Review: Nea Ehrlich, Animating Truth: Documentary and Visual Culture in the 21st Century (2021)

Nea Ehrlich, Animating Truth: Documentary and Visual Culture in the 21st Century (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021).

In Animating Truth: Documentary and Visual Culture in the 21st Century, Nea Ehrlich discusses a growing body of works broadly called animated documentaries. For the purposes of this open-access monograph, Ehrlich employs Sheila Sofian’s definition of the form as “any animated film that deals with non-fiction material” (36), expands it beyond the cinematic space and considers the use of animation outside of the theatrical setting. Ehrlich argues that the prominence of documentary animation is not accidental and should be seen as a natural consequence of the recent developments in contemporary media environment (2). Ehrlich further notes that the alternative ways of interacting with the real world, following the digital turn, created a pressing need for a suitable vocabulary and means of representation of this cultural shift. This demand has been fulfilled by the form of animated documentary.

Animating Truth has three main sections that discuss theoretical aspects of animation’s position in the broader media space of the 21st century. The first section examines the evidentiary status of non-realistic animation and the medium’s representational potential. The second part concerns the relationship of animation to contemporary technoculture and analyses the uses of non-fiction animation in the contexts beyond film. The third part addresses the strengths and limitations of documentary animation as a visual form and calls to reconsider our assumptions about the inherent value of visual realism. The book is very well organised and split into eight chapters, with an introduction, and an epilogue. Each chapter begins with an example of a contemporary media title that implements animated imagery and discusses broader theoretical questions that the offered type of media provokes. Ehrlich consistently carries her main arguments across all chapters, which is a major asset of this monograph, as are conveniently featured notes and references at the end of each chapter, making it easy to navigate.

The first part of the book is dedicated to the changing role of animation in contemporary mixed realities. Here Ehrlich poses a series of seemingly simple questions: Why now? Why has the field of animation noticed the rise in animated documentary production in the recent years? What cultural and social contexts have triggered this shift? More importantly, what can animation do that other forms of visual media cannot? The answers to these inquiries are manifold. On one hand, changing image-production technologies (i.e. the ubiquity, diversity, and expanding affordability of digital software for image creation) have allowed amateur artists to enter the animation space. This, in turn, has contributed to the broadening of animated medium’s usage and, in particular, aided the growing visibility of documentary animation (39). Moreover, the culture of constant surveillance in the information age has intensified viewers’ expectation for access to visual documentation of real-life events. Yet in cases where live-action documentary footage stays unattainable, animation offers a creative solution in representing absent materials while also satisfying viewers’ curiosity about past events (40). Finally, animation’s aesthetics matches the broader media shift towards non-mimetic representation. Ehrlich dissects the process of virtualization of culture which is characterized by the omnipresence of digital screens and virtual environments. As she explains, this cultural development produces new aesthetics that deviates from the one of mimetic realism by offering easy ways to alter user-produced images, creating simplified depictions of real-world environments, or immersing individuals into fantastical digital universes (42-43). This expansion of the digital sphere into our everyday reality becomes the moment when animated imagery assumes a role of the dominant representation mode.

After laying out her theoretical framework and outlining the major characteristics of the media space in the 21st century, Ehrlich undertakes a deeper analysis of each cultural trait she introduced in the first section of the book. The second part considers the tangled relationships between virtual environments and the material world. Ehrlich draws the readers’ attention to the multitude of contemporary realities that we engage in. She reminds us that we regularly interact with diverse digital spaces in our everyday lives from using basic GPS applications to participating in VR games. Hence, the modern world’s complexity “exceeds the physical and is more accurately described in terms of ‘mixed realities’, which embody the material and the virtual” (88). Animation, in turn, becomes a constructive material and the main language of these mixed realities: informational, educational, and commercial outlets, as well as social media platforms, interactive videos and VR games. What makes animation so suitable for representing such a diverse user experience is its ability to effectively condense information, visualize the real world’s non-tangible aspects, and mediate the presence of physical bodies in virtual environments. Furthermore, animation turns into a tool of documenting the life in the digital universe. As some events and actions are only visible on screen (i.e. in video games or image-altering software), animation allows its users to capture real-time content of on-screen spaces assuming the evidentiary quality of photography. In this, the second part of the book reassesses the role that the animated aesthetics plays outside of its cinematic medium. Ehrlich emphasizes the crucial position animation assumes in now highly digitally saturated world by introducing and dissecting such theoretical concepts as visual realism, representation, materiality, and machinima.

Fig. 1 - Slaves (David Aronowitsch and Hanna Heilborn, 2008).

The third part of the book approaches contemporary documentary animation from the side of the user’s and spectator’s experience. Ehrlich explores the consequences of the medium’s recent proliferation, especially the ethical implications of using animation to depict real-life events. Chapter 7, for example, addresses the outlined concerns about spectatorial effects of animated representations by exploring the notion of empathy. Building on her previous arguments about animation’s representational freedom (i.e. its ability to depict the world without relying on its indexical presence in the image), Ehrlich employs the concept of masking (183). Animated masking is often used to hide identities of animated documentaries’ subjects through their introductions as stylized animated avatars (183). “Animated masking thus creates a ‘generic person’, creating distance and de-sensitisation on the one hand, yet evoking an understanding of general truths that transcend the documented individual, on the other” (183). Therefore, animation is capable of offering a more compelling representation of a real person or event by covering their specific identifiable features and in doing so appealing to the viewer/user interpretation of the depicted narratives as of more universal. Overall, the third section of Animating Truth deals with the experience of inherent limitations and strengths of animation as a visual form. While acknowledging the former, Ehrlich concludes by summarizing the latter: “By emphasising the act of masking, partial disclosure of information and the constructedness of truth claims, animation highlights the fact that not everything is seen or made available” (218).

Fig. 2 - Stranger Comes to Town (Jacqueline Goss, 2007).

Animating Truth effectively marries rigorous textual analysis with a critical commentary on the state of contemporary visual media. Ehrlich provides her readers with many detailed close readings of animated documentaries of various genres, such as Slaves (David Aronowitsch and Hanna Heilborn, 2008) (Fig. 1), Molotov Alva and His Search for the Creator (Douglas Gayeton, 2007), Stranger Comes to Town (Jacqueline Goss, 2007) (Fig. 2), and CG animated documentary Another Planet (Amir Yatziv, 2017). Not engaging in the conversation about fantasy per se, Animating Truth is still interested in philosophical tensions that arise when the fictional (or fantastical) form of animation becomes a primary mode of representing reality. Animating Truth will be especially useful to students and scholars of animation, as it compellingly positions animation in the core of the developing media culture and ultimately invites its readers to reflect on the animation’s present and potential futures as a medium, language, and mode of documentation.

**Article published: February 3, 2023**

Biography

Anastasiia Gushchina is a PhD candidate at the department of Communication, Media and Film at the University of Calgary. Her PhD project tentatively entitled “The Stuff of Reality”: Towards a Materialist Theory of Animated Documentary examines techniques and production processes of independent animated documentaries of the 1990s-2010s. She presented at multiple international conferences and published her work in Sense of Cinema. Her research interests include film and animation theory, film philosophy, and documentary practices in visual arts. You can find her at: @asgushchina on Twitter; @nastya.gu on Instagram; and https://www.facebook.com/nastya.gushchinaa/ on Facebook.