Wolf
I really enjoyed Building Imaginary Worlds. I see a lot of connection to my own work, and have pondered many of the questions he raises, but I was unaware that there was a field of scholarship devoted to analyzing the desire to build and enter imaginary worlds. In animation there is no existing world, you necessarily have to build whatever world you decide to set your story in. Consequently, the field often attracts control freaks since you are required to control every aspect of your world, from the weather, to the technology, to the way people look and move. I can certainly therefore understand the pleasure and drive to make an imaginary world, to me there is an aspect of playing god to it, you are literally creating a world and every living thing in it.
I guess there are a couple of aspects to what he is talking about. The creation of a different world in intellectual terms, where you imagine a fully complete universe, and everything in it, as Tolkein did in writing The Lord of the Rings, and then the technological aspect of it which allows a literary world to be extended into the world through numerous different platforms, such as interactive games, comics, films, merchandising of objects, etc.
I’m going to have to add to this later. I got up early to post, but then I spent about forty minutes trying to refind the “post” button, and now I have to meet my collaborators. Thumbs up on the book though.
As an animator, can you weigh in on the concept of recreating an existing world? Certainly, animation, due to its lack of indexicality, allows the creator (the god in your equation) to create fantastic worlds, but what about when Ralph Bakshi recreates New York. Do you believe that the hyperreal animated representation of a “real” world lead to a creation of an internalized imaginary world or does it merely result in a representation like in any other medium?