Footnote #8 - Plasmaticness

Footnote #8 offers a brief detour to the abridged and incomplete animated writings of Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein from the 1940s, and in particular his notorious concept of “plasmaticness” that he argued was a way of understanding the appeal and attraction of Walt Disney’s cartoon images. Listen as Chris and Alex discuss the historical, political, technological, and aesthetic dimensions of “plasmaticness” and the term’s relationship to the Hollywood “rubberhosing” style; the “irresistible changeability” of Disney’s reforming bodies and how, for Eisenstein, such figures momentarily took spectators back to a pre-conscious mode of existence; Disney’s own artistic shift away from plasmatic impulses towards a “hyper-realist” sensibility; and the contemporary digital afterlives of Eisenstein’s animated approach to transformation, character, and movement. **Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**