ARG 2021.

The COVID Pandemic frustrated our annual pilgrimage to Albuquerque New Mexico. Still, the virtual format allowed people from all over the world to join the third Animation Research Gang (ARG!) meeting. The Gang is expanding! Nothing can replace sharing a space with likeminded friends, but the online alternative was a close second. We had 20 presenters— practitioners, social advocates, pop culture critics, game enthusiasts, analyst of industry trends, and animation scholars—who addressed a plethora of topics related to our passion topic, animation, from different angles.

Presenters ARG 2021

It was great to see familiar faces and to introduce them to the many newcomers who shared with us their experiences and research on animation. We thank each one of them for their hard work and brilliant presentations.

Because not all of our participants were able to enjoy everyone's presentations due to the format of the conference, this year we were able to acquire more space for our video load and wanted to show the presentations in full lenght. Hopefully we can keep this going for future installments of ARG!

We hope that we can meet you all in person in the near future, perhaps at some other animation festival or conference, and remember that we will be in Albuquerque in February 2022.

The only thing that is left to say for now is ARG to you all! and to all a good ARG!

Presenters
1. Jacob Reeder	8. Burak Sahin	15. Camille Le Pioufle
2. Aaron Borok	9. Christine Veras	16. Courtney Dabney
3. Cheng-yun Wang	10. Pamela Turner	17. Jingyi Zhang
4. Soham Adhikari	11. Stacey Jocoy	18. Marc Russo
5. Jose Santos Ardivilla	12. Hannah Hadidi	19. Toby Jungius
6. Kalli Lum	13. Scott Huddleston	20. Scott Meador
7. Bryce Nottingham	14. Inma Carpe

MIND GAME: Masaaki Yuasa's Absurdist Tour de Force.

Jacob Reeder,
University of Texas, Dallas.

Mind Game is a 2004 Japanese animated film based on Robin Nishi's manga of the same name, directed by Masaaki Yuasa, animated and produced by the staff of Studio 4°C. The film premiered internationally at the New York Asian Film Festival in America in 2005. In the years since its premiere, Mind Game has known exemplary acclaim primarily for its adventurous and masterful employment of a myriad of animation stylings to deliver its lofty narrative. It is of my opinion that while Mind Game's experimental animation and absurdist narrative may seem inaccessible and unfocused on first impression, they powerfully encapsulate the deeper thematic messages which Yuasa seeks to explore. Mind Game tells the story of an independent manga artist named Nishi, accompanied by two friends --sisters Myon and Yan-- who are swallowed by a whale and must grapple with this bizarre and crushing new reality. I believe that the central theme Mind Game seeks to express is the challenge of retaining control over one's life in the face of circumstances beyond your power, and how the lines between healthy acceptance of reality and the ennui of complacency can often become blurred. Several times in the opening scene, the phrase "your life is the result of your own actions" appears in the background --as graffiti on a wall, on a sign, and as a text message on someone's phone-- in a clear measure to indicate authorial intent. The theme is explored further in the introductory scenes as Nishi finds himself unable to confess his feelings to Myon, afraid of her potential rejection and referring to remain complacent even if it means sacrificing the relationship he truly desires with her. Myon, herself, has had her ideal life left out of her reach by circumstances beyond her control. As a child she was a swimming prodigy, but as a teenager, she developed a large bust that left her with a poor physique for swimming, and she gave up. In an interview with Offscreen following the 2017 Fantasia Festival, Yuasa spoke on the many facets of his work, including the absurdism which was so central to Mind Game. "...for animation, the most important thing is movement, which you can't express in manga or live-action films... I try to show the landscape that the characters see subjectively, not objectively." The world of Mind Game is packed with that same sort of abstract and fantastical imagery, used here in rhythm with a mixed-media approach that includes elements of 3D art, scanned traditional elements, and most notably, photographs of real people which are intermittently used to depict the characters. In the introductory scenes, the "real" world depicted in drab blues and grays makes liberal use of real faces during close-ups, but when Nishi, Myon, and Yan delve into the fantastical world of the belly of the whale, this element disappears from the film entirely. A true auteur, Yuasa masterfully weaves the absurd and incongruous into his world, allowing them to convey feelings --ennui, hope, despair-- of which our words often fall short.

jwr190002@utdallas.edu

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Death and Rebirth: A Study of Neon Genesis Evangelion and the Nature of Apocalypse.

Aaron Borok,
Independent Scholar

Between late 1995 to early 1996, the Japanese animated series, Neon Genesis Evangelion was released, soon to garner international critical acclaim. The original series follows the life of Shinji Ikari and his fellow teenagers on the precipice of apocalypse, dealing with the personalized anxieties and depressions of their daily lives, all while piloting mechanized suits to combat an unwinnable alien invasion. Often considered one of the most influential anime series in history, Hideaki Anno's seminal series is praised for its use of the mecha genre to show an otherwise very deeply psychological narrative; and yet it also is often criticised for its confounding plot threads and significant dips in animation "quality." As of this writing, the planet has been devastated by a global pandemic, with certain countries such as the United States, having lost hundreds of thousands of lives in the span of less than a year. This, among other global and national crises, has stoked a general fear for our collective futures; a fear for the end of the world as we know it. While the original anime series had concluded about 20 to 25 years ago, I argue there may be illuminating correlations between the events of the show and 1997 film to current events. These similarities are not solely literal, but also can further be found in the emotional state of the characters as well as the metatext of the series as a whole. In this paper, I hope to conceptualize a definition of "apocalypse" as given by Neon Genesis Evangelion, using both various theoretical frameworks and the series itself as a guide. I intend to argue how the animated series utilizes its narrative and artistic techniques to explore the concept of "end of the world" in itself, as both a social and very personal phenomenon; and how this exploration may be revealing and educative to the events of today.

aaborok@gmail.com

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Globalized Soundscapes for Girls' Journeys of Empowerment: A Musical Comparison of Kiki's Delivery Service and Spirited Away.

Cheng-yun Wang,

Texas Tech University

With the development of globalization, anime films have become a global force. Hayao Miyazaki's animated films in particular are very well received around the world, one of the reasons for this being the soundtracks composed by Joe Hisaishi. The soundtrack can heighten the emotion of the plot, color the location of the film, and foreshadow coming scenes, and well as help to delineate characters. Elements of Hisaishi's soundtracks have been analyzed and categorized in relation to Miyazaki's films by scholars such as Kyoko Koizumi and Kunio Hara, the discussion of globalization in his work has been lacking. Hisaishi's musical background incorporates elements of Western classical music, and he narratively incorporates global sounds into his musical world-building. In the soundtrack of Spirited Away (2002), he uses taiko drums and Okinawan scale patterns to create a Japanese feel. In Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), Hisaishi used accordion and mandolin to create a continental European musical atmosphere. In this paper, I use visual and aural synchronization analysis, as well as harmonic analysis, to help illustrate that globalization is an important factor in the films of Miyazaki.

cheng-yun.wang@ttu.edu

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The Otherized Nonhuman and Abstractized Phenomenon in Anime: An Exploration of Phenomenological Tropes in Kiseijû: Sei no Kakuritsu and Another.

Soham Adhikari,
Presidency University

The paper indulges in a nonhuman criticism of the anime Kiseijû: Sei no kakuritsu and Another, and analyses the phenomenological questions that both these anime put forward. Kiseijû questions the ethics of killing, introducing worm-like 'parasytes' that enter the human body and devour the brain, taking control of neural and modal functions in its stead. They kill other humans for nourishment and entertainment, and are subsequently termed as nonhuman 'monsters'. Such a hypocritical vilification is remarkable in the fact that it is not a problem when humans kill other animals for food and recreation, but it becomes a problem when another life-form conversely does the same. Human ethics, values and morale are thus imposed on the nonhuman. The nonhuman is Otherized and the resulting moral dichotomy is a by-product of both the 'Lack in the Other' and the 'Lack in the Other of the Other'. Another takes a different approach in its treatment of the non-human, introducing shisha (The Dead) – a humanoid 'being' with human-like feelings and emotions. The Otherized nonhuman is consecutively humanized, and its paradoxical states of being are engendered and sustained by the unificatory bonds of "Intentionality." Its appearance and disappearance is portrayed as a natural phenomenon - an abstractization stemming from a decay, a 'Lack', in subjective and collective memory. The nonhuman births an existential dread in the human, the result of which is a mutual alienation. The humans Otherize themselves while trying to comprehend and justify an abstractized natural phenomenon in human cognitive terms.

sohamadhikari23082000@gmail.com

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Ways of Decoloniality by The Painted Lady. Avatar: The Last Airbender's Katara...

Jose Santos Ardivilla,
Texas Tech University

In the third episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender's Book 3: The Book Of Fire, Avatar Aang, Sokka, Katara chanced upon a fishing village in stilts that are ravaged by the pollution of its waterways. The pollution comes from the industrial activity of the Colonial Masters Fire Nation which greatly affected the village. Katara disguises herself as "The Painted Lady," a folkloric figure of the village to help in healing the sick and providing the food, which proved to be not as effective until there is a direct confrontation with the polluters. This narrative demonstrates what Peruvian theorist Anibal Quijano's notions of Decoloniality in which the ways to weaken the colonial matrix of power is delink (the appearance of the Painted Lady as the benevolent force to rival the Fire Nation's industrial foment) and relink (the villagers seize their village's wellbeing by the ouster of the Fire nation and thus enabling their cleaning up and the reclaiming of their ways of life) the subjugated ones back to the generative power of their own narratives. Avatar: The Last Airbender (aired in Nickelodeon from 2005-2008) has been lauded for its political stances "disguised" in an adventure animated TV series. On May 15, 2020, this popular cartoon series started streaming in Netflix which prompted both nostalgia and eagerness to introduce this series to a new audience. Though there have been discussions on alignments of the series' plot lines as reminiscent of Imperial Japan's expansion in Asia during the 20th century, there are new readings of this series that are applicable to today's People Republic of China's neo-imperialist ambitions which see ecological destruction and a displacement of local people to fuel the machinery of the most powerful economy in Asia. This presentation seeks to thread to the connective nodes of the cartoon series' particular episode with local environmental concerns that are at the forefront of increased geopolitical tensions of the region.

jose.ardivilla@ttu.edu

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Asian Representation in Western Animation: Modeling Stylized Anatomical Features.

Kalli Lum,
Independent Scholar

Asian cultures in modern Western animation are usually not accurately represented due to the choice of mixing cultures from the various countries found within the continent of Asia as opposed to focusing on a single, specific culture. As a result, the audiences are presented with films showcasing piecemeal fragments of Asian culture without authenticity. Of all the Asian cultures represented in Western animated films, three specific types are usually represented: Chinese, Japanese, and Pacific Islanders. With the overuse of these specific Asian cultures as resources for inspiring Westernized animation, there is a lack of representation for other various Asian cultures, specifically Asian minorities such as Hmong, Tagalog, and Kayan. This thesis will discuss the importance of concentrating on specific features such as anatomical and traditional cultural dress of a few Asian minorities through 3D character modeling in order to enhance the accuracy of their respective representation in Western animation to visually describe their narratives.

akallimlum@gmail.com

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Jack Stauber's OPAL: A Critique on the Effects of Commercialism Through the Pursuit of the American Dream.

Bryce Nottingham,
University of Texas at Dallas

OPAL is a short produced by artist/musician Jack Stauber and distributed by Adult Swim on October 30, 2020. OPAL highlights the negative effects of standardized American living brought about through the pursuit of something unobtainable. Understanding such effects helps viewers interpret similar characteristics that led to the division and political unrest commonly seen in America today. In this paper, I argue that Jack Stauber's OPAL, is a critique on the extreme effects of commercialism in American culture brought about by the idealization of the American Dream, as seen through the protagonist's encounters with the three antagonists: the father, the brother, and the mother. The short released during the Trump presidency when a sense of division and political unrest had been at an all-time high. Trump's campaign specifically idealizing the early 50s to late 60s Americano when the American Dream was most prevalent. As a result, a counterculture had begun to form under Trump presidency pushing away from this idealization for a more standardized, ethical practice preaching equality. This commonly being represented by TV networks such as Cartoon Network or its adult block, Adult Swim, which often draws attention to underrepresented cultures that have either recently emerged or long existed.

brn200000@utdallas.edu

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Taking the Hesitation out of Drawing: Drawing without Thinking.

Burak Sahin,
Independent Scholar

Drawing is a key ingredient to the production process of visual storytelling. Regardless of the production technique, drawing is an essential tool and a critical element in establishing the visual style and the identity of the product. Animation relies heavily on the drawn image for artistic representation and drawing is undeniably the most common, time/cost-effective practice in the script to screen transformation of the animated film. Given the value of drawing for animation and the animated film, consideration can be given to the definition of expectations from drawing and those who draw. This article aims at emphasizing 'hesitation' as the most striking influence on drawing which not only has a hindering effect on the quality of the drawn image but also a locking effect on the process of drawing. Hesitation is often a self-induced state where the objective of drawing shifts away from a personal and a deliberate act of visualization of an idea into an attempt in creating a look-alike of the subject material or simply pleasing a colleague or a decision-maker. Drawing regardless of the style pursued is best effective when executed as a free-flowing, deliberate, explorative and an experimental act without thinking and hesitation. The objective is to try to reach out and create the images on one's mind by reaching and maintaining a focused state of production. The mind is able to derive inspiration from a source and coordinate the body to utilize certain skills and tools to create a drawn image so that the final product can be regarded to have a creative value with the choices made in utilizing certain assets. Authentic products have a way of combining and coordinating these attributes in a unique way. When the objective of production is governed by a model of success or a set of values of a decision-maker then the mind is at risk of establishing a true connection with the core spirit which provides the motivation for production. The act of drawing can be free flowing when all restrictive and/or negative thoughts with respect to how the product will be perceived are blocked to a certain point. The act of drawing should be deliberate in action accentuated with the purposefulness of the pencil or the brush strokes attempting to capture the true intention of the production and the expression.

shnbrk@gmail.com

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Animating Across Social Distances.

Christine Veras,
University of Texas at Dallas

Since mid-March 2020, the world as we know it has changed. As we went to shelter in place to protect ourselves and others from the Coronavirus, the unimaginable happened: The workforce had to redirect home, and new creative solutions were found to make working in the distance possible. The animation field has been one of the lucky ones in this transition, as it was easier to adapt its production to remote work. Used to work alone, many animators could easily accommodate to the situation and revealed themselves more productive. As months passed, technology connects us through communication tools that are now ubiquitous. Zoom has become the synonym for video conferences, urging for new rules of social engagement and interaction. However, the new "normal" makes it harder for impromptu collaborations and more casual conversations that would occur in the corridor or during coffee breaks. Interactions have now turned into planned meetings. As animators, we wanted to find a way to collaborate across the impositions of social distancing, and that's when the idea of mixing pixilation and Zoom came to our minds, through screengrabs, frame-by-frame. Originally these animated gatherings proposed a playful way to connect with other animators and have fun animating ourselves. When playfully trying to simulate a handshake, hugs, and other forms of traditional face-to-face interactions, we have found a playful way to cope with social distance. What has started as an impromptu way to animate and reconnect has the potential to become a new tool in animation. The first Zoom Pixilation workshop happened during ASIFA Central Animator's Retreat, based on an original idea from the storyteller Steve Leeper, in the Summer of 2020. The work brought together many animators and international collaborators who are exploring the technique further. In this paper, I will showcase some of the animations created using this new tool, and reflect upon its potential to encourage engagement, and further develop the kinds of stories we can tell with it.

christine.veras@utdallas.edu

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The Practice of Animation for an Empathetic Seeking and Sensing of the Other-than-Human World.

Pamela Turner,
Virginia Commonwealth University

The potential of animation to create a re-connection to the world we now designate as 'natural' is the motivating force of my research. Here, I examine the thread that connects the meditative and embodied practice of animation --a conjuring of form and empathy of movement-- with the intuited sentience present in the world not made by humans. My work is guided and inspired by a renewed attention to ecopsychology which, in a fortuitous journey, led me to phenomenology. That philosophical study contributes a welcome, familiar voice to the questions I consider in my "field work", as I wander through forests and along beaches, streams, and rivers. This practice is a balance of intuition and interrogation, as I gaze at and study movement, color, and light, collect objects and record images and sound. The studio process involves a sort of re-presenting movement and form to create an experience of the magic in the non-man-made environment. The desire to engage others, to 're-enchant' them to an awareness of this "magic", has grown more urgent due to our critical environmental crisis. "Magic" is a word that comes with cultural baggage, however it is too appropriate to be avoided and so I will address this term in its more original form as it connects to the natural world and, also, to animation. The use of digital technologies to 're-enchant' and rediscover reciprocal relationship between Human and Other-than-Human is considered as these serve in the creation of, as well as in the experiencing of, the animated work. The use of technology to connect to nature may appear problematic and will be addressed. It is the process, mediated by instruments that are usually digital, that is important. Tactile, material activities such as drawing, printmaking, and painting are part of the process and, those, as well as digital processes, form a nearly ritualistic absorption as I work. As I question the attraction of the natural world across an imposed, inherited and cultivated distance, I turn to terrapsychology and phenomenology, ecocritical writing, and animation studies. I will reflect briefly on earlier work and examine works by artists engaging in kindred animation art practices.

ptturner@vcu.edu

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Rurouni Kenshin: Anime-Driven Nostalgia in Gaming Soundscapes.

Stacey Jocoy,
Texas Tech University

The international popularity of Nobuhiro Watsuki's character Rurouni Kenshin has resulted in a franchise that started conventionally with manga and anime but has since expanded through OVAs, light novels, movies, and several video games. Set early in the period of the Meiji Restoration (c. 1880s), Watsuki's story focuses on a former assassin, a young soldier traumatized by the horrific experiences of the recent Bakamatsu. Rather than telling an action story through an iconic Samurai stereotype, Watsuki chose to tell a historical action-romance, using a bishonen (beautiful boy) main character to add dramatic interest and to merge the shonen (boys) and shojo (girls) genres to form a hybrid entertainment. The music of the initial anime was a mixed collection of traditional kabuki-influenced gestures, j-pop, and rock riffs meant to provide atmosphere, characterization, and a contemporary sound that would appeal globally to its youthful target audience. Of the twelve video games that feature Kenshin, "Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Kenkaku Romanten—Enjou! Kyoto Rinne" (2006) for PlayStation 2 is the only one that uses segments of this original anime soundtrack throughout. Released seven years after the anime ended, fan response to the game was positive, selling over 130,000 copies in 2006. Players note that "Enjou!" feels nostalgic given the strong integration of anime elements throughout the game, especially the music. This study uses comparative musical analysis of the related soundscapes from both anime and game, combined with reviews and commentary mined from gameplay videos, to argue that "Enjou!" enjoys continued gameplay despite the seven RK games that have been developed since 2006, due to its interconnected use of both musical and narrative elements from the anime. The narrativity of the soundscapes evoke drama in gameplay and elicit nostalgia in cutscenes, creating a more satisfying gameplay experience than the street-fighter combat model typically allows.

stacey.jocoy@ttu.edu

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Summer Days: An Animated Panorama.

Hannah Hadidi,
Independent Scholar

Coronavirus has taken a large toll on society, trapping many people at home feeling insecure and hopeless for the near future. I believe that technology has the potential to be a huge source of relief for people affected by this experience. By combining the nostalgic and expressive potential of 2D animation with the advanced technology of VR environments, the intention of this piece is to become a virtual escape during hard times for people to heal. My project is a 360-degree panoramic scene utilizing looping animations to create a relaxing and peaceful environment. Joining the stylization and expression of 2D artwork in a simulated 3D space for an immersive experience in VR. The piece offers an interactivity that allows the viewer to take in the drawn environment in their own time and have their own personal experience within it.

hannahadidi@gmail.com

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A Voice for The Silent: Neurodiversity and The Future of Inclusion in Commercial Animation.

Scott Huddleston,
Independent Scholar

Commercial western animations have traditionally focused on characters with fantastical elements. The Pixar "Spark shorts" program is setting a trend by including neurodiverse characters, setting an example for the future of commercial animation. The directors of these shorts must overcome challenges and understanding to create animations with characters that are not typically portrayed on screen. In my paper, I present my take on the animated short film Loop (2020) and how it impacts the representation of the Autistic community in animation, supported by a conversation with Erica Milsom the director of the short. In learning about her processes behind the creation of a film about an autistic non-verbal girl, Milsom and her team relied on visuals, camera angles, lighting, and a team of consultants from the Autistic Self Advocacy Network to convey the emotions of the main character, Rebecca. This helps audiences to better understand the perspective of people seldom represented in cinema and animation. In our conversation, we broke down and discussed the camera shots that helped to explain moments from the perspective of someone with autism and how these moments help the audience understand what an autistic person goes through when their senses are overloaded, or they are experiencing an episode . I feel that through advances in animated technology, and software we can create a way in an autistic individual can share their experience with neurotypical individuals creating a new way to communicate and understand between the two.

sth200000@utdallas.edu

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Developing Consciousness: The Animator as a Shaman and Mindfulness in Animation.

Inma Carpe,
The Animation Learning Lab, Denmark

Technological advances have helped to reveal many of the mysteries of ancient civilizations that try to explain our existence and what makes up humans, however, the greatest of all continues to be the subject of current discussions and controversies between scientists and humanists from all areas, consciousness, now animated. We communicate through myths and stories that reflect our culture and origins, offering valuable life lessons from which we can become more conscious about ourselves and the world around us. Through animation we can face uncertainty, changing visions, working on conflicts projected on movies, treated as dialogues where questioning what we perceive is a healthy practice to develop and change consciousness. As artists and educators this is our proposal, to explore consciousness from the creative process of animation and its observation. A bridge between the invisible and visible, a journey to learn about life (energy), spirit and matter (mind and body), reality and fantasy, and the relationship between these concepts that influence the construction of our perspective and being. Within this model animation is a contemplative art to observe our thoughts, feelings and actions as they emerge from our collective (un)consciousness, once we learn to be in silence. It is from the empty space that creations are born, reason why we connect mindfulness with animation and consider the creative process of a movie as a mindfulness practice, if guided within a contemplative framework. We created a model based on cross cultural projects that cultivate a reflective eye (the minds' eye), whose holistic vision analyzes and questions what it perceives, being aware that the information we receive at a cognitive level is a collection of biased signals collected by our senses; thus understanding that the reality we build is based on fractals, that the body (with the mind) feels and reconstructs in stories, using the filter of our artistic perception, as a total or the sum of parts, that we virtually animate in our mind as a mental movie. We live in challenging times where disconnection and miscommunication are creating division and chaos, for what we need to offer tools and practices that guide and teach people to reflect and make decisions from a peaceful mind. Animators can be like the figure of the shaman, the mediator that assist the community to restore balance, by revealing what we need to see; our inner world, projecting the mind of the creator, who can become the witness of consciousness.

iccp@via.dk

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Not Time to be 'Horsin' Around': The Commodification of Time in BoJack Horseman.

Camille Le Pioufle,
University of New Mexico

What can an animated TV show like 'BoJack Horseman' tell us about our unhealthy consumption of time in the capitalist context of today's society? Very much, this paper suggests. The show's adroit portrayal of the dysfunctional manner in which free time and labor time are unevenly balanced in the lives of its characters is deeply revealing of our society's equally dysfunctional way of consuming time. In this respect, I argue that 'BoJack Horseman' provides a sharp criticism of the absurd operation of a capitalist system that, in Vincent Mosco's words, "fails to guarantee free time to pursue what it most promises: freedom," yet without really giving answers as to how to move away from it. The show is particularly successful in the way it manages to convey a sense of urgency for the characters to correctly employ the time that is allocated to them, and it does so through various tools, whether technical, rhetorical, or plot-related, that this paper examines. Some episodes of 'BoJack Horseman' particularly revolve around the themes of the past, nostalgia, regrets, and a profound awareness of the inexorability of the passage of time – themes that undoubtedly echo familiar aspects of our everyday lives. All this is rendered possible in the show by the larger range of tools that animation has over live action to distort and play with reality, as well as the tendency of the audience to associate animation with humor, therefore often keeping a more open mind regarding the distortion of this reality. In order to provide some food for thought as to how 'BoJack Horseman''s pessimistic but realistic perspective on life could be lightened, I intend to apply some of the theories of French-Austrian social philosopher and journalist André Gorz. Since the show acts as a critical reflection of our current system, it is interesting to explore how Gorz's ideas could be implemented within the narrative of the show. His views on the emancipation of individuals being enabled through a liberation from work and a focus on free time as a way to achieve more autonomy - through artistic activities for instance - are more than relevant in the analysis of a show that focuses on a world that straddles artistic creation and the capitalist urge to accumulate capital. 'BoJack Horseman' is full of irony throughout, but one of the most powerful instances of this irony might lie in the paradoxical realization that, as an artist and a creator of artistic content, BoJack is one of the characters who least enjoys art and the product of his own work – a motif interestingly reminiscent of the Marxist concept of alienation.

camillelp@unm.edu

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Realist Narrative within CG Films/ Animations Featuring African Americans.

Courtney Dabney,
Savannah College of Art and Design

New Realism within Black Cinema consists of significant cinematic realism within the films. However, this cinematic realism is lacking within CG films/animation featuring Black minorities. The Italian Neorealist movement has a strong influence on New Realism within Black Cinema. Nonetheless, there are problems of applying realism to CG films/animations according to the establishing theories defining Italian Neorealism. When revaluating these theories and looking into Italian Neorealist films like Bicycle Thieves, Umberto and Shoe Shine, the solution to the problem of lack of realism with CG films/animation becomes apparent. This solution reveals the specific shortcomings of these CG films/animation featuring Black characters such as Hair Love and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and explains how the single CG film/animation, Substance, was able to successfully fall within the realm of realism.

courtdabney4@gmail.com

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Empathizing with the Animated Body.

Jingyi Zhang,
University of Georgia

In Carefully Constructed Yet Curiously Real, Malou van Rooij offers a possible reason for the overwhelming emotional response to the animated films made by the American animation studios like Pixar, Disney, and Dreamwork. She points out that the audiences respond and empathize with the animated characters because of a specific shared style of characterization, which paradoxically combines lifelikeness and abstraction. By taking on her idea and analyzing three distinctively designed short animation, Hair Love, Daughter, and Memorable, I argue that not only the character design but also the integral performance of the animated bodies and the audiences' ability to engage with them are responsible and necessary for empathy. The idea of empathy in this paper follows Amy Coplan's definition as the inhabiting of another's perspective involving affective matching, other-oriented perspective taking, and self-other differentiation. In other words, to empathize, there must be a body and someone who readily perceives the body. Moreover, that someone affectively matches the body without personally imagining the same experiences happening to him/her. To answer the question of how the viewers empathize with the animated bodies, I first address how the animated body is constructed with the integration of the narrative and performance. Without the narrative and performance, a character is only an object, not a body. I then adopt Murray Smith's theory and explain how the audiences engage with the animated bodies through recognition, alignment, and allegiance. It is the cognitive and emotional understanding and engagement that allow the viewers to respond to and match the affective state with the animated bodies. Furthermore, I argue that in the process of engagement and affective match, confusion and ambiguity are as important as recognition and alignment. With the narrator's intentional ambiguity and the viewer's unintentional confusion, the viewers consistently communicate with the narrator through the animated bodies, which eventually deepens the viewers' empathy toward the animated bodies.

jz66666@uga.edu

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The Animation Process and Independent Animation.

Marc Russo,
North Carolina State University

Any animation student can tell you the "right way" to produce an animated short. Books like "The Animator's Workbook" (White, 1986) to "Animation from Concept to Production" (Hall, 2017) spell out the process from storyboarding to final render. Following the template laid out in these books, and many others, will get you to a final production, but the depth of the idea and therefore the quality of the animation will be questionable. These books focus heavily on the technical side of animation, placing emphasis on the production, to the detriment of story development in pre-production. Pixar clearly separates story from animation. This paper focuses on the missing steps and their importance in any animation production. It is not only interesting what is missing but why it might be missing from these highly respected and referenced texts. With the holy grail of animated shorts for studios, students, and independent animators being the Pixar short, it is interesting that these missing steps can be found on the pages of "The Art of …" series of books published after each of the Pixar films. Looking through the lens of independent animation production, often by a solo artist (Levy, 2010), and my current animation production "Sheltering Sky" we discover new processes for creating story, deepening the story in the concept work, making clear and intentional design choices, and how the processes of the giant studios can be reworked for students and independent artists and teams.

merusso@ncsu.edu

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Stop-motion Animation's Limited Presence in Video Games and its Possibilities.

Toby Jungius,
University of Surrey

While the breadth of animation in video games is a limitless field, there are undoubtedly recurring methods of animation which have cemented their prominence in the industry, such as 3D CGI and pixel art & spite animation. One approach which is rarely seen, however, is stop-motion. This can partly be attributed to stop-motion's reputation as an especially labour-intensive form of animation. Game animation often demands that different movements have the capacity to overlap and flow into one another to accommodate unpredictable player interaction. Even games that employ relatively simple motions in moment-to-moment gameplay could require too many different sequences of movement for stop-motion to be practically or financially viable. Traditional methods of game animation are likely to have an extensive institution of history, education, and financial investment surrounding them that encourages consistent reliance on them, as opposed to the lack of precedent with stop-motion in video games. There are some examples of games which evoke the "handcrafted look" that stop-motion is associated with due to its physical nature. 'Kirby and the Rainbow Curse' features an aesthetic which presents its characters and environments as if they are constructed from modelling clay, and 'Yoshi's Crafted World' is made to look as if the game is unfolding on a handcrafted set, with its levels, backgrounds, and many of its enemies appearing as if they are constructed out of household objects and art & craft materials. However, the comparison to handcrafted physical object animation in such cases is strictly visual; these games still employ digital CGI to create this animation. Physical stop-motion is evoked more often than it is employed in the field of game animation. Even so, there are case studies which use stop-motion to animate playable characters. The early 'Mortal Kombat' games use stop-motion to animate its more monstrous-looking characters, such as Goro, Sheeva, and Motaro, in a style that is reminiscent of the creature effects of Ray Harryhausen. 'The Neverhood' is a 1996 point-and-click adventure game animated entirely in stop-motion in which the player navigates a world made entirely out of clay. 'Harold Halibut' is an upcoming stop-motion game in which the player controls a janitor who explores an underwater spaceship brought to life through hand-crafted sets. In this presentation, I intend to take a brief look at these examples and assess their implementation of stop-motion, both from a technical and aesthetic perspective. My talk will conclude with a reflection on what we can take away from these observations, and what possibilities may exist for stop-motion in games in the future. As graphical technology increases and digital animation's potential to provide increasingly detailed textures and photorealistic character models and environments develops, stop-motion provides a stylistic alternative as perhaps a more simple and immediate form of animation. The upcoming 'Harold Halibut' markets itself as a 'handmade adventure game'. Perhaps there is a growing desire among certain video game developers and players to create and experience 'handmade' stop-motion within a medium that often favours expensive digital technologies.

tobyjungius@yahoo.com

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Developing a Digital Media Curriculum for Fine Artists.

Scott Meador,
University of Central Arkansas

The Art and Design department at the University of Central Arkansas needed to expand its curriculum offerings regarding digital media beyond graphic design to respond to student requests; the faculty's awareness of being behind the times; and to be more competitive with other state and regional institutions. The faculty's reluctance to create digital media courses in the past stemmed from both a concern that the courses would attract students from the existing traditional studios and that the courses would have an industry training perspective that was contrary to their core values. Recently, the faculty elected to accept a new member that could create digital media courses. This presentation covers the process of developing a number of courses that fit in the department's mission, while creating opportunities for students to blend their traditional studio experiences with digital media. The courses take a fine art-oriented approach to 2D and 3D animation, video art, and new media installation. The courses offer a broad perspective of the digital art landscape, which allows students to discover and explore various aspects and uses of computer graphics in fine art (both traditional and digital), while not negating industry applications, such as game design and animation production. The presentation also discusses how the faculty made significant changes to the traditional studio curricula to embrace digital media in a surprisingly short period of time; as well as an unexpected merger with the university's Interior Design program, which brings with it a foundation in computer graphics.

wsmeador@uca.edu

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MIND GAME: Masaaki Yuasa's Absurdist Tour de Force.

Jacob Reeder, University of Texas, Dallas.

jwr190002@utdallas.edu

Death and Rebirth: A Study of Neon Genesis Evangelion and the Nature of Apocalypse.

Aaron Borok, Independent Scholar

aaborok@gmail.com

Globalized Soundscapes for Girls' Journeys of Empowerment: A Musical Comparison of Kiki's Delivery Service and Spirited Away.

Cheng-yun Wang, Texas Tech University

cheng-yun.wang@ttu.edu

The Otherized Nonhuman and Abstractized Phenomenon in Anime: An Exploration of Phenomenological Tropes in Kiseijû: Sei no Kakuritsu and Another.

Soham Adhikari, Presidency University

sohamadhikari23082000@gmail.com

Ways of Decoloniality by The Painted Lady. Avatar: The Last Airbender's Katara...

Jose Santos Ardivilla, Texas Tech University

jose.ardivilla@ttu.edu

Asian Representation in Western Animation: Modeling Stylized Anatomical Features.

Kalli Lum, Independent Scholar

akallimlum@gmail.com

Jack Stauber's OPAL: A Critique on the Effects of Commercialism Through the Pursuit of the American Dream.

Bryce Nottingham, University of Texas at Dallas

brn200000@utdallas.edu

Taking the Hesitation out of Drawing: Drawing without Thinking.

Burak Sahin, Independent Scholar

shnbrk@gmail.com

Animating Across Social Distances.

Christine Veras, University of Texas at Dallas

christine.veras@utdallas.edu

The Practice of Animation for an Empathetic Seeking and Sensing of the Other-than-Human World.

Pamela Turner, Virginia Commonwealth University

ptturner@vcu.edu

Rurouni Kenshin: Anime-Driven Nostalgia in Gaming Soundscapes.

Stacey Jocoy, Texas Tech University

stacey.jocoy@ttu.edu

Summer Days: An Animated Panorama.

Hannah Hadidi, Independent Scholar

hannahadidi@gmail.com

A Voice for The Silent: Neurodiversity and The Future of Inclusion in Commercial Animation.

Scott Huddleston, Independent Scholar

sth200000@utdallas.edu

Developing Consciousness: The Animator as a Shaman and Mindfulness in Animation.

Inma Carpe, The Animation Learning Lab, Denmark

iccp@via.dk

Not Time to be 'Horsin' Around': The Commodification of Time in BoJack Horseman.

Camille Le Pioufle, University of New Mexico

camillelp@unm.edu

Realist Narrative within CG Films/ Animations Featuring African Americans.

Courtney Dabney, Savannah College of Art and Design

courtdabney4@gmail.com

Empathizing with the Animated Body.

Jingyi Zhang, University of Georgia

jz66666@uga.edu

The Animation Process and Independent Animation.

Marc Russo, North Carolina State University

merusso@ncsu.edu

Stop-motion Animation's Limited Presence in Video Games and its Possibilities.

Toby Jungius, University of Surrey

tobyjungius@yahoo.com

Developing a Digital Media Curriculum for Fine Artists.

Scott Meador, University of Central Arkansas

wsmeador@uca.edu

Jacob Reeder,
University of Texas, Dallas.

Aaron Borok,
Independent Scholar

Cheng-yun Wang,

Texas Tech University

Soham Adhikari,
Presidency University

Jose Santos Ardivilla,
Texas Tech University

Kalli Lum,
Independent Scholar

Bryce Nottingham,
University of Texas at Dallas

Burak Sahin,
Independent Scholar

Christine Veras,
University of Texas at Dallas

Pamela Turner,
Virginia Commonwealth University

Stacey Jocoy,
Texas Tech University

Hannah Hadidi,
Independent Scholar

Scott Huddleston,
Independent Scholar

Inma Carpe,
The Animation Learning Lab, Denmark

Camille Le Pioufle,
University of New Mexico

Courtney Dabney,
Savannah College of Art and Design

Jingyi Zhang,
University of Georgia

Marc Russo,
North Carolina State University

Toby Jungius,
University of Surrey

Scott Meador,
University of Central Arkansas