中研院民族所

Time

Speaker/Topic

Discussant

Chair

8:00-9:00

Registration

9:00-9:30

Opening  Remarks

Hu Taili 胡台麗 (Director, Institute of Ethnology)

Teri Silvio 司黛蕊 (Conference Organizer)

9:30-11:30

Panel 1: Labor in the Animation Industry

Marc Moskowitz

(Department of Anthropology, University of South Carolina)

Lynn Tomlinson (Department of Electronic Media and Film, Towson University)

Concealing/Revealing Labor: Animation’s Peek Behind the Scenes

Naifei Ding

 丁乃非

(Department of English, National Central University)

Peng-yi Tai 戴芃儀 (Department of English, National Central University)

Monsters, Inc.: Pixar and Knowledge production in Post-Fordism

Anru Lee

李安如

(Department of Anthropology, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the City University of New York)

11:30-12:30

Lunch

12:30-14:30

Panel 2: Nation and Animation

Shu-li Huang

黃淑莉

(Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica)

Kukhee Choo (Department of Comparative Culture, Sophia University)

Negotiating the Position of South Korea's Shadow Animation Industry 

Eva Tsai

蔡如音

(Graduate Institute of Mass Communication, National Taiwan Normal University)

Teri Silvio 司黛蕊 (Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica)

Representing Creative Labor Within Taiwanese and Singaporean Comics: Cheerleading and Critiquing the Neoliberal Self

Amie Parry

白瑞梅

(Department of English, National Central University)

14:30-15:00

Tea Break

15:00-17:00

Panel 3: Robots and Networks

Lucifer Hung

洪凌

(Graduate Institute for Gender Studies, Shih Hsin University)

Hirofumi Katsuno 勝野宏史 (Department of Media Studies, Doshisha University)

Between Human and the Machine: Processes of Animation and the Formation of Technological Lives in Contemporary Japan

Paul Manning

(Department of Anthropology, Trent University)

Allen Chun and Jia-lu Cheng (Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica)

From Societies of Control to the Political Economy of Protocol: On the Nature of Digital Media-tion

Gabriele de Seta 胡子哥

(Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica)

Time

Speaker/Topic

Discussant

Chair

10:00-12:00

Panel 4: Animating Japanese Characters

Shu-Yuan Yang

楊淑媛

(Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica)

Pei-ti Wang 王佩迪 (Center for General Education, National Chiao Tung University)

On Fujoshi Power: How fujoshi play with the sex/gender system

Chi-hua Hsiao

蕭季樺

(Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Tunghai University)

Shunsuke Nozawa 野澤俊介 (Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies, University of Tokyo)

Voice-Work and the Labor of Animation in Japan

Earl Jackson

賈元鵬

(Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures National Chiao Tung University)

12:00-13:00

Lunch

13:00-15:00

Panel 5: Object Relations

Wei-ping Lin

林瑋嬪

(Department of Anthropology, National Taiwan University)

Meghanne Barker (University of Michigan)

What does cuteness do for children (and what do children do for cuteness)?

Natasha Heller

賀耐嫻

(Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, UCLA)

DJ Hatfield 施永德 (Berklee College of Music)

Animating the Collection: Difficult Heritage, Collaboration, and a Settler Colonial University's Marriage to an Indigenous Ancestor

Kerim Friedman

傅可恩

(Department of Ethnic Relations and Cultures, National Dung Hwa University)

15:00-15:30

Tea Break

15:30-18:00

Roundtable Discussion with All Presenters

Lynn Tomlinson (Department of Electronic Media and Film, Towson University )

Concealing/Revealing Labor: Animation’s Peek Behind the Scenes 

Abstract

The sheer amount of human work hours that it takes to create the illusion of the inanimate magically moving has been one of the defining features of animation. Whenever I stand in front of a crowd to discuss my animated short, one question is always sure to be asked: “How long did it take you?” The longer and more painstaking the process the better, in many audience members’ eyes.  In the earliest years of animated cinema, Winsor McCay showed his assistant staggering with a towering stack of drawings. Like a good magician who explains part of the trick, McCay understood that the audience reaction would be stronger if they knew just a bit about the process and labor behind the illusion. Contrary to the modernist notion that artisanal effort is not art but craft, the powerful aesthetic response when we understand how much human labor went in to an artwork is not to be dismissed.  This is a deep part of animation’s appeal: How did they do that? How long did that take? While these questions may seem to be superficial, their ubiquity leads me to argue that the peek-behind-the-scenes that is so much a part of animation’s self-promotional process is ingrained. The desire to simultaneously conceal and reveal the labor-intensive process is integral to animation, and has been part of the marketing and self-promotion process for studios and independent artists alike. Pixar’s feature films list the names of all the babies born during the production process, in effect showing the actual labor that went on behind the scenes, and in a self-aware nodding to the sacrifice of personal time that many of the animators made to create the feature.  Like many independent animators showing their work to the world through online platforms, when I made my recent clay-painted animated film, I created a behind-the-scenes video as a companion piece for my film, knowing that explaining how I did something and how long it took --this revelation of process, craft, and labor – was part of the story I was telling and, in fact, part of the animation itself.  The magic of animation may be sleight-of-hand, but still, showing the hand of the artist is part of its appeal.

Peng-yi Tai 戴芃儀 (Department of English, National Central University )

Monsters, Inc.: Pixar and Knowledge production in Post-Fordism

Abstract

The status of Pixar as the New Disney is probably beyond dispute. So far, Pixar has released 16 animated features since 1995. Virtually every Pixar film has garnered both critical acclaim and box office dollar. In this paper, I argue that the success of Pixar consists mostly in the specific brand of knowledge production and management informed by both Disney and Silicone Valley. Specifically, the transition from Disney to Pixar marks the paradigmatic shift from Fordism to post-Fordism in terms of not only the role of technology but also the broader socio-economic context of such shift. Interestingly, most of the Pixar animated movies revolve around communalism like the studio professes to be. To explore the post-Fordist preoccupation and with knowledge production its problematics in Pixar, I will focus on Monsters, Inc. (2001) and Monster University (2013), which I read as self-reflexive of the studio. The paper will explore their cinematic aesthetics and seek to deconstruct the neoliberalist labor allegory.

Kukhee Choo (Department of Comparative Culture, Sophia University )

Negotiating the Position of South Korea's Shadow Animation Industry 

Abstract

Since the mid-1960s, South Korea became an essential part of the Japanese animation production scheme that enabled Japan's anime industry to continue its fruitful production throughout the following decades. In fact, subcontracting for Japanese animation studios (as well as for US and European cartoons) not only made animation production a viable industry in South Korea, but it contributed to South Korea's position as the third largest animation producer in the world until the end of the 1990s. When examining the development of South Korea's animation industry and the involved laborers, we can witness a practice that challenged the very notion of what was considered to be "Japanese" anime; further complicating the nuancing the historical context of animation productions in Asia that often overlooked animations created by the "others" due to the global dominance of the Japanese anime industry. In this paper, I will map out the historical development of South Korean animations and how the early animators negotiated their position as subcontractors to the former colonizer Japan, tracing it origins to the 1950s and focusing particularly on those with conspicuously hybridized narratives and visualities of Japanese anime. By doing so, I aim to bring to light the various modalities and praxis, such as hyperbolically mimicking and nationalizing popular robot anime, that  functioned as means to overcome  South Korea's position as a "shadow" to the Japanese anime industry.

Teri Silvio 司黛蕊 (Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica)

Representing Creative Labor Within Taiwanese and Singaporean Comics: Cheerleading and Critiquing the Neoliberal Self

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that comics represent creative work under neoliberalism in very different ways in Taiwan and Singapore, and critique or support for neoliberal projects occurs within different genres.  In Singapore, where cultural products are under strict censorship, alternative comics have nonetheless become a site for the critique of state development projects. The autobiographical graphic novel was pioneered as a critical genre in the US and Europe, and has been taken up recently by several Singaporean artists.  Graphic novels such as Troy Chin's Resident Tourist series and Oh Yong Hwee and Koh Hong Teng’s Ten Sticks and One Rice explore the ambiguous effects of state-run development projects on the social and emotional lives of ordinary people.  In Taiwan, in contrast, although there is more freedom for artists to critique politicians and parties directly, comics artists have not critiqued transformations in economic conditions. While in the Singaporean comics, the quality of interpersonal relations is related to economic structures, Taiwanese artist Xiao Zhuang’s Adman’s Notebook portrays family and friendship relations as essentially unchanging.  In Taiwan, unlike in Singapore, there is also a whole genre of popular comics which exhort readers to maintain their childish natures and work hard in order to become successful members of the creative class. Where critique does seem possible in Taiwan is in genres adapted from Japan. For instance, in Mickeyman’s comics (first serialized on a blog, then printed as a book), the romantic ideal of the auteur that haunts the American and Singaporean autobiographical graphic novels is largely absent, with characters taking on lives of their own and complaining about how the artist is treating them.

Hirofumi Katsuno 勝野宏史 (Department of Media Studies, Doshisha University )

Between Human and the Machine: Processes of Animation and the formation of Technological Lives in Contemporary Japan

Abstract

This presentation focuses on the rise of humanoid robotics in contemporary Japan, asking how this new technological field develops into an experimental site for the redefinition of humanity. Robotic discourse in contemporary Japan prompts parallel but contradictory visions of human-machine interface: the humanization of machines and the cyborgization of humanity. The former indicates that the robotics is increasingly becomes a loci of animation, the development of which is driven by a desire to implement human-like qualities to non-human machinery. Meanwhile, the human organism, the original model for technological mimesis, is becoming increasingly merged with wearable technologies, augmented reality applications, and neural and physical human enhancements. Taking ‘animation’ as key to understand this blurring process of human-machine boundaries, I will address how the development of robotic technology leads us to rethinking of accepted boundaries and dichotomies of the subject/object, the self/other, and the human/non-human.

Allen Chun and Jia-lu Cheng (Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica)

From Societies of Control to the Political Economy of Protocol: On the Nature of Digital Media-tion

Abstract

The essay begins with an exploration of Deleuze's notion of society of control and its relevance to the regulation of digital media. Needless to say, there are many approaches to network society and its cognate notions, just as there are overlapping aspects of internet per se that can lend to both its open and closed nature. Deleuze's note on societies of control was an extension to Foucault's discussion of disciplinary societies, but in the later emergence of internet and other technologies it can be seen to shed salient light on the regulative nature of protocol that serves an important role in maintaining the ongoing appearance and functioning of "smooth societies". To what extent is media just digital?

Pei-ti Wang 王佩迪 (Center for General Education, National Chiao Tung University )

On Fujoshi Power: How fujoshi play with the sex/gender system

Abstract

Fujoshi, “rotten girls” who love reading and creating Boys’ Love (BL) texts, are not simply a subculture group within the anime-related culture. They make trends of culture phenomenon (for example, influence on mainstream multi-media production) and derive potential market. In Taiwan, BL culture is turning more and more prevailing among girls and changing their views of gender relations. It has become “fujoshi power,” challenging the existed patriarchal sex/gender system and showing that female subjectivity and female desire requires serious attention.

By examining BL works and field observation, this paper will discuss how fujoshi turn over the sex/gender system by reading, creating, and rewriting texts. I consider “fujoshi power” as a form of affective labor – in which digital technology and audio/video effect is significant, and regard the practices of fujoshi not only follow the “database consumption” pattern illustrated by Hiroki Azuma, but also simultaneously accordant with the “relationship consumption” outlined by Sonoko Azuma. Furthermore, with the concept of Brian Massumi’s affect, I argue that the practices of fujoshi involve more body engagement, and the non-subjective bodily responses allow their reading position flowed. By practicing BL culture, fujoshi are empowered to challenge the asymmetry of gender/sexual difference, to gaze at (and dominate) the male bodies, and to rearrange the diverse masculinities for their favorite characters. Therefore, I want to suggest that reading and creating BL texts is not simply an imaginary game, but a kind of practice of fujoshi’s female power.

Shunsuke Nozawa 野澤俊介 (Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies, University of Tokyo )

Voice-Work and the Labor of Animation in Japan

Abstract

Voice acting encompasses a variety of contexts, from anime to games, from foreign film dubbing to voice over narration. Voice acting’s relationship to acting in the contemporary Japanese context points to nuanced tensions in several related contrasts such as creative vs productive, artistic vs artisanal, individual genius vs distributed skills. Sometimes voice acting is considered a type of artistic activity, a context-specific role that any particular actor may inhabit within the division of characterological labor: ‘doing voice-acting.’ More often, it is a profession -- ‘being a voice-actor’ (seiyu) -- linked to particular biographies and institutions (such as schools and agencies), differentiated from ‘actors’ (haiyu). Seiyu are media persona whose labor of animation keeps their visual presence sufficiently withdrawn from public circulation. As often suggested, they are ‘backstage’ (urakata) workers, working in the sealed sound studio and hidden behind the characters they animate through voicing, even while they are institutionally located within the usual business of entertainment. This compound articulation of ‘staff’-like and ‘cast’-like qualities suggests the ambiguous status of “voice-work” (koe no shigoto) as a labor of animation. What kind of ‘work’ is it? In this paper I focus in particular on the idiom of “skill” (sukiru) and examine how this concept motivates current discourses about what constitutes voice acting as labor.

Meghanne Barker (University of Michigan)

What does cuteness do for children (and what do children do for cuteness)?

Abstract

Scholars have noted the increasing prevalence of cute aesthetics among adults through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, particularly in Japan (Kinsella 1995, Koma 2013, Yomota 2007) and Taiwan (Silvio 2010) and as an aesthetic particularly well-suited, semiotically, to brand logos (Manning 2010). Despite cross-cultural and historical work questioning the universality of many aspects of childhood (Aries 1962, Schieffelin and Ochs 1983), there has been little exploration of the link between cuteness and childhood, achieved both through the targeting of children as audiences and consumers of cute objects and through the celebration of children themselves as cute. In Kazakhstan, where I conducted fieldwork on children’s culture from 2012 to 2014, the state-run puppet theatre stated that puppets were an ideal medium for entertaining and socializing children because it is through objects that children learn about the world. At a home for children under seven where parents placed children under state care for temporary periods, residential children were expected to perform, on a regular basis, for visiting sponsors and officials. At the state theatre charged with entertaining children and at the children’s home offering child performances for adults, children and puppets “animated” (in a Goffmanian sense) the words and actions of others. In this paper, I will look at the aesthetics of vulnerability at these sites in order to ask how cuteness is achieved and what it seems to accomplish. How might a semiotics of incompleteness or expectations of viewer projection be working differently in contexts of childhood? What can they tell us about ideologies of childhood at these sites? How do children, as audience members or as animators of cuteness, shape these animations?

DJ Hatfield 施永德 (Berklee College of Music)

Animating the collection: difficult heritage, collaboration, and a settler colonial university's marriage to an indigenous ancestor

Abstract

This essay approaches animation's role in managing difficult heritage. Building on the case of a Paiwan house post carving whose application to National Treasure status led to the marriage between National Taiwan University and the ancestor figure represented in the post, I argue that collaboration between the NTU and the community of origin depended upon animating work in which representatives of the Paiwan community and national university could speak on behalf of the ancestral post (animating in the Goffmanian sense). Moreover, we see animation in another sense, as the institutional forms in which representatives of the two parties collaborated seem to issue from non-corporeal persons (the university, the ancestor) themselves. Animating the collection thus changes the positions of the animators, as well as that of the new national treasure. The post was object of difficult heritage for the community, because of religious conversion and forgetfulness, and for the museum as a colonial legacy. Giving the post national treasure status might amplify these difficulties. Yet, the wedding, which animated the post, enlivened rediscovery of the Paiwan community's ancestor and broadened attachments to a shared heritage in which the Paiwan community could make ethical claims upon NTU. While legal discourses on the repatriation of indigenous material culture generally feature agonistic processes that assume fixed subjects, this case demonstrates ways that repatriation processes, which animate the collection, are productive of new relationships to heritage if not among institutions.