Lea Vidakovic (Singapore)
1 –
Lea Vidakovic
Lea Vidakovic is an artist and animator working with animated installations employing traditional puppet animation technique. She holds a degree as graphic artist and painter from the Academy of Arts, Zagreb, a BA in animation from HVO, Norway, and an MA of audio-visual arts from the Royal Academy of Art KASK, Belgium. Currently she is a PhD candidate at School of Art, Design and Media at NTU, Singapore.Her research interests include fragmented narratives and innovative storytelling approaches for animated installations and expanded cinema. She exhibited her works in shows and animation festivals, and is a winner of several art and film awards.
Abstract
In contemporary moving-image culture, dominated by digital technologies and governed by the aesthetics of computer-generated imagery, traditional animation techniques are increasingly overthrown and neglected. In this sense, “a line drawn is no longer a line, but mathematical data in the memory of the computer.”1 This domineering aesthetic, at best, evokes the interest in revival of some traditional animation techniques (i.e. puppet and hand-drawn animation). However, technological advancements push the boundaries of these techniques, along with the danger to transform them into too smooth, perfect and generic, removing the traces of their tangible hand-made quality.
This paper puts an emphasis on the haptic quality of traditional animation techniques, aiming to explore how can they be applied in novel ways, in another context, outside the cinema setting. What qualities can these techniques add to enhance the spatial storytelling experience? How does the transposition of these techniques to spaces beyond the screen, along with the mare change of scale of projection, affect the viewer? The paper puts forward an idea that the visceral and visual qualities and the mise-en-scene in these conditions elicit not only immersion in the spatial context but propel and enhance the narrative qualities of these works, highlighting their materiality, ephemeral and imperfect aesthetic as a strength.
1Eliane Gordeeff, Aesthetic Interferences, (Booksfactory, 2018), 35.
Palavras-chave: animation aesthetic, expanded animation, materiality, storytelling, animation beyond the screen
