Animierte Wunderwelten / Animated Wonderworlds

The richly illustrated book includes an essay, short texts on the 36 works and production details.
Essay Abstract: Animated Wonderworlds is stimulated by a cultural phenomenon, namely, how animation is now pervasive in visual culture, in public, professional, and private spaces. In this essay I will discuss a specific body of works, represented by the ones in this publication, that are for the most part animation that is under the tip of the “iceberg” of animation production, though it includes what we nominally call “popular” films. It is a timely opportunity to question conventional thinking and reception of animation and expand the popular understanding of it as a mainly narrative form of entertainment enjoyed in cinemas, at festivals, on television, and, increasingly, online.
The thirty-six works in this book are primi inter pares (first among equals) of thousands of animations. They demonstrate pioneering origins, “game changers,” paradigm shifts, and refinements in development of technologies, genres, styles, and design. These animated “worlds” are presented in five thematic chapters: “Impossible Experiences,” “Reality and Fiction,” “Dots and Pixels,” “(In)Visible,” and “Interaction.” The works in these chapters transition from fully animated fictional narrative features, to uses of animation in other arts like performance, to science, commerce and consumption, and data visualizations, to mostly non-narrative interactive works. Each work has affinities with at least one other, developing a network of connections, and one of the most prevalent of these connections is the emotional experience they evoke.
Rather than a historical, stylistic, or artist-based curatorial perspective, Animated Wonderworlds is a thematic concept with a main framework of the human, and human experience, at its core; it provides an opportunity to explore, experience, enjoy, and reflect upon how we respond to certain kinds of animated figures and forms and their “worlds.” What we often feel when watching animation is a combination of emotion, feeling, and mood. This affective experience is a combination of a stimulus—an animated work—the affective experience itself, and our response, that is personal, historical, and/or visceral. Because most of the works were chosen because they evoke a range of emotions, I will offer some speculation on how and why we feel these responses.