On paracinema and the dematerialisation of animation

Although the technologies used in contemporary expanded animation are digital, this kind of work builds upon expanded cinema’s legacy of avant-garde practice. This chapter draws upon one strand of expanded cinema - paracinema - as defined by film theorist Jonathan Walley, who uses the term in the sense of the dematerialization of film into idea. Based on archival research and unpublished materials by VALIE EXPORT and Anthony McCall, examples of their expanded practice in paracinema are presented where film becomes live event and, thus, questions the institution of cinema, its strategies of voyeurism and perception. Extending this idea and building upon animation theorist Alan Cholodenko's notion of animation as concept, the animated performance and installation work of contemporary artists Tingting Lu and Birgitta Hosea is proposed as a form of para-animation. Working at the interface of live experience and recorded media, these works dematerialize animation and investigate the inscription of movement over time as concept rather than purely technique