(The) Death (of) the Animator, or: The Felicity of Felix, Part III: The Death of Death
Abstract:
This paper will elaborate animation’s centrality to contemporary
culture, the paramount nature of animation’s relation to the uncanny in
that centrality, and the profound implications of that centrality for
the contemporary world and subject. To that end it will foreground the
assertions of animation theorist Taihei Imamura in 1948 and philosopher
Slavoj Zizek in 1991 of the relevance of the return of the dead for
contemporary culture, then turn to Jean Baudrillard for a larger vision
of the (lifedead) matter.
Biographical Statement: The paper I propose is part 3 of the paper whose first part I presented at the 2007 Animated Dialogues Conference in Melbourne and second part at the 2007 SAS conference at Portland. It extends my theorizing in those parts of the relation of animation to death, as well extends that theorizing in my Introductions to The Illusion of Life and The Illusion of Life 2 and in a number of my articles. Dr. Cholodenko is an Honorary Associate at The University of Sydney’s Department of Art History and Film Studies.
Abstract: Birth and death — crucial components of the social — are all turned upside down in Wall-E.
An examination of this film through Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology,
especially his characterisation of generativity and “lifeworld” with
their focus on life and death — generation — will demonstrate clearly
how the medium of animation is best suited to grasp the poignancy of a
character locked in a dead world, the tenderness of the love between
binoculars on a box and an egg, the degradation of humanity when free
will is denied it and the optimism of the rebirth of our planet.
Abstract:
In surveying a number of American cartoons during the post-World War II
era, this paper seeks to demonstrate the ways in which popular
animation engages in an aporetical uncertainty, focusing primarily on
the investiture of sapience into the cartoon character, the existential
connotations of the chase, and the “death confrontation” signified by
the blackout gag. The motifs of acknowledgment and “deceleration” in
the cartoons of the era will be addressed: how does this phenomenology
of the personified form produce this effect? How is the acknowledgment
of a “life/death” state enacted, and what are its implications for
post-World War II culture?
Abstract:
Taking inspiration from George Bataille’s statement, “A dictionary
begins when it no longer gives the meaning of words, but their tasks,”
this paper is a questioning look at the early birth and seeming death
of critical histories for experimental film and experimental animation.
Insisting upon the persistence of experimental animation as a uniquely
distinct aesthetic, this scholar distinguishes the art form while
simultaneously reaching across the disciplines of art history, cinema
history and philosophical inquiry. While this paper does not analyze
Bataille per se, its author is inspired by the quote.
