Posthuman Subjectivity and Implied Dreams in Animation Cinema

Year 2021, Volume: 6 Issue: 11, 792 - 811, 28.06.2021

Ahmet Oktan , Gülsüm Büşra Çon

Abstract

Cinema, thanks to its possibilities that are immanent to its existence, is an art that has the ability to dream beyond multiple worlds that has been experienced before and the ability to think upon these dreams. It takes its viewers to journeys in different directions of thinking through extraordinariness, which may never happen scientifically and physically and through the spaces where these occur. Animation cinema, with the extraordinariness that has attached to the ordinary and with uncommon dreams that it has created; from the human and nonhuman beings’ point of view; produces specific thoughts about the universe, the existence. In Gilles Deleuze’s terms, it examines the differences that pour out of life. In this aspect, the animation cinema promises to extent life out of the anthropocentric view which is specific to Modernity, and to produce intellectual journeys about alternative beings. At this point, the question of whether the character designs of nonhuman beings’ which are situated at the center of the established imaginary lives point to a real post-human subjectivity, or these characters are the bearers of an anthropocentric approach, becomes important. This paper aims to debate the possible answers to the given question through Alice in Wonderland, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Mononoke-hime (Princess Mononoke) and Hauru no Ugoku Shiro (Howl’s Moving Castle) films. In this study, where it will be examined comparatively of the cinematic comprehension of directors from two different cultures; the answers to questions as; in these narrations, what kind of a world aspiration is being actualized; in these universes where nonhumans are defined, on what extent can these universes step outside the anthropocentric approach, which is structured as a form of domination in the modern world; if a discourse which is opened to alternative becomings has been established or not; what kind of clues are presented regarding interpreting human existence of this imaginary world designs, are going to be looked for.These discussions will be conducted within the framework of concepts such as humanism, post-humanism, difference, becoming, nomadic subjectivity and with reference to the works of authors such as Gilles Deleuze, Rosi Braidotti, Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri and Donna Haraway.

Keywords

Subject, difference, becoming.

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