Does media animation capture the aesthetics of life that we already have?
In most story writing aspects of animation, from storyboard to final product. Animated content has become an art form that I feel best imitates life. Animations and even games thrive from the meta form of life that captures the aesthetics of life, that becomes rendered into artistic replications worlds to entertain the audience. Whether the narrative of these animations or games are based in fictional worlds or real, their narratives simulate the aesthetics of life that make us feel connected to these very worlds that aren't exactly real.
I compare this thought to Plato's theory of "Art is Imitation", where Plato's philosophical theories suggest:
1. Art is imitation: and imitates the objects and events of ordinary life. In other words, a work of art is a copy of a copy of a Form. It is even more of an illusion than is ordinary experience. On this theory, works of art are at best entertainment, and at worst a dangerous delusion.
2. Art is powerful: and therefore dangerous. All of the arts move people powerfully. They can strongly influence our behavior, and even our character.
How I got here?
I did some Wikipedia searching as I normally do, after watching episodes of Seinfeld. Why Seinfeld? I noticed while watching that the writing and comedy style was quite different from quite a bit of material that I was use to watching. When jumping onto Wikipedia to look further, I found that Seinfeld had been categorized as the genre "Slice of Life", where "Slice of life refers to naturalism, while in literary parlance it is a narrative technique in which a seemingly arbitrary sequence of events in a character's life is presented, often lacking plot development, conflict and exposition, as well as often having an open ending."
The Slice of Life genre, Seinfeld is a show about nothing. In Seinfeld, idea of slice of life material is acted and even joked on in an episode titled "The Pitch", Where George decides to become a sitcom writer and comes up with the idea, "a show about nothing", detailing the life of Jerry Seinfeld before pitching the show to a board at the NBC. The idea for the skit which is based on Seinfeld, the actual show.
I later though more about the Slice of Life genre in both the media I enjoy and the discipline I'm studying, which I pondered more over when playing Japanese video game Persona 5.
The game takes part in Tokyo, Japan. A real place in which you can explore in the game, which is super cool when its a little difficult to travel to at the time I was writing this. I also haven't finished the game yet, but I am heavily enjoying it when I find the time, so no spoilers!
While there is a main story plot to the game, a part of the game play that I found interesting revolves around planning out your day as a high school student. In the game, you make choices to your character's daily life from; studying for exams, reading to get smarter, hanging out with friends, going out for dinners and even taking part in recreational sport/activities. You can even take time to play games in the game (Which all actually helps the parts where you go around fighting biblical demons with a gun. But this is about the slice of life stuff).
So, why is it that I find this so appealing?
While I partake in these social and life events in the game, I only feel like that I'm more connected to the life aspect of the game. Even though I'm playing through the life of a fictional character, there's a level of escapism that is enjoyable with all these life events, without the worry of repercussions for the decisions I make (not including the game narrative). Though some of these social activities that you can do in the game seem like they should be easy in real life, I find that I don't actually do this enough in real life, or in some cases I don't do it at all. Like I don't even remember the last time I messaged someone out of the blue to just to hang out.
There is an art technique that I found is applied to this style of genre follows known as, "Defamiliarization", coined by Viktor Shklovsky. Defamiliarization being the artistic technique of presenting to audiences common things in an unfamiliar or strange way so they could gain new perspectives and see the world differently.
Slice of life genre has a strong popularity within Japanese media, their games, manga and anime. Mostly because it usually strays from the typical “supernatural” elements, it tends to be more relatable for all ages.
What separates slice of life as a genre, is the emphasis on the very moment, with the intent of focusing the audience on that moment rather than using that moment as part of a narrative. many Slice of Life stories use a lack of conflict to serve peaceful escapism rather than realism.
Simulation in Animation & Games
When thinking about the aesthetics of slice of life material, I think a level further with the rise of simulation material mostly seen video games. I was discussing my topic with a class mate when they told me that some simulation games seem to have a similar appeal, or "aesthetic" to material that follow the genre of slice of life.
It's crazy to think that the animations and games only replicate or "simulate" the world around us. The Slice of Life writing style in animation is to me beautiful in this case, as this art style captures the aesthetics of life and uses it to create a form in which replicates life in the real world.
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