Human Perception and Digital Information Technology: Animation, Algorithm and Affect

Focusing on Japanese animation cinema that has been widely acclaimed as an art form, the paper discusses human perception of animation by scrutinizing ‘the affective effect’ in the dynamic relations between moving images and human conscious–nonconscious cognition. The paper explores the differences between digital aesthetics created by computer animation and analogue aesthetics in hand-drawn animation. While computer- generated imagery (CGI) refers to the process that involves mathematical calculations within computers to create verisimilar naturalistic images, the traditional hand-drawn animation method involves symbolic expressive forms created by the animator’s spatiotemporal sensitivities. Drawing on Hayles’s discussion of the ‘cognitive nonconscious’, Simondon’s notion of ‘technical mentality’, and biosemiotics, the paper argues that there might be an inevitable incompatibility in the image-formation process between human perception and algorithm-based CGI. To explore this assumption, the paper focuses on the questions of ‘selectivity’ and ‘abstraction’ in both the neuronal and the technical, and emphasizes the significance of ‘noise’ (incompleteness and ambiguity) and ‘time’ (speed, duration, and delay) for human perception by exploring the nature of cognitive systems. The paper further considers the expansion of digital computer technology and its integration within human life by　analysing the ‘recursive dynamism’ of human perception and CGI.