ABSTRACT

Media saturation: so ubiquitous, so ingenious. The newest crop of block-busters (and by extension, every little experimental animation ever made) is being delivered via streaming, Video On Demand, YouTube, file sharing, handheld devices of all sizes, speeds and colors. The delivery methods in effect tether viewers to a domestic entertainment pod or to a miniature gadget. What follows here is a glimpse into non-mediated, concrete, physical animation, situated in a unique space; you have to seek it out (see Griffin 2007: 261–63). Concrete animation shares with film and video installation a non-theatrical site-specificity, but its presence is experienced spatially as a very specific type of kinetic sculpture, one which is created only within ‘synthetic time’, 1 through the tricks of intermittent perception. Instead of being diffused to passive viewers of media ‘eye candy’, concrete animation demands active, mobile, concentrated attention.