University of Minnesota Press, ISBN 978-1517911591, English, 288 pages, 2024, USA

If the screen visually represents the body with an escalating sense of realism, it also negates its sophisticated haptic and thermal qualities through its glass-covered, two-dimensional flatness. The relationship between our flesh and its presence on screen is young and still unresolved, as our senses are anthropologically incapable of fully understanding simulation, especially what is essential to recognising a fellow human being. In The Flesh of Animation, these mechanisms focus on the cinematic representation of bodies, with the introduction of concepts such as ‘haptic visuality’ or how viewers connect the visual experience of bodies on screen to their own proprioception and its aesthetics. Sandra Annett engagingly explores animation as a medium and how it can stimulate our bodies and minds in a post-human dimension. She uses visual territories that are familiar to her (anime, music videos, mainstream cinema, indie films and performative art) to affirm a phenomenology of animation that is able to trigger physical sensations related to how we perceive ourselves. In this sense, the work of Lu Yang, which she analyses in the final chapter, is the culmination of this process, as she redefines animation in contemporary art through the integration of her own digital body with a wealth of cultural symbols, backgrounds and aesthetics.