This article analyzes the phenomenon of animation based on Freudian cultural studies. The author demonstrates that animation represents a striking example of the manifestation of the unconscious, qualitatively distinct from feature film. While feature film is bound to photographic reference and an indexical imprint of reality, the specific nature of animation opens up the possibility of a direct visual embodiment of primary thought processes. Drawing on an analysis of key Freudian concepts—the "work of culture," the "mechanisms of condensation and displacement," and the category of the "uncanny"—the author demonstrates the structural similarities between the workings of the unconscious and the workings of the animated image. Particular attention is given to the phenomenon of "plasmaticity" in animation as a visual equivalent of condensation, as well as to an analysis of destabilized corporeality and the "empty face" in Japanese animation through the prism of the Deleuzian concept of the "body without organs" and Lacan's "object a." The article substantiates the thesis that animation does not represent the unconscious, but functions as it, obeying its laws of condensation, displacement and compulsive repetition.museum spaces not of the video game object itself, but of various media options associated with it.
psychoanalytic cultural studies, animation, the unconscious, the uncanny, the work of culture
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