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- Volume 6, Issue 1, 2017
Animation Practice, Process & Production - Volume 6, Issue 1, 2017
Volume 6, Issue 1, 2017
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The new needs friends: On the academic as a critic and a public voice
By Paul WellsAbstractThis discussion is concerned with looking at the academic as a ‘critic’ in the service of becoming a public voice, and in conducting production-based work that is directed at social issues and public engagement. The analysis draws upon a variety of definitions of ‘criticism’ from both a scholarly and journalistic perspective, eventually developing two kinds of criticism – the auto-critique and the procedural-critique – that play out the relationship between ‘the creative’ and ‘the critic’, essentially defining a theory of practice, and the practice of theory. These theorizations are then illustrated through the projects described in the following essays, seeking to show that the academic practitioner/creative must necessarily cultivate a model of ‘critique’ that both self-consciously monitors process while creating a practice outcome that speak to research questions. This then becomes comparable to external critical agencies that engage in the analysis of process in order to articulate its critical context in the service of evaluating outcomes. The essay essentially explores the complex relationship between these two models and their place with regard to institutional, social and cultural roles.
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Defining animation therapy: The Good Hearts Model
By Melanie HaniAbstractThis article discusses ‘the Good Hearts Model’ (GHM), a programme of therapeutic practice that employs the process of producing animated films and allied materials. Though ‘art therapy’ in all its guises and diversity has a long pedigree, I argue that the use of animation (the GHM) offers an additional approach to traditional therapeutic strategies, and that it can also be used as a diagnostic, educational, crime-prevention and dissemination tool. Crucially, this discussion argues and proposes that like art, drama and music therapy, there is a need for a professional body for animation therapists, and inclusion in the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). For this to transpire I will propose a definition of ‘animation therapy’, and provide examples of its use in various contexts. The article will begin with a brief overview of the current context for art therapy and its conduct, followed by an introduction to the current situation regarding animation therapy in the United Kingdom, identifying how animation therapy is distinct, before engaging with the GHM and its potential within the field as an alternative approach to traditional therapy. There are many other creative therapies but for the purposes of this article, I will only discuss animation in relation to art therapy and within the wider paradigms of therapeutic practice. It will be focused upon the United Kingdom and the development of animation as a regulated therapy, with a specific attention to the GHM. It is also impractical to discuss all the research projects that have been undertaken over the years as this model of animation therapy has evolved, and hence a selection has been made to relate to the most appropriate arguments.
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The dog was acting: Designing an animation tool to enable children and young people to express their views about their health state
Authors: Matt Abbiss, Joan Ashworth, Neus Abrines, John Cairns, Jo Wray, Katherine Brown and Carla GuerrieroAbstractChildren’s Health State Preferences Learnt from Animation (CHILDSPLA) is an innovative, multidisciplinary collaboration between the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Great Ormond Street Hospital and the Royal College of Art, London. The team came together to develop an animated iPad app aiming to measure the health states of children, designed to gather key data directly from them rather than through a parent or carer. Successful development of a child-friendly method for collecting health information directly from children would add considerably to the ability to measure outcomes and evaluate the effectiveness of treatments. It was expected that the app would allow children as young as 4 years old to express their views, not only because it required lower literacy competencies but also because it would be more engaging. For example, the app was designed to ask the child, ‘on a scale of 1–5 how much pain are you in today?’ but, rather than text or voice, the app showed animated representations of pain, sleeplessness and annoyance, etc. Children were involved from the outset in the design of the character and the animation performances., The style of the animation needed to be tested by the young target users to observe their responses to different styles of animated performance. Some children observed that some animation characters were acting in an exaggerated way, for comic effect, and this distanced them from empathizing with the expressed emotion, as it was not seen as genuine. This led the animator to steer away from broad and exaggerated animation in order to chase engagement and stay closer to subtler, more naturalistic performances.
The animated prototype app was tested by both sick and healthy children against other forms of gathering data. The CHILDSPLA team discussed and reflected on the challenges and knowledge emerging during the first year of the Medical Research Council-funded project.
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‘Loved and lost’: Animation as a methodology for understanding and making meaning of loss for a group of adults with learning disabilities
More LessAbstractThis article relates to the professional doctorate work of Yvonne Eckersley relating to an exploration of loss via the medium of animation with members of Wrexham Voice (a self-advocacy group for adults with learning disabilities). The aim of the study is to define loss for the group members and evaluate whether participating in the animation process can change this perception and facilitate well-being. The study uses a general inductive methodology that is ethnographic. The study has three main objectives:
1. The first objective is to identify a shared understanding (between group members) of the phenomena of loss.
2. The second objective is to assess whether by exploring loss through the various processes involved in the production of an animated film changes the participants.
3. The final objective is to evaluate the potential for agency that the completed animation film offers the participants and whether this affects their perception of loss.
In identifying the first objective, the depth of social and political oppression felt by people with learning disabilities soon becomes evident. Not only do they often find themselves excluded from the rituals surrounding death but often their lack of communication skills mean that their emotional distress goes unrecognized with feelings of sadness and loneliness being viewed only in terms of changes in their behaviour, which may be described as aggressive or passive by carers and professionals and not necessarily attributed to their grief. In view of the wide variation in the perceptions of and communication styles of the group members, the potential of visual and art-based methods in offering a means to communicate with others and express emotions associated with loss is key to the study. In this context, the study seeks to evaluate the unique role of animation as a healing methodology.
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Speaking each other’s language: The development of an animation prototype with the intention to toggle the language barrier among children of the Greek and the Turkish Cypriot community
More LessAbstractThis article describes the design process of a test animation prototype that aims to improve communication among children of the two conflicting communities in Cyprus by encouraging them to learn each other’s language. The prototype is based on research undergone with the conflicting parties, where their perception of the conflict and on each other was addressed and researched. In essence, it is discussing the project’s reception by a Cypriot audience and is encouraging further work and research to be conducted as part of a reconciliation process on the island, and on the potential of the medium of animation for the purpose of peace-building.
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The story of first-person: Recovering autobiographical memory through the animated documentary Ketchup
Authors: Chunning Guo and Baishen YanAbstractThis is practice-based research, aiming to explore the experimental form of animated documentary, which is a unique form that can explore the mysteries and complexity of memories. Animated documentary is a medium through which one can reveal an individual’s memories within the context of a narrative that is historically situated and influenced. The marriage of animation and documentary gave birth to a new form of film. How should academic critics and practitioners categorize this new form? Is it an animated short or documentary short? This raises issues that question the very nature of animation and documentary. Following Shuibo Wang’s works, more young Chinese artists began to experiment with symbols (related to the Political Pop Trend) in visual narration, which could also be seen as a reflection of an advance in structuralism and semiology in the contemporary Chinese art field. As a case study, this article demonstrates how animated short ‘Ketchup’ revealed the problems of youth and social turmoil through the memories of a six-year-old boy. At Festivals and conferences, the public have been shocked to know that ‘Ketchup’ was based on true memories, and they became more curious about why such crucial things have almost been forgotten. Actually ‘forgetfulness’ is one of the layers of memory and animated documentary offers new ways to explore how our memories are shaped.
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Animation and informative films: Two early ‘digital’ films
More LessAbstractDuring the 1960s two of the most influential teams of visual communicators of that time produced short information films on digital technology for some of the major competing companies in the field. Both La memoria del futuro (Risi 1960) (‘The memory of the future’), produced in 1960 for Olivetti by a team led by Italy’s graphic designer Giovanni Pintori and Academy Award nominated animator Giulio Gianini, and A Computer Glossary, produced eight years later for International Business Machines (IBM) by the celebrated Eames Office, took great advantage of the combined powers of graphics and animation to make the abstract workings of computer processing accessible. Either on its own, or combined with footage from the ‘real world’, animated sequences have proved to be a very effective way to make complex contents easier to grasp for a wide audience, enabling communicators and directors to create very articulated narrative structures. Such structures offer degrees of conceptual versatility unthinkable in the domain of realistic documentary. Through the comparison and analysis of the two short films Olivetti and one IBM, this article aims to discuss the elements that make the language of animation an ideal tool to make complex and abstract things more understandable, without losing its ability to engage and entertain its public, therefore opening the way for a very promising season of informative animation.
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Animation as mindful practice
Authors: Graham Barton and Birgitta HoseaAbstractThis article reports on a joint research project at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London and the Royal College of Art that investigates whether the making of drawn animation can be demonstrated as a mindful practice. The original intention of the project was to explore the potential application of Buddhist principles and practices such as mindfulness within a practical, secular context to benefit art and design students who experience stress in the learning environment and who wish to examine their learning processes more closely. This research project is situated within wider developments in UK higher education that seek to enable students to engage meaningfully with the affective and extra-rational dimensions of learning. Faced with a complex and uncertain future, and curricula that encourage engagement in uncertainty and ambiguity, art and design graduates need to be able to take responsibility for their personal development and respond to stress and change in generative and constructive ways. During the research process, a series of experiential activities and workshops were devised to explore the development of a group of capacities identified in a number of published sustainability literacy frameworks, in particular the attributes of personal resilience, self-awareness and interconnectedness through systemic and relational thinking and making. The project looks at the potential of the processes of drawn animation in combination with short-form mindfulness meditation techniques for developing these and associated attributes.
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