Background

Stop-motion is an analogue animation technique, where the illusion of motion is created by changing or shifting objects manually in small steps and projecting these changes as a sequence of individual photographs (or frames) onto a screen. This technique has been in use even before the beginning of film-history and always has encouraged intermediality (i.e., merging different artistic spheres such as photography, music, fine arts, performance and theatre).

Virtual reality (VR) dates back to the 1960s and is either described as an immersive-mental experience, as a three-dimensional display, an interaction device or as an innovative form of human-machine interaction. It has left its marks in commercial products but also inspired artists who strived to translate their creative vision into virtual, augmented, and mixed realities.

Project Content

The framework of the project VRinMotion not only builds on stop-motion and virtual reality but also covers an extensive and heterogeneous field. It incorporates animation, media arts and media performance as well as expanded cinema. The latter describes film, video, multi-media formats, and immersive environments that go beyond the traditional one-way relationship between audience and performance. VRinMotion also takes inspiration from animation studies, where the difference between practitioner and theorist is rather seen as gradual than as categorial. Overall, the project implements different analogue stop-motion techniques within virtual reality set-ups and weaves artistic virtual experiences philosophical, theoretical, and analytical concepts, models, and methods of animation studies together.

Goals

• We extract stop-motion from a linear context and implement it into interactive virtual environments.
• By combining stop-motion with VR, we create a set of hybrid artistic tools and workflows that spark new ideas for animation artists.
• We systematically explore possibilities to connect artistic performances of the creators directly to the experience of the spectators during the creation.
• We push the boundaries of artistic stop-motion in VR, expanded animation, media arts and performance.
• We contextualize the artistic virtual and hybrid experiences with philosophical, theoretical and analytical concepts.

Methods and Outcomes

VRinMotion is hosted by the Institute Creative\Media/Technologies (IC\M/T) at the St. Pölten UAS and supported by Vienna-based artist studio lichterloh. During the project four experiments, called ExperiMotions, are set up, which subscribe to the principles of Henk Borgdorff’s definition of arts-based research, comprising theoretical Research on the Arts, technical Research for the Arts, and practical Research in the Arts. Artistic workshops are developed together with internationally established animation artists, national, and international collaborators. This aims to strengthen the ties between artists from different backgrounds and the outreach of Austrian artists. All ExperiMotions produce artistic output, hybrid instruments, and theoretical contextualizations. VRinMotion initiates broad discussions of the outcomes with academia but also with the wider public.

Press release

• From Stop Motion to Virtual Reality, Feb 09, 2022: https://www.fhstp.ac.at/en/stories/news/from-stop-motion-to-virtual-reality
• Virtual Spaces for Analogue Animation, Jul 20, 2023: https://www.fhstp.ac.at/en/stories/news/virtual-spaces-for-analogue-animation
• In-Between Images, Oct 07, 2025: https://www.fhstp.ac.at/en/stories/news/in-between-images

Podcast

Campus Talk, Episode 88: Animation and VR? New Spaces, new Perspectives!, Oct 10, 2025: https://research.fhstp.ac.at/en/transfer-innovation/researcher-at-st.-poelten-uas/researcher-stories/virtual-motion-real-research

Social Media

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@vrinmotion
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vrinmotion/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VRinMotion/