September theme: Animation and the Environment
Deadline: 19 September 2022
For our next theme, we invite posts exploring the existing relationship between animation and the environment from any perspective. We particularly welcome, however, posts looking at the past, present (and future) animation production from either an ecocritical or ecomaterialist perspective. In other words, on the one hand, we especially invite posts looking at how environmental messages have been conveyed through animation across the decades and how they are delivered nowadays. Indeed, animated works that can be classified as “envrio-toons” have long been produced (see Murray and Heumann 2011; Pike 2012) and with climate change and its effects becoming increasingly more evident in recent years animation has started to be used more and more also by environmental activists to convey their messages.
On the other hand, we especially look forward to posts addressing the environmental (un)sustainability of animation production practices. Indeed, the production of animated works also has an environmental impact. As Sean Cubit (2013) has underlined, we cannot forget that “[a]nimation techniques are highly material in an environmental sense, as well as in terms of labor and toxicology”.
Possible topics may include but are not limited to:
- Environmental awareness and animation;
- Animating real-life environments;
- (Hidden) Environmental messages in animated works;
- Animating landscapes;
- 2D and 3D animated environments;
- Envrio-toons and their impact;
- The environmental (un)sustainability of the animation production;
- Animation production and environmental protocols.
Posts of between 600 and 900 words, which discuss any aspect of the above topic are welcome. Contributors are encouraged to include clips and at least one image to support their posts. Please also include a short bio and 3 keywords. All permissions are the responsibility of the contributor. Please contact the managing editor Cristina Formenti (cristina.formenti@uniud.it) with submissions or questions.