TIME-CRITICAL ANIMATION: COMICS, CARTOONS, COMPUTERS

Digital animation was originally developed in scientific laboratories, and it was often seen as an ideal tool for scientific research due to its ability to visualize, analyse, and synthesize time-serial data. It was eventually incorporated into the entertainment industry when higher image resolutions made it possible to produce photorealistic digital effects, yet it still has numerous applications in such fields as biology, meteorology, geology, engineering, mathematics, and physics. Through an examination of these scientific applications, this essay will argue that the difference between live-action film and digital animation can be better understood not in terms of the visual properties of the images themselves but rather in terms of the underlying temporalities of their material substrates (i.e., the time-based medium of film and the time-critical medium of the computer). Such an approach not only offers an important contribution to contemporary theories of animation but also explains its continued relevance as a scientific instrument.