This position paper reflects the developing collective voice of the FilmEU alliance, despite different emphases across our interdisciplinary fields, we call for immediate, coordinated action to ensure that AI development in Cultural and Creative Industries serves European values of cultural diversity, educational excellence, and human-centered innovation.

In this essay, we present the results of an artistic research project, exploring the boundaries of animation through the exhibition of, and reflection upon, a series of collaborative artworks. We will discuss a range of animation installations that share a focus on the connection between animation, human cognition, and memory. While this connection has been studied theoretically, there exists little documentation of how it can inspire artistic practice, especially concerning experimental or expanded forms of animation. This essay, therefore, has a double goal: (1) to discuss several key theories on the cognitive foundations of animation, with special attention to processes of (de) materialization through the use of shadow and light; (2) to present a range of animated works that have been created within this framework, and reflect on how these can complement the insights of authors such as Wells (1998), Torre (2017), and Van Gageldonk et al. (2020).