Animation Studies

The Peer-reviewed Open Access Online Journal for Animation History and Theory - ISSN 1930-1928

Nea Ehrlich - Another Planet: Animation and

Documentary Aesthetics in Mixed Realities
Date : 27-12-2020

Charlie Brooker’s 2011 dystopian futuristic Black Mirror episode, “Fifteen Million Merit,”
features alienated subjects who are physically shut up in cells made of screens. In this
world, people participate as animated avatars in what remains of public spaces. Although
Black Mirror is “about the way we live now – and the way we might be living in 10
minutes’ time if we’re clumsy,” the 2020 COVID pandemic has made its extreme
prophecies more relevant than even its creators could have foreseen (Brooker 2011).
Originating in art and documentary theory this article examines animation as a central
informational aesthetic that has flourished as the virtual complements and at times
overshadows the physical. As technology shapes culture, contemporary mixed realities –
where the physical converges with ubiquitous screens and online platforms – require new
visualization methods. While virtual interactive realms proliferate, the use of animation
grows too, as digital animation is a dynamic visual language based on movement that can
react to user input in real time. Animation is thus a vital visual language of the 21st
century, a central aesthetic in mixed realities that represents, records but also reflects
wider current cultural changes and characteristics of the information age.

During the global lockdown, many people felt the centrality of in-screen existence as
screens became vital portals for different experiences when physical space and actions
were restricted. In May 2020, for example, as physical attendance at a graduation
ceremony became impossible, UC Berkeley students built the virtual Blockeley University
in the popular Minecraft video game, wherein more than 100 campus buildings were
meticulously recreated. In this animated online version of their university, hundreds of
graduates held a virtual ceremony that included a speech by the Chancellor and Vice
Chancellor, together with conferral of degrees followed by a two-day Blockeley music
festival, all livestreamed on Twitch, a streaming platform for gamers (Kell 2020). The
captured Twitch footage acts as a document of the event, combining live-action with
animation.

Similarly, although the popularity of Zoom skyrocketed during the lockdowns, its limited
options made professional, personal, and entertainment meetings all unbearably similar.
Thus, gaming environments and virtual reality (VR) became strong alternatives for sharing
the same space.[1] Such examples help explain the growing use and visibility of animated
platforms and game worlds for the creation of wide-ranging activities experienced in the
physical world in the past; today, these are being transformed into mixed reality
experiences, visualized in varied animated styles.

As more people spend more of their ‘real’ lives in virtual worlds, the virtual defines who
they are, thus supplementing, reflecting, and shaping the physical so that the virtual and
non-virtual converge. The imagery used to portray these mixed realms introduces
animation as a proliferating informational aesthetic that is used to depict the physical
world, simulations of physical events and locations online, virtual spaces and actions, as
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 Animation Studies
The Peer-reviewed Open Access Online Journal for Animation History and Theory - ISSN 1930-1928

well as the capture and documentation of all of the above. The study of animated
documentary and non-fiction to date has emphasized the exploration of non-physical
realities that could not be photographed, with a focus on personal perspectives and
memories, or the use of animation as an interpretive representation of events (see Honess
Roe 2013). However, animation’s ability to portray immaterial realities is becoming an
increasingly important component of visualization and documentary practice since it
enables engagement with the virtual features of contemporary life – significant aspects of
visual culture that cannot be depicted by photography. As animation is being used in new
and varied ways, it is important to highlight the blurred boundaries that exist today in
informational and non-fiction fields such as documentary, journalism, forensics, education
and information (See Balsom and Peleg 2016). This article thus examines the following
questions: How is animation used to engage with mixed realities? Can animation act as a
credible document of the physical and/or virtual realities it depicts? What is animation’s
potential power as a self-reflexive documentary aesthetic that captures mixed realities but
also reflects the informational media environment of the times?

Lev Manovich (2001) describes art history as “the history of new [encoded] information
interfaces developed by artists, and the new information behaviors developed by users [to
extract the information].” Experimental documentaries have been the focus of the
‘documentary turn’ in art history and visual culture for several decades. However, as
technological developments change the production and uses of animation in mainstream
visual culture and documentary, new theorizations are necessary. Interestingly, although
the topic of experimental documentary has received scholarly attention in the fields of
contemporary art and journalism, the related topics of animation, digital gaming, and virtual
culture are often overlooked.[2]

The animated documentary, Another Planet (Amir Yatziv, 2017), serves as my case study.
It portrays virtual interactive re-enactments of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp
in a new form of cultural heritage that has migrated into virtual realms. The film records
encounters in virtual worlds that aim to accurately and authentically simulate the camp and
revive something of the historical event by offering new insights and experiences for
viewers. It follows the creators of six different simulations: a German prosecution officer
intended for forensic purposes in the trial of a 94-year-old defendant; an Israeli historian
and German architect who have been surveying the camp for 15 years in their attempt to
create an accurate reconstruction for museum and education purposes; a flight simulation
scenario created by Israeli high-school students in order to virtually re-enact the 2003
Israeli Air Force flight over the camp; an Israeli software developer whose belief in
reincarnation has inspired him to recreate his past life experiences as a Sonderkommando
during the holocaust;[3] and a Polish graphic designer who created a VR experience of the
camp for ‘maximum realism.’ I will return to the film below; what I want to emphasize here
is that although this film appears to be about the holocaust, it is actually about
representation.

The multiple, complex roles of animation in Another Planet illuminate animation’s role in
an era of mixed realities and show how, in the context of non-fiction, it requires further
examination and theorization. I contend that to maintain the relevance of visual
documentation in this era, new documentary imagery that transcends photography – which
is rooted in the physical – is necessary. Using this case study, I demonstrate three new
central roles and uses of animation today: a) as virtual aesthetics; b) as a document of the
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 Animation Studies
The Peer-reviewed Open Access Online Journal for Animation History and Theory - ISSN 1930-1928

virtual; c) as self-reflexive documentary and informational aesthetics.

Animation as Virtual Aesthetics

The current virtualized computer culture requires pictorial representation of user input and
thus uses various forms of animated imagery to render abstract data and processes
visible. Many aspects of digital-virtual culture appear only on-screen through interfaces
based on code, rather than material actions. The consequent dematerialization requires
representation that transcends the photographic and enables real-time dynamic
visualization of user activities. New visual representations are needed to construct and
transmit information in these digital virtual worlds. This not only explains animation’s
proliferation, but also impacts the reception of similar imagery in non-fiction contexts, as I
will demonstrate.

Animation is a growing and dynamic area of theoretical and technical knowledge and an
on-going discussion of the definition of animation is an integral characteristic of the field.
There are many ways to approach the definition of animation: in terms of techniques,
styles, key studios, directors or animators, approaches to movement or visual
transformation, aesthetics and spectatorship, to name but a few (Husbands and Ruddell
2019, p. 5-16). Brian Wells (2011, p. 22-24) differentiates between the animated world and
the world of the viewer, and questions whether both can exist in the same time and space,
or whether animation is relegated to another dimension. This gap plays an important role
in differentiating animated imagery from the viewer’s physical world, and must be
addressed in any discussion of animation’s validity as a documentary language. Suzanne
Buchan (2006, p. vii) defines animated “worlds” as those “realms of cinematic experience
that are accessible to the spectator only through the techniques available in animation
filmmaking.” Because animation looks different from the physical world and is often
theorized as generated rather than captured imagery, animation is assumed to be
separate from the physical world and therefore ‘not real’ or ‘less real’ when used in
documentaries.[4] To conclude, the divide between animated worlds and the physical
space of the viewer is based on the idea that animation does not exist in physical reality
and breaks stylistically with physical appearance so it “cannot objectively represent reality
or depart from [its] innate facticity” (Raessens 2006, p. 220).[5] However, as I will
demonstrate, as animation technologies change and as reality becomes mixed, the
differentiation between on-screen and off-screen worlds transforms and declines,
contextualizing the growing uses of animation to portray both physical and virtual worlds
and their convergence. The movement of a user’s cursor, as a real-time translation of
physical actions seen on-screen, is a basic example of animated imagery that indicates
the fusion of on and off-screen realms.

Let us briefly consider screens: I refer to animated imagery as ‘movement only visible on-
screen.’[6] The relation between viewer and screen, or more specifically, the relation
between the off-screen world inhabited by viewers and the visual on-screen world, are
persistent themes in the study of moving-image culture (Carroll 1996, p. 62). The study of
screens includes the physical-technological characteristics of, and alterations to, the
screen as object, and investigates a wide range of related elements.[7] Contemporary
computerized culture establishes screens as a fundamental characteristic of our time.
However, rapid changes in contemporary screens influence the relationship between
screen and viewer, the reception of the information displayed on them, as well as their
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 Animation Studies
The Peer-reviewed Open Access Online Journal for Animation History and Theory - ISSN 1930-1928

definitions. The cultural implications of such changes are wide-ranging.[8] Erkki

Huhtamo questions how often users of mobile screens ‘think about the curious shifts of
perception between nothing less than ontological realms that take place when they move
their gaze from the screen to other humans, to the surrounding landscape, to another
screen, and back again, in rapid succession?’ (Huhtamo 2012, p.144–145) If what
transpires ‘in there’ on-screen is seen as related and continuous to what takes place ‘out
here’ in the viewer’s physical space, the perception of a divide between on- and off-
screen worlds changes. A sense of continuity rather than innate separateness emerges,
facilitating the use of one to represent the other, as in animated non-fiction.

We return now to animation. When used in digitally virtual worlds, such as virtual
simulations or online game environments, animation is the direct visualization of code: it is
the visual interface of the virtual world that all users see and the façade through which they
experience the platform, or graphic user interface (GUI). Thus, animation is part of a
phenomenon whereby “contemporary media is increasingly constituted by mediations of
media itself. Or, in other words, there is an increasing preponderance of media that
translates digital information into a humanly perceptible form” (McKim 2017, p. 294).
Animation’s new role needs clarifying in any discussion of pictorial worlds that use real-
time animation to reflect interactive user input, such as interactive historical simulations or
online games that are fully animated realms of virtual activity. Animation used to visualize
virtual worlds is initially designed, of course, but it is not stylized according to content;
rather, in digital worlds it portrays unplanned activity based on user input. To explain: in
the historical simulations seen in Another Planet, the animation depicting Auschwitz is
obviously interpretive and based on stylistic choices. However, as users become active
participants within the re-enactment, the visuals used are a response to their actions and
choices, differentiating between animation in cinematic versus interactive domains.

Animation as a Document of the Virtual

Animation features widely in digital culture. Unlike animated depictions of physical events
or states of mind in cinematic works, recorded animated fragments of interactive digital
occurrences are more like a photographic document than interpretative documentary
imagery because they capture the only visual appearance of these online activities, the
GUI of the technology used. In these cases, animation functions differently than previously
theorized – no longer as a visual interpretation of states of mind (as in Ari Folman’s 2008
Waltz with Bashir), or as events that could have been but were not photographed (as in
Winsor McCay’s 1918 The Sinking of the Lusitania), but rather as a direct capture of virtual
worlds as they appear to users. Unlike the use of animation to depict the personal or
physical in animated documentaries, in the portrayal of digital worlds animation is not an
interpretative visual language. Instead, it is a direct representation rather than an
experimental, expressive interpretation of what could have been photographed.

Interestingly, animation in Another Planet is, therefore, both the visual language used in
each simulation (as part of the inherent appearance of the referent), and the cinematic
representational choice (this is an animated documentary about these simulations). Thus,
the way animation is used here is multi-layered. In such cases, animation can be equated
with photography, but capturing the virtual rather than the physical. The film credits state
that it was ‘filmed’ in particular virtual locations, emphasizing the blurred boundaries
between animation and photography and what can be photographed. This also provides
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 Animation Studies
The Peer-reviewed Open Access Online Journal for Animation History and Theory - ISSN 1930-1928

new insight into animation’s role as document.

According to Philip Rosen, the noun document has two chief derivations from its Latin and
Old French roots: one concerning teaching and/or warning, and the other as evidence or
proof (Rosen 1993, p. 65-66). Thus, a document is intended to inform and record, and this
is exactly what it does in Another Planet, albeit in a complex and dualistic manner.
Animation in a documentary that directly captures the simulation it depicts can be seen as
evidence, like photographic capture; whereas animation used to convey a historical event
is a form of teaching. Based on this view, animation can be seen as a new form of
document: proof of a virtual re-enactment and the events that occurred within it online, and
a wider conveyor of information about physical locations and historical events. In Another
Planet, the virtual simulations teach and indicate whereas the film captures the virtual
events and acts as evidence of them. An illustrative example is how the status of historical
museums and sites is changing as interactive media and animated representations of non-
fiction become increasingly prevalent. This also raises new questions about historical
narratives, cultural heritage and memory construction in the digital age. Another Planet
embodies a portrayal of today’s mixed realities in which Internet users are comfortable
with the replacement of physical space with virtual space. This reflects a generational
paradigm shift whereby the impact of a physical place and object changes as more people
become accustomed to visual and online representations. The merging of physical and
virtual realities leads to an augmented view and experience of reality, which exceed the
merely physical and therefore require additional documentary aesthetics beyond
photography, such as animation. Using animation as an informational aesthetic and in
documentary thus enables a fuller depiction of today’s mixed realities, portraying the
physical as well as virtual platforms, and representing and/or recording both.

Animation as Self-Reflexive Documentary and Informational Aesthetics

In today’s era of information with its highly visual culture defined by omnipresent screens,
it is no surprise that animation in documentaries has become pervasive. Animated
documentaries are not new but they have become much more prominent since Waltz with
Bashir garnered wide critical acclaim. Since 2009, animated documentaries have
proliferated; a search for the keywords ‘animated documentary’ on YouTube in
September 2020 led to 24,300,000 results[9] across a broad range of non-fiction, including
journalism, forensics, serious games, education, and information. Animation literally
means ‘bringing to life’; it expands the aesthetics of documentary by giving life to sounds
and images that could not be recorded, such as memories, subjective perspectives, nano-
particles, scientific visualizations, censored events, and non-physical online realities.
Animation’s endless visual styles enable it to oscillate between myriad styles in a single
film, creating greater visual interest – which is vital in a world of endless images and
information.

However, the rise in animated documentaries means that in many cases animation
functions merely as eye candy, visualizing the soundtrack instead of maximizing the
potential of animated depictions. Another Planet emphasizes and questions the gaps
between the audio and the visual, forcing viewers to question the limits of what can be
shown, what is shown vs. what can actually be seen, and what kind of knowledge and/or
truth claims can be made. The main themes tackled by the film are notions of visual versus
other forms of realism, the cultural reception of evolving media as credible or ‘acceptable’
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 Animation Studies
The Peer-reviewed Open Access Online Journal for Animation History and Theory - ISSN 1930-1928

documentary forms, and the way animation is used to question representation itself in
multilayered ways.

From the start, Another Planet is characterized by contradictions. “I remind you to record
video, not stills,” is the first sentence spoken in the film. Ironically, in this scene viewers
are presented with an animated depiction of an Israeli military aircraft. The supposedly
conflicting allusion to photography as a medium that ensures ostensibly authentic
evidence of an event juxtaposed with obviously constructed animated imagery creates
immediate uncertainty. Thus the film’s focus is on the best way to capture and
commemorate an event, which raises questions about the authenticity of representation
and changing assumptions about realism.

Each simulation was created for different reasons and uses diverse representational
choices. The film’s promotional literature explains that “gradually, a deeper layer of the
film is revealed: the obsession with reconstructing the ‘Other Planet’ – or the insatiable
urge to document and enrich the historical and cultural memory of the Holocaust.”[10] The
film’s montage moves between the different simulations of the camp whilst interviewing
the creators – who often appear as avatars – about their reasons for virtually
reconstructing the camp. They all discuss their goal of realism, attempting to provide an
experience that is as close as possible to the ‘real thing.’ The vagueness and
impossibility of this goal is a major part of the film’s statement. It is worth emphasizing
here that realism is a vast, contested field, ranging from mimetic visual depictions to
political activism, and is often only describable in relative terms. Realism can refer to the
capturing of “a close approximation of […] the world exterior to the representation;” or it
can be judged against what “has already gained the status of the ‘realistic’ (a particular
form of cinematography, for example)” (Ward 2002, p. 125). In other words, realism can
be understood in terms of its relation to direct vision, technology, or ideology; thus, realistic
representation must always be in flux (Ellis 1982, p. 8).

The Bavarian investigator interviewed in the forensic model claims that it is “even more
precise than Google Earth.” By comparison, the architectural digital model is described by
its creators as “not approximate. It’s exact […] we are covered in terms of historical
precision.” The creator of the game Sonderkommando Revolt explains that the sign at the
camp entrance is “based on an original image. Same font, same sign,” whereas the VR
model is labeled by its creator as “one of the most accurate reconstructions,” though he
somewhat confusingly points to a spelling mistake in the sign’s text. Full of paradoxes,
these examples show that despite the different objectives and representational choices, all
the virtual simulations depicted in the film convey a search for realism, accuracy, and
authenticity related to the actual and physical. Simultaneously, the film actually focuses on
the endless gaps, inaccuracies, and inability to represent the tangible ‘realness’ that is
ostensibly being shown. The film’s message about the impossibility of achieving
transparency or directness through representation is foregrounded.

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 Animation Studies
The Peer-reviewed Open Access Online Journal for Animation History and Theory - ISSN 1930-1928

Figure 1: First person shooter game Sonderkommando Revolt, created by Maxim Genis, which was censored and never released. Israel
2010. Image used with kind permission.

Figure 2: Forensic simulation, Bavarian Police. Germany, 2014.

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 Animation Studies
The Peer-reviewed Open Access Online Journal for Animation History and Theory - ISSN 1930-1928

Figure 3: Architectural digital model, created by Peter Siebers and Gideon Greif. Germany 2000-2015.

Figure 4: Virtual reality experience (for sale) created by Sebastian Sosnowski and Studio Odessy. Poland 2014.

In the context of depicting the holocaust, the realism of visual representations may stem
less from accuracy of resemblance to the physical location (as in photorealism) and more
from the ability to convey a sense of something different, or surreal. Thus, it makes perfect
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 Animation Studies
The Peer-reviewed Open Access Online Journal for Animation History and Theory - ISSN 1930-1928

sense to use animation, a visual language that breaks with visual realism and can be
stylized as surreal and strange. In order to depict such exceptional events new forms of
representation must be used. The idea of Auschwitz as ‘another planet’ clarifies this
perfectly. In their interviews with me, Israeli soldiers said that similar animated
representations of war in Waltz with Bashir actually seemed to them more rather than less
realistic in comparison to live footage. They explained that such incomparably horrific
events, which can only be understood by those who have experienced them personally,
can only be depicted by an exceptional, unconventional form of representation that can
approximate the extraordinary and bizarre sensations involved. In this sense, Another
Planet’s realism inheres in its success in enabling viewers to grasp some aspect or
dimension of ‘reality’ that would otherwise be inaccessible. Thus the validity of animation
as visualization of such re-enactments is strengthened and the potential power of mixed
reality representations, playing with the ‘borders of the real’ and viewer expectations, is
illuminated.

Another major theme in the film focuses on what is deemed an acceptable form of
historical, informational and documentary visualization, which also involves realism as the
believable articulation of reality. However, believability and cultural acceptability have
evolved and been reincarnated regularly. Film theorist Paul Rotha advocates a viewer-
oriented approach to documentaries, claiming that “[d]ocumentary defines not subject or
style, but approach [...] It justifies the use of every known technical artifice to gain its effect
on the spectator” (Ellis 1989, p. 7). Joost Raessens (2006, p. 220) also suggests
documentary theory has moved towards emphasis on the viewer’s role in the reception of
the work since documentaries are only received as such if they succeed in indicating that a
“documentarizing lecture” (rather than one which is fictive) should be practiced to
influence the viewer’s mode of reception.[11] Dai Vaughan (1999, p. 84-5) claims, “[w]hat
makes a film a ‘documentary’ is the way we look at it; and the history of documentary has
been the succession of strategies by which filmmakers have tried to make viewers look at
films this way.” Accordingly, Another Planet indirectly reflects on the changing cultural
roles and degrees of acceptance of evolving historical and documentary representations.
For example, the architect and the historian who created the black and white architectural
model of the camp for education and museum purposes explain their decision to use black
and white imagery: “Auschwitz was not black and white […] but the museum was
concerned it would be like some comic book.” This sheds light on more traditional views of
what acceptable or serious representation is in tandem with changing media and content.
The apparent seriousness of black and white representation may be seen as an attempt to
create visual similarities between the animation and historical photographs of the events,
thus strengthening the authenticity of the representation. (Parenthetically, black and white
simulation can be interpreted as desensitized or sanitized, so many contemporary creators
try to infuse historical documents such as black and white photographs with color to make
them more vivid and thus generate more interest and identification among audiences.)[12]
Moreover, the allusion to events looking comic might now seem strange to many, since
comics, graphic novels, and the academic research they generate have gained
widespread acclaim as serious cultural forms, even specifically addressing the holocaust,
as for example in Art Spigelman’s Maus (1991).

Clearly animation has also similarly evolved and is no longer limited to past associations
with childhood fantasy. Today it encompasses endless content and is increasingly used for
documentary and non-fiction purposes. Nonetheless, in spite of this growing trend,
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 Animation Studies
The Peer-reviewed Open Access Online Journal for Animation History and Theory - ISSN 1930-1928

elements of photography’s status as the prized aesthetic of non-fiction (to which animation
has often been compared in documentary) still endure.[13] Animation is both an
increasingly used and insistently questioned visual language, and now exists somewhere
between fact and fiction, or alludes to both.

Keith Maitland created the award-winning animated documentary Tower (2016) about
America’s first mass school shooting in 1966 at the University of Texas. Animation’s
indeterminate status becomes clear when Maitland describes his hesitation about reaching
out to survivors with “Hey, you don’t know me, but I want to make a movie about the
worst thing that ever happened to you 50 years ago, and it’s going to be a cartoon. Let’s
talk!” (Ebiri 2017). His unease about people’s reactions reveals animation’s assumed link
to fiction, childhood, and light-heartedness.

Another Planet engages with these issues by questioning what is deemed an

‘acceptable’ form of digital memory construction, and why? Is a forensic model built by
the German police so different from a game exploring actual historical events? The
pixelated computer game Sonderkommando Revolt, reminiscent of early first-person
shooter games, depicts a revolt by camp prisoners that is intentionally gory and disturbing.
Unlike the sanitized and empty architectural model, the game portrays aspects of the
camp that remind players of the actual events that occurred there; it includes ferocious-
looking guard dogs, gas chambers emitting ominous clouds, barbed wire fences, and
barred indoor spaces where menacing swastikas abound. The game raises questions
about the changing cultural role of media, such as online games which were once seen as
entertainment for children and adolescents; the gaming industry now encompasses all age
groups, content, and academic research and is the largest medium today. Nevertheless,
the only re-enactment of the concentration camp to be attacked by the Anti-Defamation
League was the game, raising questions as to whether the criteria for appropriateness is
the source of the representation, its visual style, the violence depicted, or traditional views
of media that view games as entertainment and therefore disrespectful – notwithstanding
the major transformation of the serious game industry and the topics it tackles.

“Procedural rhetoric,” coined by Ian Bogost (2007, p. ix), describes games’ ability as rule-
based representations and interactions to use processes persuasively, reconstructing
certain circumstances to enable players to gain a special type of understanding through
experience that would be impossible in linear narrative, spoken word, writing, images, or
moving pictures. Who decides what is an acceptable representation, and what are the
criteria? As technologies change and new modes of representation develop, these are
important questions to explore.

Finally, the film raises other important issues about representation, specifically the gap
between what is seen and what is heard, and what one thinks they saw vs. what is actually
shown; issues of evidence; the credibility of images, and the viewer’s role as critical
interpreter in an era of post-truth, widespread manipulation of images, and distortion of
information. Whereas Another Planet is ostensibly about the holocaust, the goal of the
film’s creator, Yatziv, seems different, questioning representation itself. He uses the pre-
existing virtual simulations of the camp as ready-made sets for his interviews with the
creators who are often pre-designed avatars. This format conforms with traditional
documentary conventions and animated documentaries’ reliance on
recorded interviews.[14] However, the interviews also emphasize how what we see breaks
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 Animation Studies
The Peer-reviewed Open Access Online Journal for Animation History and Theory - ISSN 1930-1928

with what the simulation creators may have intended. An extra layer of meaning is thus
added so that beyond the simulations what is actually emphasized are the discrepancies
between what we see and what we hear, creating a general sense of unease about the
representations.

In the seemingly most serious of the camp’s simulations, for example, created by the
German police and used in the legal system, Yatziv, the film’s creator, begins with a
scene that could easily have been cut, but instead accentuates the discrepancy between
what is seen and what is heard. In the interview between the film’s creator and the
Bavarian investigator who explains the forensic re-enactment, we see an animated
cameraman (emphasizing animation as replacement for photography) interviewing an
avatar representing the police officer. Although the two avatars are placed within the
simulation, next to the building walls, what we hear is a description of the interview taking
place elsewhere. Although no room or door is visible, the unedited soundtrack begins with
“can we close the door?” This discrepancy uses the audio to reflect upon the visual,
intentionally destabilizing any sense of authority and keeping viewers on their toes, making
them aware and turning them into potentially questioning spectators. This highlights the
gap in animated documentaries between being shown something that appears reasonable
but for which there is no proof. Perhaps it is precisely because this specific simulation
includes the most authoritative source that the film’s creator decided to incorporate these
tactics here, undermining notions about truth claims in society and the legal system more
widely. This in itself is an unsettling statement about informational aesthetics and the
inability to attain definitive knowledge, and an indicator that animation, through its unique
characteristics, draws attention back to these central issues.

Figure 5: Forensic simulation, Bavarian Police. Germany, 2014.

Similarly, in the same simulation the police investigator describes the forensic model’s use
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 Animation Studies
The Peer-reviewed Open Access Online Journal for Animation History and Theory - ISSN 1930-1928

in court to jolt the memory of aging camp detainees. The information created can then be
defined as ‘fact’ since it contributes to legal decisions, transforming a clearly constructed
method of analysis into a legal truth statement. The prosecutor describes the trial of a
94-year-old suspected of collaborating with the Nazis. The defendant worked in the kitchen
and claims that he knew nothing of what occurred in the camp. The simulation was used to
check angles and reach a conclusion about what he could have seen from the kitchen.
The German prosecutor explains this to the viewers, while the animated film depicts a
recreation of this use of the simulation. However, whereas the police investigator
describes investigating what could be seen from within the kitchen, the viewers see an old
man outside of the kitchen looking in. Thus, we ask, what are we being shown? What are
we being told versus what can we actually see? Is the image of a man looking in rather
than out a metaphor for the viewers (and the entire legal system) trying to gain insight into
something to which they have no access, and thus a reminder of the limited ability to really
see or know?

Figure 6: Forensic simulation, Bavarian Police. Germany, 2014.

By emphasizing such inconsistencies, the film re-presents the historical simulations in a

way that questions representation, the construction of memory, and truth claims more
widely. This particular simulation is meant to be as accurate as possible for use in court
and is a literal example of how representation, though clearly constructed as the crude
graphics show, can transform into legally binding truth claims. Fiction literally becomes fact
through forensic animation. By creating a deliberate misrepresentation, the film questions
the role of visual evidence, the viewer’s ability to even notice such discrepancies, and his
or her responsibility and desire to contemplate them further.

Animation as used in Another Planet thus introduces ontological issues about the realities
in which we exist and how best to represent them but is also an important device for
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critical viewing, raising epistemological questions about what we see and what we believe,
and why. Although it seems to be showing viewers how the simulation may be used in
court, the film is actually displaying a gross misrepresentation; thus it remains unclear how
the forensic imagery is actually used, and it leaves us wondering whether simulations are
used less critically than we’d like to think in such contexts. Since the other simulations can
also be used in education, research, memory construction or historical narratives, the way
such information is portrayed through mixed realities carries potentially high stakes.

“Whatever, do what you want”

Animation in documentaries self-reflexively engages with many of today’s crises in

representation and mistrust in the field of information consumption. While documentaries
are more powerful than ever, they are also less trusted in a contemporary culture
increasingly characterized by suspicion of the visual (See Lind and Steyerl 2008, p.
10-27). This uncertainty vis-à-vis non-fictional representations generates the need for new
forms of representation as well as those that directly acknowledge this present state of
affairs. My definition of animated documentaries as a form of masking highlights this
precisely, whereby animation has the dual capacity of exposing information whilst also
disguising information simultaneously.[15] Several theorists have claimed animation is a
more honest approach to documentary due to blatantly constructed representation.[16]
Particularly when depicting physical events that could have been photographed, the
stylistic forms of animation emphasize the fact that the content is an interpretation that
could have been represented differently. However, when dealing with virtual aesthetics,
animation is more ambiguous since it is not as obviously an interpretation but can also act
as capture, which requires additional accentuation of animation’s representational
properties.

Another Planet’s closing scene depicts the interview with the architect and historian as
they discuss their own portrayal – and indirectly their re-enactment – in the film. This scene
foregrounds the many representational strategies used and the layering of knowledge
construction, each enabling potential inaccuracies. Here viewers watch several things
going on at once: the architectural simulation; the simulation’s creator depicted as an
avatar created by Yatziv; a surveillance camera, which alludes to photography and thus
incidentally highlights animation’s culturally perceived authenticity in comparison to
photography; and the simulation’s creator watching himself on a screen within the
animated screen world of the film. The film ends with the avatar of the one of the
simulation’s creators gazing at himself saying “this looks nothing like me,” followed by
“do whatever you want.” This leaves the viewer uncertain about what exactly is being
shown by the filmmaker, how, and why, yet again highlighting the expectation of visual
realism but also underscoring (and emphasizing to the viewer) that nothing may be as it
seems in the film. Ending with resolve (or perhaps frustration) with the film’s creator
getting permission to “do what you want,” the viewer is left with unanswered and
disturbing questions: How much freedom does the film’s creator have? What has he
chosen to do with it? What can I conclude as the film draws to an end? The film itself and
everything we have watched up to this point, any conclusions to be drawn and lessons
learned, are all subject to question. Trust and belief in what the film has portrayed are left
in doubt and one might conclude that it would be wiser to suspend belief altogether. After
all, perhaps belief is being alluded to rather than constituting the final word. This in itself is
characteristic of the post-truth era in which “what matter[s] [is] not veracity, but impact....
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the triumph of the visceral over the rational, the deceptively simple over the honestly
complex” (D'Ancona 2017, p. 20). Using animation in varied ways meant to raise
questions and highlight uncertainty regarding informational aesthetics is therefore
essential.

Figure 7: Architectural digital model, created by Peter Siebers and Gideon Greif. Germany 2000-2015.

Conclusion

Another Planet is not the first documentary to raise as many questions as it answers. It
does, however, shed interesting light on animation’s changing visibility and role as a major
visual language in digital realms, and how animation may be seen as a virtual document,
directly capturing online events originally portrayed in animated form. As a result,
animation raises ontological questions about the nature of mixed realities and how best to
represent and examine them as well as epistemological questions. The growing cultural
uses of animation changes its role as credible visualization as well; this is evident in the
rising number of documentaries and non-fiction works that choose animation as their main
visual aesthetic. The rising visibility of animation may ease its acceptance as an
informational aesthetic. In order to avoid the unchallenged use of animation as a summary
of information that depicts events and topics as non-nuanced and supposedly
straightforward, however, reassessing the development of new virtual aesthetics, visual
representation of mixed realities and complex processes surrounding knowledge
production is vital.

The merging of physical and virtual realities leads to an augmented view and experience
of reality, which exceed the merely physical.[17] Enhanced reality is enabled by
technology and has become ubiquitous due to personal portable screens and wifi. These
new experiences of contemporary reality must be translated into new and suitable
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documentary aesthetics. The impact of advanced technology on daily life is such that
transcending the limitations of photography in documentary is an inevitable necessity. It is
vital for the documentary to remain a relevant and ‘realistic’ depiction of contemporary
realities for two reasons: firstly, the need for documentary aesthetics which can capture
realities that are non-physical; and secondly, the need for aesthetics that can visually
represent the augmented experience of the physical that has emerged from contemporary
omnipresent technology. Portable smart technology has become an extension of the self
and a portal to other realms, enabling users to ‘be’ in the physical and virtual worlds
simultaneously. Excluding animation from contemporary documentaries would result in
their failure to represent these mixed realities. Furthermore, through the case studies of
Another Planet, virtual simulations are increasingly used to represent and even explore
physical spaces, reflecting the changing the relationship between the two realms. Another
planet does an excellent job at demonstrating how and why animation proliferates in virtual
culture, how its evidentiary status may be theorized as valid documents but also the ways
and necessity to critically examine new representational trends in critical ways.

This is an important aspect of animation today: as the quantity of animated non-fiction

grows exponentially in myriad fields, it can easily be used as a visual aesthetic that
misinforms and conceals without the viewer being any the wiser. Whereas many works
use animation to visualize what is otherwise difficult or impossible to convey in moving
imagery, often trying to portray what is heard in the soundtrack in attention-grabbing
aesthetics, in the case discussed here animation is used in a more complex manner:
highlighting what viewers cannot see or do not know, and testing whether they even pause
to consider this. Are viewers now so accustomed to experimental documentary and varied
visualizations as well as to animation’s mainstream visibility that they no longer notice or
question what is being shown, how it is shown, and why? Are viewers prone to believe
nothing or everything as the criteria for an image’s truth value becomes increasingly
ambiguous in an era of digital culture, doctored images, and deep-fake videos? Finally,
what is the viewer’s ethical responsibility, or that of filmmakers and artists who engage
with the representations that make and question visual truth claims?

In our post-truth era, information culture and mediascape preoccupied with the
misrepresentation of facts, the kind of documentaries that force viewers to continually
question evolving forms of representation, it is essential to interrogate their changing
qualities, uses, and reception. As we have seen in the example of Another Planet, the
viewer is constantly reminded of the mediated nature of the information and of the need to
actively consider the problematics of transparency and analysis presented as ‘truth’
through informational aesthetics and fields of non-fiction. That is the power of this art form
as an experimental way of mediating messages and questioning representation in an era
of mixed realities where uses of imagery change and in order to maintain self-reflexive and
critical viewing.

Dr. Nea Ehrlich is a lecturer in the Department of Arts at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. She completed her PhD in the
Department of Art History at the University of Edinburgh and was a Polonsky postdoctoral fellow at The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.
She is the author of articles on realism, serious games, animation and documentary, and is co-editor of Drawn from Life, the 2018
anthology about animated documentaries published by Edinburgh University Press. Her work lies at the intersection of Art History, Film
Studies, Animation, Digital Media Theory, Gaming and Epistemology. Her next book, Animating Truth, on animated documentary and
the virtualization of culture in the 21st century, is forthcoming in 2021 from Edinburgh University Press. She is currently working on a
project on art and robotics, focusing on AI and machine vision.

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Notes

[1]
For a list of companies offering tools and platforms Rogers, ‘Coronavirus Has Made
WFH The New Normal’.

[2] See, for example, Lind and Steyerl, The Greenroom; Cramerotti, Aesthetic Journalism.

[3] The Sonderkommando were work units made up of often Jewish prisoners who were
forced to aid with the disposal of victims’ bodies in the Nazi camps.

[4] My work focuses on intentionally non-photorealistic animation and although animated

documentaries have proliferated since 2008, animation’s reception is still rooted
somewhere between fiction and fact. See my forthcoming 2021 book Animating Truth by
Edinburgh University press.

[5] In theorizing documentary games, Joost Raessens addresses the ‘problems’, some of
which are shared by animated documentaries due to their constructed nature and visual
form.
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[6] See Ehrlich, Animating Truth, forthcoming in 2021 by Edinburgh University Press.

[7] For more on these topics see Simons 2009; Musser 1984; Huhtamo 2004; McQuire,
Martin, and Niederer 2009; Acland 2012; Manovich 1995; Friedberg 2010; Cubitt 2011.

[8] The cultural implications of such changes in an interdisciplinary research domain links
Film Studies, Art, Media Studies, Phenomenology and Post-Phenomenology, Sound and
Video Game Studies, to name but a few.

[9] Available at (last accessed 2 September 2020).

[10] https://www.torchfilms.com/products/another-planet

[11] Joost Raessens uses Roger Odin’s term to explain the way spectators view works
through a documentary or fictionalizing perspective. See Roger Odin, “A Semio-pragmatic
Approach to the Documentary Film,” in The film Spectator: From Sign to Mind, ed. W.
Buckland (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1995), 227–235.

[12] “The Auschwitz Museum, Poland”. Twitter. March 12, 2020.

https://twitter.com/auschwitzmuseum/status/1238062866336550912

[13] For more on the persistence of photography, see Ritchin, After Photography, p. 180.

[14] For more on the animated interview see Honess Roe, Animated Documentary, pp.
74–105.

[15] See Ehrlich, “Animated documentaries as masking.”

[16] See Formenti, “The sincerest form of docudrama”; Honess Roe, Animated
Documentary, p. 171; Ward, “Animated realities’” p. 19.

[17] I do not mean augmented reality in the sense of specific AR technologies but more of
a general enhancement of what reality is, which expands beyond the physical, due to what
is made possible through contemporary personal technologies.

© Nea Ehrlich

Edited by Amy Ratelle

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