The animation medium in the realm of Vocaloid: A multidimensional semiotic overview

By: Lila S. Roussel

 

ARTICLE INFO:
Volume: 10
Issue: 01:Summer 2024
ISSN: 2459-2943
DOI: 10.18680/hss.2024.0010
Pages: 177-203
Lic.: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
KEYWORDS:
Semiotics
Animation
Virtual idols
Participatory culture
Creative ecosystems

 

ABSTRACT

The digital voicebanks/virtual idols known as ‘Vocaloids’ are associated with a vast and diverse repertoire of artifacts, most of which are not industry-sourced but rather the product of self-published hobbyist labor. Among the diverse media through which Vocaloid culture has developed and spread, the animation medium stands out for its variety of uses and the multiplicity of affordances it provides. Not only have the animation practices surrounding Vocaloid impacted the objectual consumption of these entities both as musical instruments and as virtual idol personas, but they have also given rise to the development of new specialized software tools, in addition to having propagated fandom-distinguishing subcultural markers and genre-defining aesthetic orientations to be found within the vast corpora of artistic productions utilizing the Vocaloid technology and/or characters. This article examines these practices from a semiotic perspective by reflecting on their underlying technological and cultural conditions of development and the manners in which they may serve as both subcultural and genre-identifying signifiers in the resulting repertoire of user/fan-generated media. It furthermore looks at how the generation of and engagement with kinetic scripts in the animation practices tied to Vocaloid are seen to incorporate materialities that are exogenous to the medium and considers the role of animation in the playful engagements of users/fans with the virtual idol characters. Finally, it examines some of the aesthetic features that particularly distinguish the repertoire of Vocaloid music videos, most notably in their recourse to principles of limited animation.

 
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