From Post-cinema to Pre-cinema and Back Again: Media Archaeology of Loop Animation.

Loops are omnipresent in contemporary visual culture, from installation art to online media and digital interfaces. By contextualizing visual loops from a cross-disciplinary perspective, the proposed PhD project aims to explain their compelling nature and ongoing success across different media ecologies. Loops often involve animation, an art form which is rooted in loops through pre-cinematic devices. On both a theoretical and practice based level, a media archaeology of animated loops is the principle approach to research how these nineteenth century devices can be reinvented as contemporary media art. Which are the different kinds of devices and loop-types? How does loop animation affect the characteristics of motion, visual language and narrativity? How can crossbreeding with digital technology lead to tangible forms of animation and highly intricate loops in which the notion of the “frame” as spatiotemporal boundary evaporates?