This week, Sara introduced the direction of the A&E Unit, the project requirements, and the main creative focus for this term. I understood that this unit places more emphasis on research, experimentation, and critical thinking, rather than simply producing a traditional animation piece.
The two briefs provided by Sara were both very inspiring to me. The first brief, “Fragments of the Real / The Artificial,” focuses on photogrammetry, urban space, fragments of reality, and the relationship between physical environments and digital worlds. It suggests that absence, distortion, and fragmentation are not necessarily limitations, but can become conditions for generating new narratives. This made me realise that animation does not always need to pursue completeness or realism. Instead, it can use broken structures, deformation, repetition, and unstable visual language to express emotion and lived experience.
The second brief, “Expanded Animation / Context and Practice,” presents animation as a system for constructing, simulating, and questioning worlds. It encourages us to develop projects from our own research interests and to experiment with non-linear animation, real-time environments, installation, or hybrid media forms. This connects closely with the direction I want to explore next.
I plan to continue investigating stylised animation and create an experimental animated work, rather than focusing only on conventional storytelling or character performance. I hope to develop a stronger visual style through black, white and grey tones, textures, lines, fragmented scenes, and unreal spaces, in order to express a psychological state or a wider social feeling.