Flip me to the moon and beyond is a project that explores the communicative power of abstract animation. It is an animated book about animation, an experiment in the visual translation of a story.
Animation is movement
The text is an interdisciplinary reflection that delves into the deep roots of the act of infusing objects with a soul. From the so-called pre-cinema to the study of the evolution of storytelling, the text questions whether animation can be, as in the vision of kinetic artist Len Lye, an act of composition, similar to musical composition.
Printing cinema
Visually, the book is a flipbook, an animated book. The images on the sides tell a story in eight sequences that progress simultaneously in groups of four as one flips through it. The story is an anti-mimetic visual translation of the emotions depicted in the first Toy Story. The choice to translate the first 3D feature film is a provocation against the animation film industry, which has become fixated on an increasingly meticulous pursuit of realism and easily assimilable narrative codes. In cinema, animation has ceased to experiment with its core potential, becoming a copy of live-action cinema, but less real.
Does fear need a face?
The animated sequences visually convey the content of the thesis, attempting to understand the limits of abstraction, colour and movement that allow the communication of pride, fear, friendship, and relief.