Editorial

Abstract

For the first time since its launch in 2006, the journal was unable to publish a scheduled issue, nota bene due to the upheavals of the global pandemic that have affected many personally, institutionally and professionally, with knock-on effects on workflows, systems and deadlines. We thank you for your patience and with this, our first double issue, we aim to fill the knowledge gap in new research and writing in our field that you may have felt in the interim. The articles in this issue attest to the ranges and approaches to animation that our authors engage with. The scope of animation: an interdisciplinary journal was and remains comprehensive: to address and include all animation made using all known (and perhaps yet to be revealed) techniques since the late 18th century up to the digital shift and beyond, to reveal its implications for other forms of time-based media expression – past, present and future – and to illuminate how these affect our lives. Back then we speculated the journal would be guaranteed longevity by the shift towards interdisciplinary practice and research. It is inspiring to see this speculation confirmed, due in part to the significant increase in PhD candidates submitting their research for consideration (three of whom have articles in this issue), and this also attests to the healthy expansion of our field in academia. This was evident at Animate Energies, this year’s Society for Animation Studies conference in Tulane, organized by Eric Herhuth. This double issue also celebrates the range of disciplinary approaches that are helping audiences to understand the semantic density available to artists working in this moving image form. Fifty years ago, Wolf Koenig of the National Film Board of Canada instigated an animation workshop with Inuit youth on Kinngait, Qikiqtaaluk (then known as Cape Dorset, Baffin Island). They created a set of films – Animation from Cape Dorset (1973) – that are remarkable animated documents of tangible and intangible cultural heritage. In his ‘Experiments in Hybrid Documentary and Indigenous Model Animation’, Joshua D Miner examines the principal characteristics of recent Indigenous documentary approaches, specifically Native/First Nation peoples of North America, that have an emphasis on socio-historical, political, cultural and aesthetic features. The focus then is on techniques, including stop motion and machinima, and on hybrid material, Indigenous ‘craft’ artwork styles, and analogue and digital aspects of the works of three non-fiction filmmakers. Milner examines how these artists question, challenge and ultimately reconstruct and remediate the highly negative impacts and urgent need for accountability of settler colonialism through their practice and on a range of platforms. Both the 16mm Cape Dorset films and the works Milner discusses are direct, critical, often collaborative acts of agency. His article provides compelling insights into how many Indigenous artists are using recent technologies available to the animated form to address the continuing revelations of the manifold, culturally destructive historical crimes of settler colonialism and to carve a future path towards autonomy, self-determination and respect. We have published a number of articles on sound in animation, but more are needed to gain a deeper understanding of the centrality of audio to visual tracks and the many components that comprise it, such as sound effects. These are the subject of Patrick Sullivan’s ‘Hanna-Barbera’s 1030696 ANM0010.1177/17468477211030696animation: an interdisciplinary journalEditorial editorial2021