Materiality, Experimental Process and Animated Identity

Abstract

This chapter considers the concepts of materiality, process and identity which can be described as essential aspects of many experimental animations. It argues that both the materials used and the processes employed in experimental animation are inherently complex and multilayered, and thus can have a simultaneously profound effect upon the form and reception of the final animation. The chapter examines some of the more common materials that have been explored in traditional experimental animation, including: pencil on paper animation, cut-out animation, found-object animation, abstract stop-motion animation and landscape animation. Pencil on paper animation has been a traditional technique generally used by many independent animators. Landscape animation is a large-scale form of animation, often set within a real-world landscape, in which the animator will normally work with both found-objects and with found-spaces to create site-specific animations.