States of Animation

Catalog description

What does it mean to be-or to become-animated? How have thinkers ranging from ancient and modern philosophers to contemporary critical theorists conceptualized animated-ness as essence, feeling, form, or intensity? What relationship(s) between bios and zoe may be understood through the analytic of animation? And how does animation clarify-or render less legible-distinctions among subjects, objects, and things? Answering these and related questions about reanimation, hyper-animation, inter(in)animation, and the uncanny, we also test theoretical ideas about states of animation against a number of performance and media practices. Authors include Agamben, Barthes, Benjamin, Eisenstein, Freud, Hansen, Kleist, Moten, Ngai, Schneider, and Sobchack. Art objects under investigation cross platforms and genres and span a gamut from premodern puppet theatre to The Wooster Group's Poor Theatre, Disney's Snow White to Pixar's WALL-E. (PMA-HTC)