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Preconstituted panel
In what ways can animation address the complex and multifaceted relationships we have with cities and urban spaces in the 21st century? The panel examines animated representations of the city and urban life through a variety of lenses – the city as dystopia, as imagined community, as pre- and post-revolutionary space, as a site for memory and personal journey. By exploring these topics across three very different cultural contexts, the richness and diversity of urban mediation, and the role animation plays in it, will be highlighted.
Panellists: Paul Ward (chair), Van Norris, Caroline Ruddell, Bella Honess Roe (see individual entries for details on each presentation)
In the City: Animating 21st Century Britain
(preconstituted panel: ‘Urbanimation’: representations of the city in animation)
Abstract: In the po
st-The Office afterglow public-service channel BBC3 saw comedy as part of the "consistently innovative and risk-taking programming" specified in their remit. The show embodied a tone which played into criticisms that the channel was pandering to an increasingly populist agenda. It also played into concerns about imagined community and maintained a narrative that actualises comedy's relationship with society which extends all the way back to Henri Bergson. This paper will frame this embrace of animation/comedy against institutional concerns and assess Monkey Dust as being emblematic of this wave of early 21st century UK mainstream TV animation.
Biographical statement: Van Norris teaches in the School of Creative Arts, Film and Media at the University of Portsmouth, UK. His research interests include: American and British graphic narrative form; Classical and Post-Classical Hollywood Animation and British Cinema and Television Animation, British and American comedy form, sitcom and stand up comedy. He is currently completing his PhD on British television animation. Van has presented his research at numerous conferences including the Society for Animation Studies, the Popular Culture Association and the University of Salford’s Comedy Matters conference. He has published in animation: an interdisciplinary journal and Animation Studies, as well as anthologies on television science fiction, animation and cinematic surrealism. Van is an Editorial Board member for Animation Studies.
Urban Nightmares: Anime City Spaces(preconstituted panel: ‘Urbanimation’: representations of the city in animation)
Abstract: This paper
will chart some of the prominent tropes in the representation of the city in anime. Sci-fi, fantasy and even noir generic conventions are used to channel the representation of the city into an imposing presence. The paper seeks to understand the pleasures available for viewers when cities are often ‘rewritten’ (Staiger, 1999: 97) or ‘imagined’ (Orbaugh, 2006: 81) and cityscapes, or lines, redrawn. The paper also considers how this relates to theoretical models of spectatorship and the pleasures animated city spaces might hold for viewers outside the context of Japan.
Biographical statement: Dr Caroline Ruddell teaches at St. Mary’s University College, UK, in the areas of animation, popular culture and identity, North American cinema, and critical methodologies. Caroline's research interests are in animation and representations of identity and subjectivity. She has published on the representation of witchcraft in popular television, fissured identity in film, and on anime. Her current research focuses on anime aesthetics and spectatorship in relation to issues of movement, space and the animated ‘line’. Caroline is a member of the Editorial Boards for Animation Studies (the Society for Animation Studies online peer reviewed journal) and Watcher Junior: The Undergraduate Journal of Buffy Studies. Caroline is also Reviews Editor for animation: an interdisciplinary journal, published by Sage.
“Never forget who you are and where you are from”: Persepolis as urban memoir (preconstituted panel: ‘Urbanimation’: representations of the city in animation)
Abstract: T
his paper will examine how Persepolis (2007) represents urban locations and cityscapes, intimately linking them to the deeply personal story – the memoir – of the protagonist Marjane Satrapi. Cities can often be seen as ‘personalities’, as anthropomorphically-charged spaces that come to stand for broader aspects of cultural (and national) identity. The paper will examine the notion of ‘autobiogeography’ and de Certeau’s (1984) work on how individuals navigate themselves physically, psychically and politically through urban space. Persepolis explores these topics via the graphic novel-inspired aesthetics of the animated film, offering a potent combination of popular culture, personal memory and urban history.
Biographical statement: Paul Ward is a Principal Lecturer in the School of Media at the Arts University College at Bournemouth, UK. He teaches on the BA (Hons) Animation Production course and contributes to a cross-disciplinary MA course. His research interests are in the fields of animation and documentary film and television. Published work includes articles for the journals animation: an interdisciplinary journal, Animation Journal, and the Historical Journal for Film, Radio and Television, as well as numerous anthology essays. Paul is also the author of Documentary: The Margins of Reality (Wallflower Press, 2005) and TV Genres: Animation (Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming; co-authored with Nichola Dobson). He serves on the Editorial Boards of animation: an interdisciplinary journal and Animation Studies and is a member of the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council Peer Review College with special interest in animation and documentary research proposals. Paul is the current President of the Society for Animation Studies.
Indexing a Dystopian Future in Metropia
(preconstituted panel: ‘Urbanimation’: representations of the city in animation)
Abstract: This p
aper explores the representation of a futuristic dystopian Europe in the sci-fi animated thriller Metropia (Tarik Saleh, 2009). The film’s intriguing animation style, which is based on photographic images, will be used as a basis for examining questions of indexicality and realism in animation by drawing a connection between the corrupted index and Metropia’s themes regarding the alienation of the body from the urban environment.
Biographical statement: Bella Honess Roe is a lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Surrey. She recently completed her PhD on animated documentaries at the University of Southern California. The topic of this paper extends ideas from her doctoral thesis regarding indexicality and the relationship between animation and reality. She has presented her work at many conferences in the US and UK (including SAS 2008 and 2009, Visible Evidence 2008 and 2009, SCMS 2005/2007/2008 and Screen 2006/2007). She contributes book and DVD reviews to Film International and animation: an interdisciplinary journal and has had essays published in the Journal of British Cinema and Television and Falling in Love Again, an edited collection published by I.B. Tauris. She has a chapter forthcoming on Disney’s wartime documentaries in an edited collection on that topic and a journal article on the animated interviews made by Bob Sabiston.
