Harmanjeet Singh’s essay on Jan Svankmajer’s Jabberwocky
Writing Essay
Harmanjeet SINGH
Student of SM2105 Narrative Strategies and Aesthetics of Time-based Media
Abstract
In response to Ben Hjorth’s “Philosophies of Non-sense: Jan Svankmajer’s animation work Jabberwocky”; in Senses of Cinema (issue 71, 2014), Harmanjeet Singh pays special attention to Švankmajer’s object play. Citing Thing Theory, he suggests we should look beyond the work as just an illustration of Surrealist non-sense. Perhaps we should understand objects just as things, freed from structuralist or Freudian reading. Things may be mere physical presences, but humans have imbued them with values. What about reverting this order? What about looking at the human world from the perspective of things as they were intended and their usage assigned? Stop-motion in this context is more than just an animation skill. It is the fiendish re-enactment of the human world.
