Animating Community examines the cultural practices of animators in India, and particularly the role of practitioner testimony in conceiving and negotiating social structures underpinning the nascent Indian animation industry. Recognizing a tendency in practitioner accounts towards theorization of contested industrial discourses, this research takes as its object the reflexive practice of animators in trade texts and interviews. These reveal how local practitioners understand production culture as an emergent phenomenon, resulting from learned processes of negotiation and collective action. However, practitioner testimony also reflects dramatically different degrees of agency in cultural production and discourse. Focusing on the identity work of diverse creative professionals – corporate elites, freelancers, teachers, and students – reveals underlying tensions between global industrial constraints and local social capital. Based on discursive analysis of testimony, this thesis asks how Indian animation practitioners conceive of their creative activity and identity in relation to negotiating a culture of animation production, and how the shared discourses and modes of engagement that result both shape and are shaped by institutional structures. These questions are addressed through practitioner accounts in three sectors of Indian animation: first, the context of production – considering large outsourcing firms and smaller studios; second, the provision of education – instruction in skills and social norms supplied by the public and private sectors; and third, the creation of dedicated community structures – professional organizations and trade information networks. Animating Community is most interested in how local media professionals articulate different discourses from aesthetic to economic value in order to approach an imagined sense of cultural identity. This sheds light on the way practitioners make sense of their creative and professional worlds. Ultimately, the conclusions offered in this project argue for a more nuanced conception of the relationship between critical practice and creative labour, and greater understanding of the different contexts where this may emerge.

Despite the recent explosion of interest in the stereoscopic 3D (S3D) technology, the ultimate prevailing of the S3D medium is still significantly hindered by adverse effects regarding the S3D viewing discomfort. This thesis attempts to improve the S3D viewing experience by investigating perceived depth control methods in stereoscopic cinematography on desktop 3D displays. The main contributions of this work are: (1) A new method was developed to carry out human factors studies on identifying the practical limits of the 3D Comfort Zone on a given 3D display. Our results suggest that it is necessary for cinematographers to identify the specific limits of 3D Comfort Zone on the target 3D display as different 3D systems have different ranges for the 3D Comfort Zone. (2) A new dynamic depth mapping approach was proposed to improve the depth perception in stereoscopic cinematography. The results of a human-based experiment confirmed its advantages in controlling the perceived depth in viewing 3D motion pictures over the existing depth mapping methods. (3) The practicability of employing the Depth of Field (DoF) blur technique in S3D was also investigated. Our results indicate that applying the DoF blur simulation on stereoscopic content may not improve the S3D viewing experience without the real time information about what the viewer is looking at. Finally, a basic guideline for stereoscopic cinematography was introduced to summarise the new findings of this thesis alongside several well-known key factors in 3D cinematography. It is our assumption that this guideline will be of particular interest not only to 3D filmmaking but also to 3D gaming, sports broadcasting, and TV production.

This thesis seeks to demonstrate that the uncanny and stop motion animation enjoy a special relationship, one characterised by a sense of darkness becoming visible. A range of scholars, including Barbara Creed, Tom Gunning, and Laura Mulvey, have recognised that film is capable of embodying the dark fears and concerns related to the collapsing of boundaries and merging of oppositions that are characteristic of the uncanny. Stop motion, this research argues, is a form that is written through with uncanniness. Stop motion animation is especially capable of conveying an experience of the uncanny because of the technical processes through which an impression of movement and life is created from stillness, inertia and death. The thesis explores its claims through in-depth investigation of Sigmund Freud’s 1919 essay on the uncanny, and a range of critical and literary texts and intertexts - including the work of Edgar Allan Poe, Stanislaw Lem, John Milton and Georges Bataille - which engage with different aspects of the uncanny, the death drive, and the human psyche. In tandem with these thinkers, the thesis investigates the work of filmmakers who have shown a willingness to fully engage with the darkness inherent in stop motion, and with the phenomenon of the uncanny, including Shinya Tsukamoto, Jan Švankmajer and the Quay Brothers. Collectively, this thesis argues, these writers, thinkers, and visual artists articulate a common interest in the darkness that characterises both the uncanny and stop motion: a predilection for rendering darkness visible.

The thesis investigates how recent digital technologies of cinema-digital video, CGI, virtual cinematography and motion capture-reconfigure the nature (and, in turn, temporalities) of the moving image. Its objectives are to rework the ontology of the image, revisit the meaning of time in relation to the image and re-evaluate the significance of cinema for ourselves and our consciousness of time. The thesis revolves around the central premise of the photographic image's (Peircian) indexicality-the imprint of light on film/celluloidwhereby the referent "adheres" to the photograph through existential, causal and physical connection. It argues that this connection transmits not only reality but also time, specifically pastness. By virtue of this, we may analyse the photographic image as a trace not only of an object but also of time past. Extending this premise of ontology and pastness from still photography to cinema, the thesis investigates how this temporality of pastness mutates in cinema's digital transformations. Chapter One deals with pastness in the indexicality of the photographic image in relation to its presentness qua moving image, i. e. as cinema unreels before us in our viewing of it. Chapter Two explores how computer code inherent in the technologies of DV, CGI and virtual cinematography revises the nature of the image so as to generate its own form of timelessness. Chapter Three examines the novel manner in which motion capture technologies create cinematic imagery by recording non-visible movement rather than visible light, in turn transfiguring time in the image as space and temporal between-ness. Studying cinema as an object of time rather than as an object of reality, the thesis suggests how cinema might exist-in all its transformations, in all its different waysin distinctive temporalities.

The doctoral programme has supported my transformation from a sometimes experimental, sometimes commercial animation director to an artist working with animation. That is to say, it has helped me question the origins of my hitherto largely intuitive approach by framing it within a wider artistic-theoretical context. This has enabled me to reposition and revaluate my moving image practice, and brought me to a point where I have focus in terms of concept, technique, methodology and professional practice. This report is divided into sections. ‘Autobiographical Context’ outlines relevant personal history, education and practice prior to the doctorate programme. ‘Creative Practice and Theory’ forms the main body of my reflective, contextual and critical analysis of my practice throughout the five years of the doctorate. Through a discussion of artists and theorists I investigate several interconnected areas of importance to my work: the interface between abstraction and figurative spaces; the use of animation and abstraction in an expanded sense including live performance; and the relationships between sound, music and image. An examination of the development of my artistic practice will contextualise it within this framework. ‘Professional Practice’ provides an account of exhibitions, performances and other professional engagements, and some further reflective thoughts on how this has integrated into my doctoral research. The conclusion collates my overall final position.

This practice-based project examines mediated performative relationality in videoperformance by means of five artworks and a dissertation. I argue that videoperformance has the potential to contribute to wider debates on relationality, to examine the addressee and the dynamics of relationality through the mediated encounter between performer and viewer, and to produce an account of relationality that manifests the specific ethical and political valence of this practice. I focus on videoperformances in which artists address viewers via video camera and screen, with the result of activating mediated relationality. The term relationality conveys the emergence of intersubjective relationships. Mediation refers to the relay of performativity from performer to camera, screen and viewer, and acknowledges the transformations introduced by technology. My videoperformances experiment with aspects of mediated relationality: Before You Now (2013) explores the desire for authenticity and unmediated relationality. Regardless (2007) experiments with visual strategies to suggest that the screen is permeable. The Other Person (2010) explores intimacy, trust and zones of proximity. Are You Talking to Me? (2010) denies relationality by focusing on a dialogue internal to the performer. Wish You Were Here (2011) suggests and mocks idealised conviviality, and plays with ideas of liveness. The dissertation is divided into two parts: part one contextualises the project in the framework of theoretical approaches and practices. It maps Lacanian concepts of subjectivity and the gaze; Butler’s concept of performativity; film, performance and new media studies; relational and distributed aesthetics. It also reviews the history of videoperformance from a contemporary relational perspective. Part two examines the interplay of relationality and subjectivity in three videoperformances by way of performative writing and critical analysis. This combination of different research methodologies achieves a thorough analysis of performative mediated relationality in videoperformance and contributes to a wider discourse on relationality.

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Stereoscopic 3D (S3D) cinema has been the subject of experimentation for more than a century. Many attempts have been made towards its establishment both at a commercial and an artistic level. However, due to a number of technical and financial constraints most of these attempts have been, by and large, unsuccessful. With the rapid technological advance of digital technologies over the past few decades, most of these constraints have been addressed. It is, thus, unsurprising that the biggest effort in establishing S3D cinema commercially is taking place at the present time. The introduction of S3D depth aims at changing the cinematic environment from a 2D monoscopic screen to a viewing zone with a more pronounced representation of depth. In this context it can be argued that in addition to the increased sense of depth in terms of visual cues one could also investigate the possibility of using auditory cues. This could be either in order to enhance the overall sense of depth or to support more efficiently the additional depth of the visuals. The first part of this thesis involves the introduction of basic concepts related to the topic of the study. Firstly, the general background context is established covering relevant historical topics related to S3D cinema and multichannel cinematic sound. The next part is an introduction to basic audiovisual human perception concepts followed by the presentation of basic cinematic sound mixing topics and their relevance in S3D cinema. The second part of the thesis involves a series of experiments that attempt to study the effectiveness of two auditory cues (high frequency attenuation and volume alteration) as a means to influence the sense of depth of S3D animation clips. The overall findings are complex and reflect the multi-faceted nature of the topic investigated. Overall they indicate that sound design techniques can enhance the S3D experience and, in particular, that the auditory depth cues studied can, in some cases, have an effect on how we perceive depth in S3D movies.

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