The Medium(s) of Animation: Plasticity, Labor, Technology

Catalog description

It is by no means a coincidence that early animators such as Émile Cohl, Winsor McCay and the Fleischer brothers brought to life scientific theories of evolution and neuropathology in their pioneering experiments. Beginning with the birth of animation as an industrial art form, this course will focus your attention on the technical mediums in which biological plasticity became an object of scientific knowledge, aesthetic experience, and political governance. While learning about a range of animation forms and techniques in their historical contexts, we will think deeply about the thrills and terrors of our own plasticity made suddenly perceptible through transformative encounters with new media technologies.