Physical Impossibilities: Abstraction and Existentialism in Animated Media

To what extent have the cartoon ghosts of popular culture shaped the spirituality of their viewers and creators?

Animation’s links to the creation of ghosts is not only due to its technological origins in the phantasmagoria shows of the late 1700s, but also due to the theoretical origins of the ‘Idea of the Mind’s Eye’. Namely, the idea that as soon as humans had the technology to create moving images, we created things not seen in the material world. Furthermore, the parallels between the psychic medium and the animator artist cross over with the etymology of ‘spirit’: the ‘animating principle in man or animals’. Both animator and psychic medium illuminate spiritual or animated essences.

The definition of spirituality that has come out of this research is not one that encompasses all perspectives of the word. I have interviewed many who reject any claim of a connection between popular culture’s cartoon ghosts and spirituality for cultural, religious or academic reasons. However, using the word ‘spirituality’ has also opened up unexpected connections to some of its common uses. As well as the unexpected connection between cartoon ghosts and supernatural experiences, there has also been use of the word spirituality in opposition to capitalism. Phantasmagoria and the Gothic’s anti-capitalist roots contradict the use of gothic imagery, such as ghosts, in contemporary popular culture (now so rooted in capitalism). The reflexive contradiction continues as the gothic subculture (a rejection of popular culture) appropriates, or reclaims, these ghosts. Hence the image of the cartoon ghost becomes an image that sits both in accordance with, and in opposition to, the idea of capitalism being harmful to human spirituality.My interviews inside the animation industry have asked animators, academics and researchers about the relationship between cartoons and supernatural experiences. I have also studied the animation industry from the perspective of its viewers in order to see the lasting effects of cartoons into adulthood, for example, a small selection of the 1.7 million members of the Reddit group Tip of My Tongue. This research has culminated in a video-performance-lecture that shares interview quotes and findings. The piece reflects the visual stimulus of the research; performed in grandiose style, much like that intended for the audiences of phantasmagoria shows, or the cinema-goers of blockbuster animations. The piece is presented as a hologram inside a small chapel – in continuation with the kitsch-gothic theme – with an audience from a local intergenerational community. The aim is to resurface memories of animations the community watched in their differing childhoods, and to analyse how the animation industry, with it’s vast technological progress over the last fifty years, has affected our beliefs.