Melbourne International Animation Festival, ACMI
All gaming is animation but not all animation is gaming. The influences gaming has on auteur, indie animation are vast, pervasive (perhaps insidious) and fascinating. The ‘look’ of many short animated films obviously owes much to elements of gaming but perhaps less obvious are the cultural and narrative cross-pollinations such as the increasingly brittle relationship we have with words like ‘reality’ and ‘friend’. Using a collection of films from competition as examples, this talk will explore the soaring visions, the conceptual gymnastics and even the cultural toxins with which gaming irrigates the animation artform.