Home and memory in experimental animation: a practice-led study within expanded cinema theory

Abstract

This practice-led study investigates the extent to which expanded cinema practices, which focus on materiality, multisensory engagement, and spatial experience, can be used in experimental animation to enhance the exploration of home and memory in the digital era. The key theoretical approaches employed in this study are located within the fields of expanded cinema theory and human geography. The concept of home is informed by the theories of Alison Blunt and Robyn Dowling, as well as Doreen Massey. With regards to memory, specific attention is given to home and trauma and home and nostalgia. In this regard, the study is informed by Gaston Bachelard and Svetlana Boym. The expanded cinema framework draws from early expanded cinema authors such as Gene Youngblood. These early understandings of cinematic space and the experience thereof are extended to include Giuliana Bruno’s view that media form technological ecologies and that the cinematic is a relational event in which experience takes place. The intersection of these frameworks lies in their shared focus on spatiality and relationality, and this study explores how these aspects can be used in experimental animation to explore the concepts of home and memory in an increasingly mediated world. The practical aspect of this study is informed by the theoretical research as well as the critical analysis of existing artworks. Particular attention is given to the works of Sabrina Ratté, as well as Lei Lei and Thomas Sauvin, to examine how expanded cinema practices are used to explore the concepts of home and memory in the digital era. The practice follows an iterative and explorator approach with experimentation spanning both analogue and digital cinematic forms.