Artificial Intelligence

This chapter explores the emergence of generative AI for animation, providing a hands-on guide to production and a critical review of current trends and tropes. Focusing on the authors’ exploratory practice, the aim is to prise open Pandora’s Box and provide accessible rules of engagement for expanded animation. Analysing the best and worst practices in this gold rush period, the authors note that generative AI raises legitimate fears of replacement, skewed representation, and unchecked copyright breaches. The authors examine the feverishly morphing ‘termite mound’ animations, legions of game art warriors, generic anime characters, and hyper-detailed environments dominating current Gen AI production. Looking forward, detailed practice case studies unpack how generative AI can be used in experimental design and animation, explaining how text prompts, image prompts, and datasets work, and asking how they can be subverted. Emphasis here is on taking ownership of this new aesthetic space.