The metaphysical frame: Surrealism in stop-motion animation

The art of stop-motion animation shares sensibilities with the philosophy of Surrealism. A physically-based, artistic medium that mesmerises audiences in darkened theatres, its idiosyncratic characteristics lend themselves well to the exploration of the metaphysical, offering the opportunity to delve into complex concepts such as the nature of the animate and inanimate, the life of an object, the nature of being and the contradictions between dreams and reality, ultimately allowing us to convey their relationship to the human experience. It achieves this through the act of giving life and meaning to objects that would otherwise have neither, and in this process, creates a metaphysical connection between the audience and the spaces within which these uncanny beings exist.