An Investigation of Intersections Between Reanimation Practice and Queer Theory in a Moving Image Work

This practice-informed research establishes points of intersection between reanimative practices within moving image work and queer theoretical positions. It frames this within autoethnographic understandings of memories pertaining to my adolescent experience of
gay acculturation via textual sources. A bricolage methodology deriving from the work of Kincheloe and Berry (2004) is used. Multiple methods of investigation are employed including alternative archive creation, moving image tests and prototypes, processes of reading and re-reading and autoethnographic, reflective and academic writing practices.
Analysis and evaluation are informed by selected queer theoretical concepts which correspond to the broad structural phases of reanimation. Research outputs deriving from these processes are i) moving image tests, ii) autoethnographic vignettes, iii) a moving image piece entitled Unbounded and iv) a written thesis.
The research aims to build on current understandings of the term “reanimation” (Cholodenko, 1991, 2004, 2007a, 2007b, 2007c, 2009; Skoller, 2013; Wells, 1998; Wells & Hardstaff, 2008), particularly within moving image practices using “found” material, and to
articulate these within a queer perspective. A contextual review assesses previous work on reanimation in research, scholarship and queer-related animation. A series of moving image tests establish a relationship between animation, deanimation and reanimation which, I propose, constitutes the reanimative process. I consider this practice-informed understanding in relation to analogous patterns and motifs in queer theoretical literature.
Finally, evaluation of the evidence from my practice tests and the terminal piece, Unbounded, corroborate a proposed set of intersections.
The conclusion offers a conceptualisation of the process of reanimation in my moving image practice and establishes that the reanimated outcome attests to its reanimated status through the “temporal composite” (Skoller, 2013). I build on work concerning queer forms of evidence (Muñoz, 1996, 2009), alternative archive creation (Cvetkovich, 2003), queer temporality (Freeman, 2010; Rohy, 2009; Stockton, 2009) and futurity (Bansel, 2012; Edelman, 2004; Muñoz, 2009) to demonstrate that this reanimative principle is reflective of contemporary queer concerns with historicity. This practice-informed research contributes to knowledge by extending a modest body of animation literature addressing sexuality (de Beer, 2014, 2015, January 21; Griffin, 1994; Halberstam, 2011; Padva, 2008; Pilling, 2012b; Takahashi, 2014; Wells, 1998; Wood, 2008) through its focus on the formal aspects
of reanimation and interconnections with the queer, as opposed to the more frequently addressed issue of queer representation.