Animation Techniques as a New Medium

By Marina Kožul and Mirna Belina

How should several key practices included in the term animation be reconciled and redefined: as a technique (artistic or "applied", omnipresent in marketing, the music industry, architecture, video games, etc.) or as art form that is increasingly distancing itself from the definition of animated film as defined by the International Animated Film Association (ASIFA)? Will the technique of animation as "new medium" – determined by software experiments – replace "real recordings", recorded material, and how will this reflect upon the representation of reality?

By its definition, animation still, primarily, incorporates that classical principle of film, the representation of reality, which is often called "real". Since its very beginnings, animation aimed to create an illusion of movement by employing artificial means. With Disney's animated realism, rotoscoping, and today with Zemeckis' extensive use of motion capture or performance capture techniques, which literally transform real motion into its digital equivalent, we are following a development of animation which brings the source of the picture into question.

What are we looking at? Does the future of film (as did its past) lie in animation? This study will aim to clarify some terms related to animation as a new global "technique" of representation, but also a new media art practice, with special emphasis on questioning its impact on the modern art of film in Croatia and the world.

The study will research the Croatian context of visual art in which animation is used and describe the pictoriality that emanates from it. Surveys to be taken by directors of animated and feature films, visual artists, designers of web pages, creators of video games, professionals of the advertising and TV industry, artistic directors of film festivals and theoreticians, will investigate the reasons for the use of animation, the software used and its limitations, the market and economic aspects of particular areas of visual art in which the respondents are active, and possible new characteristics of film genres, in order to give a broad overview of the development of animation in Croatia as compared to corresponding areas of visual arts in Europe and the world.

Research Summaries

Marina Kožul / Mirna Belina
Animation Techniques as a New Medium

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