Introduction. Animation as semiosis and as meaning

By: Maria Ilia Katsaridou and Loukia Kostopoulou Guest Editors

 

ARTICLE INFO:
Volume: 10
Issue: 01:Summer 2024
ISSN: 2459-2943
DOI: 10.18680/hss.2024.0001
Pages: 5-12
Lic.: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

 

ABSTRACT

This special issue of Punctum examines the semiotics of animation, a dynamic and interdisciplinary field that intersects art, technology, and culture. From its early origins with Émile Reynaud’s Théâtre Optique1 in 1889 to contemporary applications of artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR), animation has evolved into a medium that reflects and shapes cultural values. Animation’s ability to encompass diverse techniques and styles, from traditional hand-drawn imagery to immersive digital environments, underlines its flexibility and central role in contemporary audiovisual culture.

Animation draws upon various techniques and styles to construct its unique language. Representatives of the Zagreb animation school emphasize that animation creates meaning through a unique vocabulary unavailable to live-action filmmakers. They assert that to animate is to “give life and soul to a design, not through the copying but through the transformation of reality” (Holloway 1972: 9). John Halas similarly stresses that animation’s significance lies “not [in] how things look, but what they mean” (Hoffer 1981: 3). These insights underscore animation’s semiotic potential, distinguishing it from other forms of audiovisual art. Moreover, Giannalberto Bendazzi’s historical observations reveal how animation’s definitions have shifted. Between 1895 and 1910, ‘animated’ referred to what is now recognized as ‘live action.’ Bendazzi concludes that “animation is everything people have called animation in different historical periods” (Bendazzi 2020: 1), situating animation within its cultural and social contexts. This perspective is particularly relevant today, as AI-generated moving images provoke new questions about animation’s boundaries and its role in meaning-making.

Animation’s versatility and creative potential have led scholars to redefine its relationship with other forms of visual media. Alan Cholodenko, for example, describes animation as an “overarching category” (Cholodenko 2022: 3) encompassing all moving images, such as cinema and digital games. In his view, animation is the foundational process through which all motion-based visual content is created, challenging the conventional perception of cinema as distinct from animation. According to Cholodenko, cinema has historically marginalized its animated origins, yet animation remains the essential mechanism underpinning the entire field of moving images. This perspective reframes animation as not merely a subset of cinema but as its progenitor. Similarly, Lev Manovich asserts that digital cinema represents a “return to animation” (Manovich 1995). Unlike traditional film, where motion is captured photographically, digital cinema involves constructing movement frame by frame, echoing the methods of early animators. This reorientation disrupts the classical notion of indexicality – the idea that film is inherently tied to the real world – positioning animation as the defining process in creating contemporary visual media. As Paul Wells famously remarked, animation is “the omnipresent pictorial form of the modern era” and arguably “the most important creative form of the twenty-first century” (Wells 2002:1).

 
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