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Technologies of Perception: Miyazaki in Theory and Practice

Chofugaoka 4-31-9, Chofu-shi, Tokyo, 182-0021, Japan, bigelow77{at}triton.ocn.ne.jp

The current Western fascination with Japanese animation can be understood in relation to the experience of the digital in cultural production that opens new avenues of understanding about the self-as-subject. Visualization to engage with the image in interactive, virtual environments involves relinquishing control to recognize the individual as emerging through the unique pattern of their relationships, both human and non-human. This reality is articulated in Eastern philosophical notions of interrelatedness and pre-reflective thinking, what Marshall McLuhan called `comprehensive awareness'. The Japanese animator Miyazaki Hayao draws on a Zen-Shinto religious imaginary to empower the individual to relinquish the self. As an alternative politics to the moral confusion of the post-modern age, his practice demonstrates that Walter Benjamin's gamble with cinema is in play.

Key Words: aesthetics • animation • Buddhism • cinema • communication • digital • philosophy • religion • Shinto • technology

Animation, Vol. 4, No. 1, 55-75 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1746847708099740


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