Figuring the Invisible: Conventions and Tactics in Animation for Science Outreach

Project Information

FICTA SciO

Grant agreement ID: 101063803

DOI

10.3030/101063803

Project closed

EC signature date 5 July 2022

Start date 1 March 2023

End date 28 February 2025

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 207 609,60

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI PADOVA
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - FICTA SciO (Figuring the Invisible: Conventions and Tactics in Animation for Science Outreach)

Reporting period: 2024-03-01 to 2025-02-28

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

FICTA SciO (Figuring the Invisible: Conventions and Tactics in Animation for Science Outreach) is a two-year research action proposal, planned as a Global Fellowship. The Researcher will spend the first 12 months (outgoing phase) at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU),
Switzerland, while the Department of Cultural Heritage (dBC) of the University of Padova (Unipd), Italy, would be the host institution for the 12-month return phase. The CICAP, the Italian Committee for Sceptical Inquiry, will participate to the research by offering expertise from scientists and scientific journalists, and by contributing in setting up exploitation and dissemination initiatives and events, as well as in enhancing the communication through social media and press releases.

FICTA SciO (which, in Latin, means “I know fictitious things”) addresses a major problem in contemporary science outreach: the animated visualisations of the “invisible” sides of reality, like black holes or atoms, are mostly offered to the audience “as they are”, without any warning that they
are scientific models based on non-optical evidence. Because of this, they get misunderstood for true-to-nature representations, and as such they circulate also in audio-visual entertainment, reinforcing thewrong belief that those object would exactly look like that, if they were to be seen by the human eye.

The research will catalogue and explain such animations of the “invisible” in an open-access online repository; it will also establish an international committee of journalists, experts in audio-visual communication and scientists to keep the research going even after its formal conclusion, to
permanently promote a transparent understanding of the audio-visual conventions and communication tactics pertinent to animations in multimedia science outreach. The animations which will be researched pertain objects at macroscopic cosmological scales (black holes, quasars, neutron stars), or at atomic and sub-atomic scales (atoms, quarks, strings), or too far away in time (extinct life forms). As remarked by Silvye Bissonette in 2014, «one of the major problems associated with such animated models is the lack of instructions on how to interpret them
and judge their accuracy»; in 2016, Vincent Campbell concurred that «of particular concern […] is the possibility of a lack of transparency for the audience of the shift from the evidentiary nature of the documentary image to a much more speculative and constructed image». The enhanced photorealism 2
and interactivity of contemporary animation has a key role in this; the research will thus focus on multimedia science outreach produced after 1980, when the technology of animation started to allow for this enhanced realism.

The research will mainly approach the issue with the critical methodology of film and animation studies, and especially of the studies on animated documentaries, which have remained a major point in the agenda of animation scholars in the past fifteen years. However, the methodology will also 3 implement an interdisciplinary dialogue, with experts and consultants coming from a) the scientific areas referenced by the animations in the researched multimedia products; b) scientific communication and journalism; c) animation practice; d) data visualisation. The audio-visual products to be studied will include: a) documentary films for cinema, TV, home video and the Internet; b) science-based animated simulations featured in fiction films; c) user-edited scientific content for social media; d) interactive programs and applications.

The action will result in two main outputs (milestones): 1) an online, open access repository, listing the titles and pertinent data of animated models of “invisible” objects featured in science outreach from 1980 to today, with accompanying texts providing guidance to their correct interpretation; 2) a
permanent committee destined to continue the research, update the database and promote initiative and events for the transparency of multimedia scientific communication; this will be established in Padova in collaboration with the CICAP, the leading Italian institution for science-based scepticism.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During its first 12 months, the main activity was to gather data about outstanding animations for science outreach, which were made to communicate research about "invisible" objects to a wide audience. The data gathered by this activity will be organised and shared in the FICTA SciO website, a resource for scholars, students and enthusiasts, which constitutes a Milestone of the project.

The first stage of the research culminated in the hybrid conference "Figuring the Invisible - The Role of Animation in the Communication of Scientific Knowledge" (HSLU - Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, 15-16.12.2023). The event invited to discuss (online and in person) the research topic with international experts in the field, including the keynote speakers Martina R. Fröschl (University of Applied Arts, Vienna) and Scott Curtis (Northwestern University, USA).

Selected papers from the hybrid conference will be published by the Mutual Image Journal.

The Researcher also attended courses to train on transferable skills at the institution which hosted the outgoing phase, the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU). This training included:
- the attendance of the MA Design Focus Module course "Stories and Places" at the HSLU (Tue 14.03.2023 09.30 – 17.00; Monday 27.03.2023. 09.30 – 17.00; coordinated by prof. Axel Vogelsang);
- the attendance of the Research Colloquium at the HSLU (Mon 30.10.2023 9.15-17.00; Tue 31.10.2023 9.15-14.30; coordinated by prof. Maia Gusberti).

The ongoing research has also been preliminarily presented through talks delivered at international conferences:

- The lost landscape. The animated night sky and the representation of light pollution. 34th SAS Annual Conference “The Animated Environment”, Rowan University, USA, June 12-16, 2023;
- (Keynote Speaker) L’invisibile in figura. Strategie ed estetiche dell’animazione per la divulgazione scientifica. International conference “Scientific Thought in Animation and Comics”, Università degli Studi di Palermo, July 3-5, 2023;
- Animating the Uncertainty: The Cooperation between Science and Art in the Representation of Atoms and Subatomic Particles. XXX FilmForum conference and XX MAGIS Spring School in partnership with Visible Evidence XXIX, Università degli Studi di Udine, September 6-9, 2023;
- Forme e prospettive dell’animazione ecologica nel cortometraggio contemporaneo. Convegno internazionale “Sguardi verdi. La riflessione ecologica nell’animazione cinematografica”, Università degli Studi di Padova, November 6-7, 2023.
- Breve storia di una storia. Gli Animation Studies e l’Italia. Giornata di studi “Gli Animation Studies e l’Italia tra passato presente e futuro”, Università degli Studi di Roma Tre, December 5th, 2023.

The research presented at the 34th SAS Annual Conference was later published in an open-source article, “Le stelle dei desideri. Cielo notturno, inquinamento luminoso e fotorealismo tra astrofotografia, cinema e animazione: uno sguardo ecocritico”, La Valle dell’Eden, n. 40, 2022, pp. 69-89, https://www.research.unipd.it/item/preview.htm?uuid=da2cb83a-a3c8-4a60-9589-a5b631a4a5b2

The 12-month return phase, at the University of Padova (UNIPD) resulted in two Milestones: the opening of the FICTA SciO website (https://fictascio.beniculturali.unipd.it) and the constitution of a committee for the study and communication about animation in science outreach, within the CICAP (partner institution of the project).

A second conference was organised: “Figuring the Invisible. Animation and Science Outreach in Contemporary Audio-visual Culture” (UNIDP, November 20-21, 2024). The talks were both in presence and online; the keynote speakers were prof. Peter Galison (Harvard University), whose work is among the main scholarly foundations of FICTA SciO, and prof. Malcolm Cook (University of Southampton).

The Researcher also attended more courses to train on transferable skills:

- Academic Teaching Methods (Dr. Nikola Vitković), June 20th, 2024; EURAXESS Webinar;
- Publishing Research from MSCA on Open Research Europe, June 25th, 2024; Webinar.

The research results have been presented at international conferences, with the following talks:

- Il segno del suono. Cenni sul rapporto fra animazione e composizione sonora. Convegno “Tecniche e Tecnologie dell’Animazione. Industria, Linguaggio, Pubblico”, Università eCampus, Italy, June 13th, 2024.
- (Keynote Speaker) Il lungometraggio animato in Italia durante la “Golden Age”. XXX Convegno di Studi Cinematografici “La ’golden age‘ dell’animazione italiana. Dal boom economico agli anni di piombo (1957-1977)”, Università degli Studi di Roma Tre, November 28-29, 2024.

The knowledge gathered during the action was presented and discussed in six more peer-reviewed essays. Of those, only one was published before the end of the outgoing phase:

- Beyond the Enviro-toon. The Ecocritical Theme in contemporary Animated Series for TV and OTT Media Services. In Andrea Bernardelli, Guglielmo Pescatore, Allegra Sonego (eds.), Television’s Eco-Narratives, Bologna, Media Mutations Publishing, 2025, pp. 133-150.
Downloadable at https://hdl.handle.net/11577/3551652

The publishing process of the other five essays is still ongoing. This is why they are not listed yet in the "Publications" section of this report, nor they appear in the section concerning the Dissemination Activities. They are:

- Gazing Around Sandro Del Rosario. In Rossella Catanese, Jennifer Malvezzi (eds.), New Paths On Italian Experimental Moving Image, London, Palgrave MacMillan (forthcoming May 2025).
- Abandon ship? Narrative and practice of sustainability in the animated films of MAD Entertainment. In Cristina Formenti, Chris Pallant (eds.), Animation and Sustainability, London, Bloomsbury (forthcoming 2025).
- Science and Animation. In Nichola Dobson, Paul Taberham (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Animation Studies, London, Routledge (forthcoming 2026).
- Sound Composition. In Franziska Bruckner, Alla Gadassik (eds.), Encyclopedia of Animation Studies Vol. 2: Techniques, Processes, Environments, London, Bloomsbury (forthcoming 2026).
- Wishing stars. The multiple space aesthetics of the animated night sky. In Fred Truniger, Jürgen Hagler, Kathi Kappel, Rada Biebersten, Tina Ohnmacht (eds.), Dimensions of Animation, London, Bloomsbury (forthcoming 2027).

They will be all accompanied by the disclaimer required by the European Commission, and they will be rendered available in open access.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

While the outgoing phase has mostly focused on gathering data, the presentation at the 34th SAS conference and the open source article "Le stelle dei desideri" advanced a new aesthetic category for audio-visual media representing the night sky: the galactic sublime. Such aesthetics seems an outcome of a spectacular trend in scientific astroimaging first instated in the 1980s by the astrophotographer David Malin, and then exalted by the Hubble Space Telescope pictures since the 1990s. However, most of the images by Malin and Hubble portrayed space landscapes well beyond the reach of any Earth observer. Objects like the Horsehead Nebula or the Pillars of Creation can only be revealed by photography. Elizabeth Kessler (2019, 37-38) has argued, though, that the post-processing of the Hubble photos consciously tries to make them look familiar, borrowing colour palettes and layouts from Romantic paintings about the American West; she called this astronomical sublime. The galactic sublime hypothesis advances that the animated aesthetics of the night sky merged the cosmological and astronomical sublime into a third form. The name "galactic sublime" derives from its archetypal image, an artistically enhanced Milky Way streaming across the sky.

The two international conferences "Figuring the Invisible" (HSLU, December 2023; UNIPD, November 2024) created new ground for networking and interdisciplinary dialogue between the fields of animation studies, science communication and epistemology of science.

The FICTA SciO website (https://fictascio.beniculturali.unipd.it) will become a permanent open access resource about the use of animation in science outreach, for citizens and researchers, cataloguing and discussing pertinent audio-visual products.

The FICTA SciO committee established within the CICAP will keep promoting research on the topic and organising communication events for citizens, hosted by experts and practitioners.

International Conference "Figuring the Invisible" 2024 - Poster

International Conference "Figuring the Invisible" 2023 - Poster

Communication activity "Animare l'invisibile", March 22, 2024

Communication activity "Vedere l'invisibile", June 27, 2024

FICTA SciO logo