Association for Chinese Animation Studies (ACAS)
Distinguished Lecture Series
CGI and “National Style”: Zhang Yimou’s Shadow
Online lecture by Professor Jason McGrath, 9-10am, May 15 (Monday, Hong Kong Time), Zoom
Abstract:
In the history of computer-generated imagery (CGI) in China, as in the much longer history of animation more generally, we find competing and yet intertwined trends toward, on one hand, absorbing technological advances made abroad and “catching up” with the state of the art as determined by others and, on the other, seeking to use those technologies in the service of a distinctively Chinese aesthetic, or even to use the possibilities of animation—particularly its liberation from the limitations of photographic realism—to give new expressions to figures and narratives from Chinese tradition. This paper examines Zhang Yimou’s 2018 martial arts film Shadow (影) as a recent example of how a Chinese aesthetic tradition—in this case ink landscape painting—forms the intermedial inspiration for the film’s visual imagination. However, rather than straightforwardly serving as a soft-power assertion of China’s national strength, Shadow employs the symbolism of the “Supreme Ultimate” from Daoist philosophy to subtly challenge hegemonic military, political, and patriarchal structures of power.
Animation, Collage, and the Afterlife of Images: Found Footage in/as Animation
Online lecture by Professor Yomi Braester, 9:30-10:30am, May 10 (Wed, Hong Kong Time), Zoom
Abstract:
In this essay I explore the porous boundaries between animation, found footage, and collage, and argue that these seemingly separate genres of the moving image coalesce, under certain circumstances, to form a cohesive discourse on the afterlife of images. In their more self-reflective moments, these genres show how they rely on an assemblage of individual frames, displacing images, so to speak elongating their shadows in time. The post-mortem reassembly of disjointed images may serve as a commentary on the need for medial and historical readjustment and relocation. I look at works as disparate as Recycled (Lei Lei, 2012) The Day of Perpetual Night (Yang Yongliang, 2012), Self-Surveillance (Ai Weiwei, 2012), Same Old, Brand New (Cao Fei, 2015), and Dragonfly Eyes (Xu Bing, 2017).