Classical film theory topics, such as the divide between live action and animation, the definition of cinematic performance, and the configuration and impact of the star system continue to shapewhile also being reshaped by -discourse on animation labor in the digital age. Focusing on motion capture in contemporary Hollywood, the first part of this article historicizes and examines the diminishment of the animators' contribution to this filmmaking process in promotional materials and public discussions, and the accompanying overemphasis on the star persona's performance. In doing so, it aims to contextualize and shed light on the practices and imperatives that determine current labor policies and power dynamics in the industry. The second part introduces questions of gender relations and gender-based hierarchies of representation into the discussion of motion and performance capture's labor climate. In order to highlight and reflect on the ambivalence of the motion capture industry's labor politics, it offers a feminist reading of a distinct, yet related form of disenfranchisement in motion-capture filmmaking, namely digital voyeurism and the objectification of the female performer in films such as Beowulf (Robert Zemeckis, 2007) and Avatar (James Cameron, 2009), and video games such as Beyond: Two Souls (Quantic Dream, 2013). Finally, by highlighting such interrelated policies of marginalization and erasure of labor, the author aims to emphasize the inadequacy of describing motion capture as a collaborative process and to call for a reconceptualization of the critical approaches towards its study.

No abstract

For decades, the notion of the creator's absolute control over the drawn image has remained a staple of animation discourse, and the advent of computer animation has recently reinvigorated this discussion. The animated science fiction features Metropia (Tarik Saleh, 2009), Metropolis (Rintaro, 2001, and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (Hironobu Sakaguchi and Motonori Sakakibara, 2001) engage utopian daydreams and articulate anxieties about the high degree of artistic mastery facilitated by advanced technology. Using these three films as case studies, this text examines computer-animated futuristic urban spaces as architectures of control. It discusses digital bodies as products of animators' increased mastery over mimetic representations of the human form and explores the ways in which computer animation foregrounds its technological and artistic control over the image as a feat to marvel at. In doing so, this analysis highlights the evolution of the dream of the omnipotent creator into a fantasy of omnipotent machinery, while also foregrounding concerns about the possible danger of technology undermining animators' labor and making it obsolete in the context of contemporary production practices.The notion of absolute creative control of the animator over the image is often evoked in discussions of drawn animation (other forms of animation, such as puppetry and stop motion, raise a separate set of questions which will not be addressed here). Past scholarship has regarded cel animation as endowing the director with a degree of mastery over the film unmatched by other cinematic modes. For instance, Paul Wells (1998: 228) has argued that 'a completed animation represents an example of an entirely controlled environment which is a symbolic space wholly predicated on the whim, intention, and bravura of the animator.' It is this emphasis on the individual in the production of drawn animation that has given rise to fantasies of all-powerfulness, of the

This essay focuses on the nascent symbiotic relationship between deepfakes and art museums and galleries, as demonstrated by three case studies. The first one, housed at the Dalí Museum in St Petersburg, Florida, is a life-size talking avatar of the artist generated from archival footage. The second one, Warriors by James Coupe, revisits Walter Hill’s 1979 film of the same name using deepfake algorithms to insert visitors’ faces into key scenes, sorting them into gangs based on data-driven analysis of their demographic and economic markers. Finally, Gillian Wearing’s fake ad, Wearing Gillian, uses deepfake technology to enable a series of actors to appear on screen with the artist’s face as a way of interrogating questions of identity in a networked digital world. Based on these works, my article examines museums’ employment of deepfakes for advertising, audience engagement, and educational outreach, and the curatorial, ethical, and creative opportunities and challenges involved therein. While deepfake esthetics will be discussed wherever relevant, this is not a formalist analysis; my goal is not to focus on close readings of the deepfake pieces themselves, however fascinating their esthetics. Instead, I will look at the promotional and critical discourse around them in order to unpack the ways in which the acquisition of creative deepfake works by cultural institutions functions as a legitimizing force that is already shifting the narrative regarding the artistic value and social functions of this technology.

Mihaela Mihailova examines the role and functions of the drawn image within early-twentieth-century scientific and educational media texts (in this case, a range of 1920s educational animated short films). Exploring seminal names from animation history, such as Bray Productions and the Fleischer brothers, Mihailova demonstrates the contemporary resonances and applications of these works. The chapter examines a range of foundational trends, methods and approaches that subsequently shaped animated documentary during the nine decades since the advent of sound. Examining the functions which the drawn image fulfils, animation is seen as a metacommentary on its own expressive limitations, as well as those of nonfiction, foregrounding the challenges of conveying reality by means of a single representational mode. At once liberated from the concreteness of the photographic record and limited in their abstraction by the requirements of scientific content, these films occupy a position between mechanical recording and pure artistic creation.