CGI Animals

Background In her book, “The Disneyfication of Animals” (2021), Rebecca Rose Stanton notes that animals have featured in animation since it's inception but most are romanticized representations, designed for appeal or to act as metaphors for humans. With the rise of 3D computer animation and digital effects, collectively known as CGI, visual styles and techniques have expanded but anthropocentric traditions continue. Works in this portfolio ask, how can CGI be used to encourage empathy and respect for nonhuman animals and their worlds? More broadly, how can the power of CGI be used to trouble anthropocentrism? Contribution CGI Animals is a portfolio of 6 works exploring opportunities and biases inherent in emerging animation technologies. Exhibition formats include VR experiences, large-scale projections, screen-based short films, and site-specific public artworks. The works are based on careful observation of real-world animals - the dogs, cows, birds, and marsupials we coexist with. They vary stylistically from “low-poly” to photoreal, but all avoid the representational regime common to computer graphics and instead aim to “open new territories of feeling and thought” (Levitt, D. 2018. The Animatic Apparatus: Animation, Vitality, and the Futures of the Image). Significance Works in CGI Animals have been peer reviewed and selected for local and international film screenings and gallery exhibits. They have been commissioned as public artworks and have been the subject of various local and international conference presentations. Reviews have appeared in art magazines, newspaper articles and various social media outlets. The works have also enabled direct conversation and knowledge exchange with prominent local and international CGI practitioners.