The legacy of ↑Xiao Xiao lives on—in Alan Becker’s ingenious ↑Animator vs. Animation “An animator faces his own animation in deadly combat. The battlefield? The Flash interface itself. A stick figure is created by an animator with the intent to torture. The stick figure drawn by the animator will be using everything he can find—the brush tool, the eraser tool—to get back at his tormentor. It’s resourcefulness versus power. Who will win? You can find out yourself. —This took three long months … I think it’s worth it.” I think so, too.
 

At least since the times of Tex Avery, cartoon characters becoming conscious of the shape of the world they live in, and that there’s a whole universe around this world, is an ever resurfacing topic. Within the genre of ↵machinima this tradition is unbroken, see ↵counter existentialism and ↵the awakening. Can this tradition be traced back to ↵flatland? Or is this a little too far-fetched?
 

initially via entry at boingboing