Animation is the medium that allows for a dramatization of a skirmish with nature. -Esther Leslie, “Animation and History” In Segundo de Chomón’s Création de la Serpentine (1908), a sorcerer transforms a billowing piece of fabric into a woman…
Review of Christopher Holliday. The Computer-Animated Film. Industry, Style and Genre. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018. The Computer-Animated Film is ambitious in its scope and comprehensive in its coverage, which alone would make a go-to text in the still-comparatively…
This post explores the use of the camera obscura as an Early Modern astronomical instrument and shows how that apparatus helped make sequential images of extraordinarily controversial cosmological significance centuries before chronophotography. What follows is the story of how, in…
I recently began a project that combines new media art with robotic design. It is a fascinating new direction for me and I was quite surprised to see the recurring mention of animation within the field I was venturing into.…
In her 2005 book Cyborg Cinema and Contemporary Subjectivity Sue Short argues that “science and technology become the equivalent of magical totems equipped with the ability to transform entire worlds without the need for struggle”[1]. The dystopia of Konaka Chiaki’s…
It can be argued that, while scientists may have more effectively recreated scientists, it is the artists who have come closest to understanding and capturing the essence of humanity (Bates 1994). Robotics is on the rise. Trying to create emotionally…
For the past five years I have been researching topics relating to the frontiers of animation: motion graphics, interface design, transmedia and most recently animation and machines (more specifically robots). What started as an attempt to conduct an investigation into…
In 2007, a committee assembled by Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe and chaired by Abe’s science adviser Kiyoshi Kurokawa drafted Innovation 25, a strategic proposal that promised to stimulate economic growth by 2025 by investing in various aspects of technological…
One of the most significant aspects of the Disney theme parks is the use of Walt Disney’s mechanical creations that continuously entertain in many, if not all, attractions. The history behind this inspiration is that, on his many vacations, Walt…
In this post I examine the increasing trend of creating stop-motion films that metaphorically reveal the artificiality of the medium by exposing and dismantling the filmmaking process within the narrative. These are films that stage elements akin to a “making-of”,…
