The Influence of the Computers on the Aesthetics of Animation

No one can deny the certain and obvious influence of the technology on the arts. This reflects the undoubted and powerful connections between the sciences and the arts as well. Many artistic forms fundamentally depend on technology, specially the newer ones such as photography, cinema – as a whole - and animation movies specifically. Therefore, the progresses in the technology have more direct and obvious influences on these artistic forms. In animation as we may call it, the child and successor of the other predecessor art forms, the touch of the computer technology was so vast and deep that led to the creation of a new digitalized technique in animation - making. Regarding it’s sophistication and vast ability in creating state of the art animation and magically beautiful, dreamlike and at the same time very realistic imagery, this kind of animation – making in a short period of time enchanted both the moviegoers and filmmakers alike and became the most popular form of the genre. In overall we should put the influence of the computers on the aesthetics of animation as an art in three categories: 1- Computer Aided Animation; 2- Computer Generated Imagery and Animation (CGI); and 3- Image Manipulation. Each one among the mentioned methods influences animation artistic grammar and aesthetics in its own unique way. In the first one, the computers aid the artists and technicians to refine, polish and accelerate the ways of creating and producing traditional and classical animations. The greatest, as well as the most important sample, is the digital 2D Cell Animation Production System (CAPS) for Disney feature movies. In the second category, CGI (Which is known to 3D Animation too), all the imageries and their movements are basically created in the virtual-digital realm of the computerized animation software. The broad artistic language and unlimited abilities of it in creating many kinds of imagery, heavily depends on the up to date state of the art computer graphics science. In contrast to the other animation techniques that their aesthetics is mostly based on their limitations in the mimesis of reality, the aesthetics of computerized animation comes from its limitlessness in representing and mimesis of every imaginable subject with believable realism (due to its use of sophisticated technology). In the third category, Image Manipulation computers enable the filmmakers and animators to manipulate the 2D images (mostly photographed by camera) in possible ways. By other words, these techniques actually change the seemingly solid and hard recorded frames to a series of virtual wet paintings that can be altered (in shape, color, movement, etc.) by artists in infinite desired ways. In many forms of this technique, the movement of subjects can be changed or exaggerated, and actors performances be reanimated (or their images can be altered by morphfing, squash, stretch, etc.) by the means and basics of animation. The “Image Manipulated Animation” should be counted as a new stand alone technique of animation such as Pixilation or Kinestasis. In the last two decades these three main computerized methods have influenced on animation art and technique, caused a lot of interests and popularity in this genre as a very exciting form of movie making. By using the computers, animated movies have been enabled to create a very broad range of imagery, from the abstraction to hyperrealism. Therefore, the only limitation for representing the imagination of animation artists on the screen has become the limitation of their dreams and imaginations itself!