[dropcap]A[/dropcap]nimation is everywhere: in games and films, from computers to television screens – theme parks are made in honor of these virtual realities. Despite their distinctive slants however, the creators of these alternate worlds are often overlooked. David O’Reilly, Irish but LA-based animator and artist, therefore stands out with his vast success and recognizability as an animator. For those who don’t already know of him, you may recognize his art from Spike Jonze’s movie Her (2013), which featured a hypothesized game of the future starring a small, foul-mouthed alien child. His style is certainly unique, a sort of cybernetic Vaudeville, clinical, yet chaotic — a fantastic combination. As well as working on his own films, O’Reilly has made music videos for MIA and U2, and animated for Son of Rambo and Adventure Time. So, how did this prolific animator and his unique style come into being?

“I stepped into an animation studio when I was 14 and decided immediately I’d be doing that for the rest of my life,” O’Reilly says. This studio was Cartoon Saloon, an established animation and film studio based in Kilkenny. Unlike many who come to the very technical profession of animation through various foundation courses and degrees, O’Reilly falls into “the self-taught category only because [he] didn’t finish third level education”. His education was based around a system of mentorship which he argues is often passed over today, as institutionalised education is valued more than practical experience and apprenticeship, which he views as essential to the animation process. “There’s just a bottomless amount of things to learn and they all branch out into other fields of study. Initially I was more into the technical and theoretical aspects of it than the entertainment side. That’s probably not unusual for a young brain though.” Often “animators leaving school — especially in the US — are plagued by student debt and have a real immediate need to be employed. Because of this many don’t really get the opportunity to do their own work.” The two-pronged perception of animation as a specialised creative form, as well as a vast commercial industry, is something that all animators must reckon with. O’Reilly now lives in Los Angeles, a place so deeply and culturally defined by film corporations it can almost be considered an animated world in its own right, yet he seems in some way except from this, saying, “I don’t really pay attention to the industry side of it.”

Despite being in some respects a very individualistic artist, and boasting a very unique style for it, O’Reilly is a fairly frequent speaker on the subject of animation, as well as collaborator on a variety of projects — pretty much inevitable in the realm of digital film and something O’Reilly pursues in addition to his personal works: “I collaborate with people all the time. That’s definitely one thing I wanted to do as soon as I could.” O’Reilly channels his own world view through abstract polygons, often giving them faces, features, joints, demeanours, none of which have their base in recognisable, concrete things: “Ideas can be vehicles for characters, and characters can be vehicles for ideas.” O’Reilly’s 17-minute film The External World premiered at the 67th Venice Film Festival and Sundance 2011 and received over 60 awards. It is a darkly humorous film — too subversive for China in fact, where it has been banned by the Ministry of Culture. O’Reilly’s paired back aesthetic here — at once a modernised and archaic animated look — results in a cerebral experience of this fabricated world, which mediates between external reality and subjective experience. Words scroll down the screen at one point in the film: “Remember none of this is real. This is a purely fictional experience, in no way based on reality. This is not happening in this universe or any other. Neither are these words. Neither are you.” This marriage of postmodern thought with a childlike aesthetic is becoming a contemporary trend in animation, which pairs simplified aesthetics with darker, deeper meanings.

O’Reilly’s conception of his work is not the one most immediately associated with animation — entertainment — and he has always been compelled by its artistic scope rather than the commercial possibilities. It was not the notion of “being-an-animator” that enchanted him: “I think if you’re going into it actually caring about the industry and not the art form you’re doomed.” Fifteen years down the line and whilst his specific artistic interests appear to alter constantly, his perspective remains the same. Animation is naturally a public and interactive form, known most for its substantial role in films and games, and so by definition is much more an exchange between audience and creator: “Entertainment is a kind of loaded word, but I think whenever you see your work in front of an audience your instincts for certain things are more focused. You want to make sure they’re experiencing what you want them to, or even just that the ideas are making sense. I remember when that happened with me, and suddenly I realized this whole thing was a dialogue with the audience.” In July this year, he released his first video game, Mountain, which has no controls; the “player” watches the image of a mountain undergo seasonal changes, but while having no impact on the game’s evolution or development. In what is traditionally a genre of control, agency, objectives and goals, O’Reilly removes these aspects, forcing the “player” to reflect upon the nature of gaming. Mountain pushes the boundaries of what could be considered “a game”, and suggests an element of O’Reilly’s work in which the audience is constantly questioned and in flux.

Whilst O’Reilly’s success has been growing abroad, back in Ireland the industry, though still small in comparison, has been expanding, with Irish animators working on a larger scale and on more international projects. The recent VFX and Animation Summit in Dublin, featuring talks from both Irish members of the industry who have left the country and those who have stayed to pursue careers, was testament to Ireland’s place in the a global community of animators. Generally speaking, with the success of films like Gravity, The Life of Pi and Interstellar, animation has been brought into the limelight as not just a feature of a great film, but as the main artistic event. Animation is fundamentally an imaginative form that offers endless opportunities for innovation, and as film relies more on the digital side of things, animation is becoming revalued and foregrounded, both in terms of its artistic worth, and the talent of those behind it. As with David O’Reilly, a new breed of animator-auteur, whose work challenges the premises of the art form as well as our interaction with technology, in what is in a unique filmic experience.