (AR), defined as the holographic overlay of physical space with virtual objects in real time (Azuma, 1997), can be considered a prime example of mediatization. This development is particularly evident in the public space of the “mediatised city” (Hepp, Simon & Sowinska, 2018), being a focal point of the latest media technologies already overlaid with a multitude of AR content. But how does AR change the perception and meaning of urban space? And how can researchers capture methodically the appropriation of complex, large-scaled AR content experienced via high-tech AR glasses? To answer these questions, a historical building, that had been destroyed during the Second World War, was reconstructed as a holographic animation on a public city square. In order to resurrect this building in AR, old photographs, paintings and postcards were evaluated and used to create a virtual model in the original size and place it at its original location. The test subjects were then able to view the hologram from various different angles using AR glasses (Microsoft HoloLens 2), move freely around the square and even enter it. Combining quantitative, before-and-after questionnaires and qualitative thinking-aloud protocols, our results show that the holographic animation of a historical building can influence both the sensual-aesthetic perception and the personal meaning of a public square for city dwellers. Specifically, our test subjects perceived differences in its accessibility, coherence and aesthetics, simplicity, atmosphere and legibility. The meaning of the square was altered with regard to personal memories (= the self), typical groups of people (= others) and certain opportunities (= environment) associated with it by city dwellers.

Visualizing Berio’s Sinfonia: Choreographing Animation for Indeterminate Narratives

In 1968, a year of massive political and cultural upheaval, Luciano Berio composed a score that would shape his legacy. Entitled Sinfonia, which literally means sounding together, the symphony was sparked by the assassination of Martin Luther King. Heralded as “the ultimate pre-postmodernist musical palimpsest” (Service, 2012). Sinfonia reverberates with the political assassinations and massive protests punctuated by police repression that marked 1968. In late 2019, I was offered an animated projection commission with a primary voice in choosing a piece for live symphonic performance/projection. After some researching, I found Berio’s Sinfonia. It had what I was looking for - a “contemporary” piece, it resisted illustration, linear narrative and 19th century romanticism while eschewing the rigid formality of serialism. Instead, it embraced two core Modernist principles – fragmentation and use of the archive. Berio quoted/sampled disparate chunks of literature, music, and events of 1968 in the service of the political and the poetic to discover unity in the heterogeneous. His score seemed ripe for visual interpretation - and exposition - with animation as the prime driver. Following Berio’s lead, I chose visual sampling as my entre and turned to Google. By animating in and out of iconic (and lesser known) images in the orb of 1968, I created a commensurate puzzle piece that mirrored the suggested avant-garde intent I found in Sinfonia – “Where now? Who now? When now?” (Beckett, 1965, p. 291).

Concrete Abstract: Exploring Tactility in Abstract Animations from Early Avant-garde Films to Contemporary Artworks

After witnessing social chaos and the collapse of values at the beginning of the twentieth century, avant-garde artists insert new thought patterns and progressive aesthetic into the traditional perception of art. Being enthralled by the new film medium, former painters like Viking Eggeling, Walther Ruttman and Hans Richter start to experiment with light in two-dimensional film formats, they animate lines, stripes, basic shapes, play with the foreground and the background, and, most important of all, they construct a temporality within the visual order of the screen. Viking Eggeling’s Symphonie Diagonale (1921-24), Walther Ruttman’s Opus I (1921) and Hans Richter’s Rhythmus 21 (1921) show such temporality built in, which is caught by the idea of music as their titles suggest. These short abstract animation films attempt to discover the artistic possibilities of the new developing medium, film. Like the pioneer avant-garde abstract filmmakers, today’s artists still seek to stimulate a new perception for a possible embodiment that will activate the sense of touch in the audience. Tactility, enhanced by the material, opens up a new network of spatio-temporal relationships in the viewer's consciousness and subjecthood. This essay aims to bring a historical perspective to the abstract moving images of which the tactile or haptic experience is a defining characteristic. Through a selection of abstract animations, the materiality of the film image and the screening site will be elaborated upon according to the haptic features that are corporally embodied by the viewers. In the light of historical abstract animation, the aim is to dwell upon the dynamics of a continuous tendency to capture tactile instances to help bring forth the spatial resonances as well as visualize and reedify the rhythmic passing of time.

Poetics of Seriality: Socialist Architecture in Eastern European Animation

This article reflects on the ways in which animation critically engages with the transformation of city spaces and hence with politics of space more generally. Works of Polish and Czechoslovak animators, namely Hieronim Neumann, Zbigniew Rybcziński, Jiří Barta, and Zdeněk Smetana, serve as examples of animated films that address the phenomenon of urban development in the former Eastern Bloc. Through these examples, I examine how the dominant model of architecture between 1950 and 1990—the prefabricated concrete housing project—figured in cinematic narratives of the pre-digital era. Animation engaged with the transformation of city spaces on multiple levels: in terms of aesthetics (designs, interiors, surfaces), production modes (seriality, compression, simultaneity), and sociopolitical issues. Understanding what we might today call “serial aesthetics” alongside the social concerns that these works of animation raised provides us with a valuable historical perspective on the medium as a platform for negotiating the boundaries and overlaps between public, personal, and political spaces.

Editorial - Animated Space

Since early days, the moving images of animated film have suggested a spatial freedom that challenges the limits of the photographic and traditional filmic space. When, in 1914, Winsor McCay drew himself onto the landscape to interact with Gertie, he was initiating a practice of expanding the space(s) we live in through the use of the animated image that lasts until today. Animation’s wide aesthetic and technical malleability, and its innate ability to suggest metamorphosis and unrest, has led its practice to cross boundaries and engage with the space beyond the limits of the traditional screen.

Stage-directing the Virtual Reality Experience: Developing a Theoretical Framework for Immersive Literacy

Despite the incremental improvement and inclusion of immersive technologies in entertainment, training simulation, fine art, inclusive design, academia, and education; Virtual Reality (VR) still faces issues regarding its ability to compete with films and animation in visual storytelling without merging into the realm of video games. In 2015, Pixar’s Ed Catmull warned moviemakers that Virtual Reality is “not storytelling” and argued that the linear aspect of narratives poses an obstacle that cannot be overcome with VR. In contrast, Catmull argued that VR has immense application in games. However, VR creators have been pushing the boundaries and possibilities of delivering narratives in virtual spaces. In 2019, the VR experience “Gloomy Eyes” was presented at the Sundance festivals featuring a 30-minute story split between 3 episodes. The simulation is structured to provide its audience with some degrees of freedom while guiding them intuitively through the virtual space. In 2021, Blue Zoo also released a VR project titled “The Beast” featuring a cyclist powering up a snow-covered mountain. The short film was entirely created in Quill VR with the intention of being treated like a theatrical play rather than a film. While the creators of “The Beast” have explicitly mentioned the influence of theatre, “Gloomy Eyes” draws its visual language from similar theatrical roots. This paper argues that VR has been mistakenly compared to film and animation when it should be associated with theatre. The audience of both are not passive as they are during the screening of a film or animation. The space and the medium demands participation through their presence in the same space with the actors/characters. Theatre presents a promising candidate for extracting criteria that could be used to develop a visual language for VR. This research aims to formulate a framework for developing a VR visual language through comparison between character-driven narratives in VR such as “Gloomy Eyes” and “The Beast”. The comparative study establishes overlapping criteria and characteristics found in the structure, literacy, sound, and delivery format of narratives in a theatrical performance. These criteria are then outlined and discussed, drawing from affordance theory and discussions on aural and visual attention in theatre, to form a holistic view in approaching VR literacy.

Animated Urban Surfaces: Spatial Augmented Reality in public discourse

Today´s projection art on public surfaces developed from the mutual approximation of painting, architecture, and lighting during centuries. The terms “Spatial Augmented Reality” (SAR) and “projection mapping” describe mostly temporary large screen projections on urban surfaces. The façade architecture becomes the screen for the content, mostly projected 2D and 3D animations. In essence, many of these artworks generate illusionistic clips deriving from the existing façade structure, allowing reality and fiction to merge audio visually. Artists, architects, curators, and institutions are increasingly aware of their responsibility related to this form of the mediatization of architecture, as shown, for example, by the Brazilian artist group Visualfarm. Their members approach their work as a counterpoint to the commercialization of public space in its appropriation by industry, propaganda, and advertising. But on the other hand, they also make a living from commercial assignments. Artists and architects often see themselves as pioneers and experimental researchers for possible developments in the coming digitized cities. By presenting various examples by selected artists like Corrie Francis Parks, Pablo Valbuena and Robert Seidel, the role of animation in connection with an alternative approach to the concepts of augmented realities within this process of social and urban evolution will be discussed. These artists try to integrate digital content into the cityscape in a harmonious sense.