ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on our body-mind interactions with moving images. It shows animated figures as special tools that can expand our perceptual reach. The chapter also focuses on animation techniques and special effects that call the viewer’s attention on the specificity of the human visual system. It examines the idea that we conceptualize the way we do, thanks to the body that we have. The chapter presents examples of the perceptual entanglements that arise between the viewer and the animation apparatus. As for the flip book and the thaumatrope, some animations compel spectators to recognize the embodied nature of human perception. With the help of various formal techniques, animators often choose to foreground the “toolness” of the animated body and the instrumentality of animation. They employ audiovisual strategies that expand our perceptual boundaries and stress the limits of human perception.
