Life remade: critical animation in the digital age

Introduction to Special Issue of animation: an interdisciplinary journal. Animation and contemporary life are enmeshed like never before. A growing number of the media images we consume are in animated form (from fully animated features to CGI laden blockbusters and advertisements); recourse to common animation software and aesthetic approaches significantly blur the lines between previously distinct artistic and design practices (from video games, to special effects, to architecture and contemporary art); and through techniques of computational modelling and visualization, animation is increasingly fundamental to processes of knowledge production and the creation of various modes or elements of life. This appears therefore to be a particularly 'critical' moment to ponder animation's expanded cultural and political role. This special issue also provides an opportunity to consider animation's own powers of critique – the ways in which the digital animated image is increasingly being deployed explicitly as a means of intervening in social and political arenas ranging from human rights advocacy to ecological activism. And finally, we hope this collection of essays serves to further the already rich examination of the politics of more traditional forms of animation in the current digital age. This special issue thus builds upon recent scholarship that has already begun to contend with animation's expanded presence and its inherent political and critical significance..