Chairy tales: object and materiality in animation

Abstract

This article addresses three issues of what I suggest here should be regarded as the shifting technological and matter-based apparatus of animation: first, the meanings and affect of objects and materials actually used in animated films; second, the visual dramaturgy made possible by objects and materials for animation screenwriters; and, third, the status of animation process materials as archival objects. The analysis looks at a number of animated films and specifically at their design form, material association, and narrative function to define what I will call the “scripted artefact”, and an “Animated Object Cycle”. This overview will also operate in a spirit of thinking about theories of practice and practices of theory in animation, and refer to both established theoretical perspectives as well as primary practice idioms.