This short text is a continuation of the reflections developed in my doctoral research, which presents an artistic research inquiry into how animation under the camera (a form of stop-motion animation) not only acknowledges the materials of animation as co-creators with their own agencies in the creative process, but also situates the engagement with physical matter as a mode of ecological or “green storytelling” (Reinerth 2026/forthcoming) and as a critique of anthropocentric worldviews. The objective of this text is to explore how hands-on material practices in animation can articulate relational modes of thinking, where animator, materials, and environmental forces are entangled within a shared field of agency and perception.
In contrast to mainstream/commercial productions, under-the-camera animation is a workflow designed to address labour constraints for an individual artist working by hand, capitalizing on the camera’s sequential image-capturing function (Gadassik 2019). Additionally, this animation technique provides space for working with a wide range of physical materials. Whether using sand, paint, paper cut-outs, or clay, the animator’s hands shape the evolving image frame by frame, forging a deep personal connection with the medium itself. Furthermore, the distinctive physical properties of these materials allow them to exert their own agency in shaping the creative process, lending an element of unpredictability that becomes an integral part of the final animation.
At the same time, this method acknowledges the distinct physical qualities and the inherent agency of these materials, allowing them to play an active role in shaping the creative process. I interpret this “active role” through Indigenous perspectives and through the posthumanist notion of zoe in Rosi Braidotti’s (2019) critical theory. Many Indigenous knowledge systems challenge the Cartesian dualism that separates the animate from the inanimate. Indigenous scholar Kim TallBear (Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate) urges the academy to broaden the scope of nonhuman beings with which we form relational ties, moving beyond typically recognized entities such as “dogs, bears, mushrooms, and microorganisms” to include those not even considered “alive” within critical Western frameworks (TallBear 2011). While Indigenous epistemologies long predate posthumanist critical theory, they intersect in our contemporary moment through a shared recognition of vitality and relationality that extends beyond the human. In Braidotti’s (2019) posthumanist framework, zoe signifies a transversal vitality shared across all forms of life and nonlife, emphasizing the continuity between organic and inorganic matter rather than privileging human-centered forms of agency.
As an animation practitioner, my animated short film Baigal Nuur – Lake Baikal (2023) explores the agency of physical materials through hands-on practice, reimagining the formation of Lake Baikal in Siberia, the world’s oldest and deepest freshwater lake. The animation features the voice of an Indigenous Buryat woman, named Marina Dorzhieva, who recalls words connected to the habitat in her mother tongue, Buryat, a Mongolic language that is currently severely endangered due to ongoing colonialism and cultural assimilation. The short was animated entirely by hand on a single sheet of metal, the work was created using oil pastel together with various physical materials, stones, minerals, sand, and other found objects gathered from daily life, personal collections, and contributions from friends.
The under-the-camera technique and workflow naturally invite uncertainty and experimentation: each frame derives from the previous one, and every new image either modifies or destroys the preceding frame. Since mistakes cannot be reversed, this workflow compels the artist to engage directly with the materials, discovering inventive strategies in the process. The result emphasizes a close relationship between animator, medium, and artwork. Consequently, these geological and natural entities serve as both subjects of inquiry and active participants in co-creating movement throughout the animation process, revealing their intrinsic characteristics through interaction with the artist’s practice.
For example, the qualities of sand and minerals in the animation often reveal themselves as unpredictable: grains of sand scatter or accumulate in unexpected ways, while minerals refract light or shift with the slightest disturbance. Stones, by contrast, should remain mostly static in the film, but even the tiniest attempt to adjust them risks disrupting the entire composition. These contingent behaviours shape the imagery as much as the animator’s hand, highlighting the agency of the materials within the process. This process critiques anthropocentric views because it de-centres the artist as the sole agent of creation and foregrounds the agency of nonhuman matter. Instead of materials being passive tools to be shaped entirely by human intention, sand, minerals, stones, and pigments actively influence the outcome of the work. Their inherent physical characteristics and unpredictable movements remind us that the creative process is not a one-directional act of human mastery, but rather an entangled collaboration between human and nonhuman entities. Here, “mastery” refers both to artistic skill and to the hierarchical, often colonial, assumption of human dominance over the other-than-human world.
The vocabulary heard in the film’s voice over highlights the deep connection between Indigenous people, their language, landscape, and habitats. The woman mentions four different words for “thunder” in the Buryat language. One of these, Tengriin-duu, refers to thunder and literally means “the sound of the sky” or “the song of the sky.” By adding the suffix -iin to Tengri (sky), the word frames the sky as an active subject, inherently marked by animacy. This linguistic animacy resonates with the animation process itself: just as the sky and other natural phenomena are understood as possessing agency, the under-the-camera technique recognizes sand, stones, and minerals as active participants in shaping the imagery. Both the Indigenous language and the animation process resist anthropocentric assumptions by acknowledging that the nonhuman world, whether expressed through words or through material movement, possesses its own vitality, rhythm, and presence within the storytelling process.
References
Baigal Nuur – Lake Baikal (CAN 2023; director: Alisi Telengut)
Braidotti, Rosi. 2019. Posthuman Knowledge. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Gadassik, Alla. 2019. “Independent Animators and the Artisanal Mode, 1947–1989.” In Animation, edited by Scott Curtis, 120. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Reinerth, Maike. 2026/forthcoming. “From Pragmatic Green Storytelling to Eco Media Literacy: Exploring Material Aesthetics in Sustainable Animation Production,” in Animation and Sustainability, edited by Cristina Formenti and Chris Pallant.
TallBear, Kim. 2011. “Why Interspecies Thinking Needs Indigenous Standpoints.” Fieldsights, November 18, 2011. Accessed November 1, 2025. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/why-interspecies-thinking-needs-indigenous-standpoints
Alisi Telengut is a Canadian artist of Mongolian roots, living between Berlin, Germany, and Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, Canada. She is an Assistant Professor of Film Animation at Concordia University and recently defended her PhD in Artistic Research at Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf. Her practice consists of frame-by-frame, under-the-camera animation with mixed media, generating painterly, hand-made visuals. Her work has been widely exhibited and screened, including at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, the Whitney Biennial, Sundance Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival TIFF and TIFF Canada’s Top Ten, the Annecy International Animation Festival.