“If it is the live-action film’s job to present physical reality, animated film is concerned with metaphysical reality – not how things look, but what they mean.”

As far as I am concerned, I find this quote from Seeing The Brick And Cameraless Animation to be very poignant. Indeed, if we take the definition of animation as “not the art of drawings that move, but rather the art of movements that are drawn,” we could almost conclude that the art of animation is not inclined to be a realistic one. In fact, it is no surprise that surrealist and conceptual artists used animations among other media to express their visions of the world that surrounds us.

Also, I was a bit confused when I read the quote: does the quote mean that realistic art does not express the meaning of things? Is there a dichotomy between the appearance of an object, and its meaning? I feel that what the quote means is that there is a sort of constructivist aspect to animation art, in the sense that this form of art will decompose what we know and perceive as “reality”, in the aim of understanding the core of things. Because of that aspect, I am really fond of this idea, for I feel that art should make the viewer think about his surroundings, and shouldn’t give a preconceived idea. In other words, art is relative, and should create some kind of thought process so that the viewer could understand its aim and essence.