The Crypt, the Haunted House, of Cinema

As we know, it is a cliché that what we see on the screen is ghosts, phantoms, spectres. What I propose in this essay is that that cliché be taken seriously—do I dare say it, ‘deadly’ seriously—be given rigorous analytic attention for its relevance to the thinking of cinema and its senses, while at the same time acknowledging that even the finest account must come face to face with the ‘fact’ that there is no ghostbuster, not even the analyst/theorist of cinema, not even the Marxist analyst/theorist of cinema, so powerful as to master, defeat and eradicate the spectre of cinema. It is a key premise of this essay that not only is the spectre a privileged subject of film but that it would be the ur figure of cinema, if cinema could have an ur figure, if the spectre could be an ur figure, a figure not only operating at every second at every level in every aspect of every film but also at the level of the cinematic, or rather animatic, apparatus of film, hence at the level of film ‘as such’

Prikazen na platnu

In accord with the author’s larger project to bring to the fore the crucial nature of animation for the thinking of not only all forms but all aspects of film, this paper seeks to elaborate a theory of spectatorship “proper to” animation, which is to say, to cinema, to film, to film “as such,” as a form of animation – film animation. Drawing upon what the author calls the Cryptic Complex of film animation – informed by his treatment of Maxim Gorky’s characterization of cinema as “Kingdom of Shadows” and composed for him of the uncanny, the return of death as spectre, endless mourning and melancholia and cryptic incorporation – the essay extends his notion of spectatorship as spectreship, as at once haunting and being haunted, at once cryptically incorporating and being cryptically incorporated. To wit, to this animatic, Derridean-indebted theory of film animation as of the order of the spectre, the hauntological, and the author’s call for not merely a psycho- but a psuché-analysis of film animation – an analysis of the spectres (Homeric) at play in and of film animation – the essay brings the work of Jacques Lacan. It not only incorporates the animatic work of Lacan in film animation, and vice versa, it discovers that work as already so in play there – there in that haunted house, that crypt, where Derrida and Lacan animatically haunt, encrypt, each other, even as another such spectre, Jean Baudrillard, shadows them, animatically so.V skladu z avtorjevim širšim projektom prikazati ključno vlogo animacije za mišljenje ne le vseh oblik, pač pa tudi vseh vidikov filma, skuša prispevek razdelati teorijo gledalstva »lastno« animaciji, se pravi, kinu, filmu, filmu »kot takemu«, kot obliki animacije – filmske animacije. Prispevek se opira na to, kar avtor imenuje »skrivna zgradba filmske animacije«, izhajajoč pri tem iz avtorjeve obravnave Gorkijeve označitve kina kot »kraljestva senc«, ki ga tvorijo nedomačnost, vrnitev smrti kot prikazni, neskončno žalovanje, melanholija in skrivna inkorporacija. Prispevek razširja njegov pojem gledalstva [spectatorship] v prikaznost [spectreship]. To prikaznost razume kot nekaj kar hkrati preganja in je preganjano, skrivnostna inkorporacija in skrivnostno inkorporirano. Prispevek tako povezuje delo Jacquesa Lacana s to animatično derridajevsko teorijo filmske animacije kot vrste prikazni, prikaznološkosti [hauntologcal], in avtorjev poziv ne le k psihoanalizi, pač pa tudi k analizi psihe filmske animacije – analizi (homerične) prikazni, ki nastopa v filmski animaciji in kot filmska animacija. Tako prispevek ne povezuje le Lacanovega animatičnega dela s področjem filmske animacije, in narobe, temveč kaže, da je to delo vselej že prisotno, tu v tisti hiši prikazni, tisti grobnici, kjer Derrida in Lacan drug drugega animatično, šifrirano preganjata, četudi jima druga takšna prikazen, Jean Baudrillard, animatično sledi kot senca

El animador como artista, el artista como animador. Una recapitulación.

[EN] Alan Cholodenko (New Jersey, 1940) is not only one of the most important theorists in animation, but he has made animation a way of understanding life. There is no art without ‘anima’, without the desire to breathe life; nor is there animation that is not, basically, ‘lifedeath’, a (re)animated life. With a post-structuralist thought, following his mentors Jean Baudrillard and Jacques Derrida, Alan Cholodenko has built a solid philosophy of animation around the idea of 'animatic apparatus', an essential term to understand the revolution that involves the imaging technologies that support current science, culture and society. ‘The animator as an artist, the artist as an animator", an essay as personal as it is penetrating, exposes the fundamental axis of his thinking about drawing as a seductive and deconstructive gesture.[ES] Alan Cholodenko (Nueva Jersey, 1940) no solo es uno de los teóricos más importantes de la animación, sino que ha hecho de la animación una forma de entender la vida. No hay arte sin ánima, sin deseo de insuflar vida; ni hay animación que no sea, en el fondo, ‘lifedeath’, vida/muerte, (re)animación. Con un pensamiento de corte postestructuralista, seguidor de sus mentores Jean Baudrillard y Jacques Derrida, Alan Cholodenko ha construido una sólida filosofía de la animación cuyo centro es el ‘aparato animático’ (‘the animatic apparatus’), un término esencial para comprender la revolución que  implica las tecnologías de la imagen que vertebran la ciencia, la cultura y la sociedad actuales. En “El animador como artista, el artista como animador”, un artículo tan personal como penetrante, se expone el eje fundamental de su pensamiento en torno al dibujo como gesto seductor y deconstructivo.Cholodenko, A. (2020). The animator as artist, the artist as animator. Con A de animación. (10). https://doi.org/10.4995/caa.2020.13271OJS10BAROLSKY, Paul, 2010. A Brief History of the Artist from God to Picasso, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park.BAUDRILLARD, Jean, 1997. "Objects, Images, and the Possibilities of Aesthetic Illusion", en ZURBRUGG, Nicholas (ed.), Jean Baudrillard, Art and Artefact, Londres: Sage Publications, in association with the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane.CHOLODENKO, Alan, 1991a. Introduction, The Illusion of Life: Essays on Animation, (ed.) Alan Cholodenko, Power Publications in association with the Australian Film Commission, Sydney.CHOLODENKO, Alan, 1991b. "Who Framed Roger Rabbit, or The Framing of Animation", en The Illusion of Life: Essays on Animation, en CHOLODENKO, Alan (ed., Sídney: Power Publications in association with the Australian Film Commission.CHOLODENKO, Alan, 1997. '"OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR": The Virtual Reality of Jurassic Park and Jean Baudrillard', en ZURBRUGG, Nicholas (ed.), Jean Baudrillard, Art and Artefact, Londres: Sage Publications, in association with the Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (reimpreso en International Journal of Baudrillard Studies, vol. 2, no. 1, January 2005).CHOLODENKO, Alan, 2000. "The Illusion of the Beginning: A Theory of Drawing and Animation", Afterimage, vol. 28, no. 1, July/ August.CHOLODENKO, Alan, 2003. "Apocalyptic Animation: In the Wake of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Godzilla and Baudrillard", en GRACE, WORTH y SIMMONS (eds.), Baudrillard West of the Dateline, Nueva Zelanda: Dunmore Press.CHOLODENKO, Alan, 2004a. '"The Borders of Our Lives": Frederick Wiseman, Jean Baudrillard and the Question of the Documentary', International Journal of Baudrillard Studies, vol. 1, no. 2, July.CHOLODENKO, Alan, 2004b. "The Crypt, the Haunted House, of Cinema", Cultural Studies Review, vol. 10, no. 2, September. https://doi.org/10.5130/csr.v10i2.3474CHOLODENKO, Alan, 2007a. "Animation-Film and Media Studies' "Blind Spot"', Society for Animation Studies Newsletter, vol. 20, no. 1.CHOLODENKO, Alan, 2007b. "(The) Death (of) the Animator, or: The Felicity of Felix', Part 2: 'A Difficulty in the Path of Animation Studies", Animation Studies, vol. 2.CHOLODENKO, Alan, 2007c. Introduction, The Illusion of Life 2: More Essays on Animation, en CHOLODENKO, Alan (ed.), The Illusion of Life 2: More Essays on Animation, Sídney: Power Publications.CHOLODENKO, Alan, 2007d. "Speculations on the Animatic Automaton", en CHOLODENKO, Alan (ed.), The Illusion of Life 2: More Essays on Animation, Sídney: Power Publications.CHOLODENKO, Alan, 2008. "Why Animation, Alan?", Society for Animation Studies Newsletter, vol. 21, no. 1.CHOLODENKO, Alan, (2011). "(The) Death (of) the Animator, or: The Felicity of Felix', Part 3: 'Death and the Death of Death", en BOWMAN, C (ed.) Selected Writings From the UTS: Sydney International Animation Festi¬val 2010 Symposium, Sídney: Faculty of Design, Architecture & Building, University of Technology Sydney, Australia (reimpreso en Inter¬national Journal of Baudrillard Studies, vol. 11, no. 1, January 2014).CHOLODENKO, Alan, 2014. '"First Principles" of Animation', en BECKMAN, Karen (ed.), Animating Film Theory, Durham: Duke University Press.CRAFTON, Donald, 1979. "Animation Iconography: The "Hand of the Artist"', QRFS, Fall. https://doi.org/10.1080/10509207909361014DERRIDA, Jacques, 1978. 'The Retrait of Metaphor', Enclitic, vol. 2, no. 2 (Fall).DERRIDA, Jacques, 1987. "Cartouches", en The Truth in Painting, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.EISENSTEIN, Sergei, 1988. Eisenstein on Disney, Londres: Methuen.FOCILLON, Henri, 2010. The Life of Forms in Art, México D.F: UNAM.LACOUE-LABARTHE, Philippe, 1989. 'Typography', en C FYNSK, Christopher (ed.), Typography, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.LESLIE, Esther 2002. "Zero, Dots and Dashes: Drawing and the European Avant-Garde", en Hollywood Flatlands: Animation, Critical Theory and the Avant-Garde, Londres: Verso.MENDELOWITZ, Daniel Marcus, 1967. Drawing, Nueva York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.PAPAPETROS, Spyros, 2012. On the Animation of the Inorganic: Art, Architecture, and the Extension of Life, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226645674.001.0001SHINER, Larry, 2001. The Invention of Art: A Cultural History, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226753416.001.0001WELLS, Paul, 2009. The Animated Bestiary: Animals, Cartoons, and Culture, New Brun¬swick: Rutgers University Press.WORRINGER, Wilhelm, 1927, 1957. Form in Gothic, Londres:Alec Tiranti

A Animação do Cinema

Este ensaio procura reavivar o nome, a obra e as realizações do mais significante pioneiro animador do filme, na melhor das hipóteses, marginalizado e, na pior, apagado pelos Film Studies e Animation Studies de língua inglesa: Émile Reynaud. Ele ganhou o Prêmio McLaren-Lambart da Society for Animation Studies (SAS) de melhor ensaio. E continua seu trabalho autoral sobre teorizações da animação, iniciado em 1991, quando organizou A Ilusão da Vida: Ensaios sobre Animação, a primeira antologia do mundo com ensaios acadêmicos teorizando animação

Fotografia Imóvel?

A questão é: a fotografia é imóvel? E uma questão correlata: “é a fotografia ainda fotografia imóvel? ”. Nesse ensaio, o autor tenta oferecer algumas “respostas” para estas questões, incluindo a mobilização de questões já desenvolvidas pelos teóricos da fotografia e utilizando-se de algumas fotografias, quase todas de autoria de Jean Baudrillard – seu mundo paralelo de imagens instantâneas análogas a seus textos instantâneos, seus fragmentos de imagem e de pensamento. A questão da imobilidade é, para o autor, uma questão de animação, de movimento e de vida. A fotografia, toda fotografia, fotografia “como tal”, é uma forma de animação. O que permitiria ao autor argumentar: não somente a animação é uma forma de filme, mas o fil me, todo filme, é uma forma de animação. Isso inclui a fotografia como uma forma de filme

The ‘ABCs’ of B, Or: To Be and Not to Be B

Abstract Neede

“O Computador Disse Não” ou O Apagamento do Humano

A partir do esquete “O Computador Disse Não” da comédia inglesa Pequena Bretanha (2000-2007), do ensaio descontrucionista “Accounterability”, de Peggy Kamuf, do regime disciplinar de Michel Foucault e da invocação de Jean Baudrillard para “esquecer Foucault”, este ensaio elabora o dispositivo do arconte e arquivo “contemporâneo”: o computador, o governador e condutor de tudo, inclusive de todos os indivíduos, discursos, instituições e tecnologias, elaborando o apagamento do computador — seu deletar — não apenas da memória humana (em todos os seus modos, cultural, pessoal, coletivo etc.) em seu arquivo, exceto o próprio humano. Enquanto postula todas as tecnologias como animadoras, portanto reanimadoras, no caso do computador, o último como animador, afirma-o ser ainda mais. Pois o computador é aquela rara tecnologia, não apenas um reanimador global, mas da época, o reanimador hiperanimado da realidade como hiper-realidade, inclusive de memória como hipermemória e tempo como hipertempo, em que o contemporâneo (significando com tempo) é ele mesmo esvaziado. E elucida que Cholodenko chama o “regime da accountability”, no qual o humano é humano na medida em que imita o computador, um mundo cibernético no qual computação, números, regras governam, e a quantidade é a nova qualidade — um mundo de ciborgs, que Cholodenko nomeia realidade “hiperzumbi”, de “morte cerebral” — um mundo no qual, ironicamente, aumenta a quantidade e a indeterminação reina. Enquanto Jaan Tallinn, Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk e outros expressam medo por um futuro de Singularidade de Inteligência Geral Artificial (AGIS), o ensaio delineia um mundo em que essa Singularidade já é uma “realidade”

The jurisprudence of Ratatouille: the rat in the machine

This article traces commonalities between the practices of visual animation and modern law through a political and jurisprudential reading of the animated film Ratatouille (2007). It contends that Ratatouille’s treatment of the ontological and anthropological problem of the human soul not only addresses the philosophical complexities inherent to animation, but also the ideological and material conditions that currently govern the practice of égaliberté in contemporary liberal democracies