Revising Animation Genres: Jan Svankmajer, Tim Burton and James Cameron and the Study of Myth

Scientific Essay from the year 2011 in the subject Film Science, grade: N/A: Professional Lecture, University of Technology, Sydney (School of Design), course: MA Animation, language: English, abstract: This lecture ''Revising Animation Genres: Jan Svankmajer, Tim Burton and James Cameron and the Study of Myth'' addresses the idea or concept of today''s classification of genres for animation feature films and interrogates why this concept needs to be revised today. The lecture is also about what makes it possible to tell a story successfully within films that use animation visual effects today. To do this, it discusses why the concept of the animation genre needs to be revised and suggests how today we need to look at the idea of genres in animation differently than we did in the past. By contrast with the modernism of the past (when fixed styles in art and culture had existed, making it possible to create certain strong recognisable frameworks for art which had helped us categorise different styles and genres and types of film and types of stories), today, a lot more art and art making is made up from a lot of pastiche, which now sees the appropriating of a mixture of ideas from other contexts, genres and themes. This appropriation of ideas previously not normally grouped together within an artwork or film or piece of animation is now being combined into an overall fraternizing of codes and references in films that often would employ animation visual effects.


Cyrus Manasseh is a writer, philosopher, historian and musician. He teaches in universities and privately as an academic consultant. He is an international scholar and has presented his ideas in a number of countries. Dr Cyrus Manasseh PhD is also a Freelance Researcher, Novelist and author of the books ''The Lead Guitarist'' and ''The Problematic of Video Art in the Museum 1968-90''. He is also author of numerous articles in the field of art history, film, architecture, video, museums and evolving media. Published writings include: Art without the Aesthetics? Defining Conceptual & Post-Conceptual Practices'', ''From Passive White Cube Viewer to Active Black Cube User: Tracking Changes in Museum Environments via Installation Art (Analogue to Digital 1968-2008)'', ''Art, Language & Machines: Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia & Raymond Roussel''. He has presented his research at international academic forums which include those in London, Sydney, Perth, Venice, Prague and Harvard where he was session chair and has lectured and taught extensively in Australian Universities. He was a finalist for the International Award for Excellence in the Constructed Environment Journal Writers Award Annual Prize for the academic paper ''An Inquiry into the Design and the Aesthetics of the Venice Biennale Pavilions and Film''.