Animating Truth: Documentary and Visual Culture in the 21st Century

by Nea Ehrlich

Overview

Confronting shifts in the status and aesthetics of the real, Nea Ehrlich analyses how contemporary technoculture has transformed the relationship of animation to documentary by mapping out two parallel trends: the increased use of animation within documentary or non—fiction contexts, and the increasingly pervasive use of non—photorealistic animation within digital media. As the virtual becomes another aspect of our contemporary mixed reality (physical and virtual), the book aims to understand how this visual paradigm shift influences viewers, both ethically and politically, and questions the wider ramifications of this transformation in non—fiction aesthetics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474463379
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	12/14/2022
Series:	Edinburgh Studies in Film and Intermediality
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x (d)

About the Author

Nea Ehrlich is Lecturer in The Department of the Arts at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Section I: Starting Points: The Evidentiary Status of Animation as Documentary Imagery

1. Why Now? 2. Defining Animation and Animated Documents in Mixed Realities

Section II: Animation and Technoculture: The Virtualization of Culture and Virtual Documentaries

3. Screens, Virtuality and Materiality 4. Documenting Game Realities 5. In—Game Documentaries of Non—Game Realities6. Interactive Animated Documentaries: Documentary Games and VR

Section III: The Power of Animation: Disputing the Aesthetics of ‘the Real’

7. Encounters, Ethics and Empathy8. Conflicting Realisms: Animated Documentaries and Post—Truth

EpilogueFilmographyBibliography

Editorial Reviews

All in all, the book is recommended reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students who are looking for an updated overview of the status of animation and documentary (and the space in between) in contemporary Visual Culture. What is more, because of the strong interdisciplinary approach adopted, the book will be attractive to Media and Film scholars, as well as scholars within Game and Screen Studies, but also Computer Science.

Visual Communication - Georgia Aitaki

In this fascinating and expertly—researched book, Nea Ehrlich positions animation as a key narrative mode in contemporary digital culture. Transgressing visual realism, animation as a practice of movement on screen is capable of moving us too, taking us into new cognitive and affective territories while showing us what truly matters.

Joanna Zylinska

Animating Truth is a book about animated documentary ― and much else besides. Ehrlich’s is an important analysis of the relationship between animation and factual content in the so—called ‘post—truth’ era, taking in games, virtual and augmented realities, and the computerized and networked platforms on which we all now rely.

Paul Ward