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– – – – – – Chapter 05 Chapter 04 Chapter 03 Chapter 02 Chapter 01 The disciplinary shift Approaches and outlooks The bigger picture Paul Wells / Johnny Hardstaff Re-imagining RE-IMAGINING RE-IMAGINING ANIMATION ANIMATION – The Changing Face of the Moving Image

Professor Paul Wells is Director of the Re-imagining Animation is a vivid, insightful Re-imagining Animation Other titles of interest in AVA's Animation Academy at Loughborough and challenging interrogation of the animated addresses animation’s role at the heart THE CHANGING THEAcademia CHANG range include: University, UK, and has published widely as it becomes central to moving image of moving-image practice through an in the field of animation, including practices in the contemporary era. engagement with a range of moving-image Visible Signs: The Fundamentals of Animation and Animation was once works – looking at the context in which FACE OF THE FACEAn introduction OF to semiotics THE Basics Animation: Scriptwriting. constructed frame-by-frame, one image they were produced; the approach to their following another in the process of preparation and construction; the process of Visual Research: Johnny Hardstaff is an internationally constructing imagined phases of motion, their making; the critical agenda related to MOVING IMAGE MOVINGAn introduction to research IM established, award-winning designer, film- but now the creation and manipulation the research; developmental and applied methodologies in graphic design maker and artist. He is the creator of The of the moving image has changed. aspects of the work; the moving-image History of Gaming and The Future of With the outcomes; and the status of the work within Visual Communication: Gaming, and innovative popular , invading every creative enterprise and form contemporary art and design practices. From theory to practice 01 TEACHING MOVING IMAGE CULTURE: 01 TEACHING MOVING IMAGE CULTURE: including Radiohead’s long format ‘Pulk/Pull of expression, pencils have become pixels, PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS Revolving Doors’ and ‘Like Spinning Plates’. He dreams have become data, and animation – 02 THE POLITICS OF PRACTICE 02 THE POLITICS TheOF PRACTICE Illustration Book was also one of the co-initiators of the once merely an adjunct of film – has become 03 ANIMATION RE-IMAGINED 03 ANIMATION RE-IMAGINED 04 ‘OBJECT REACT’ 04 OBJECT REACT ‘Object React’ project with Onedotzero and central to the whole cinematic enterprise. 05 FROM IDEAS TO IDIOMS 05 FROM IDEAS TOLeft IDIOMS to Right: Darryl Clifton. The cultural shift from words to pictures

Verbalising the Visual: Translating art and design into words

ava publishing sa [email protected] www.avabooks.ch

AVA Academia | Context | Theory

PAUL WELLS PAUL WELLS JOHNNY HARDSTAFF JOHNNY HARDSTAFF

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RE-IMAGINING RE-IM ANIMATION ANIM THE CHANGING TH FACE OF THE FA MOVING IMAGE M

PAUL WELLS PAU JOHNNY HARDSTAFF JOH

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An AVA Book Design Published by Emmi Salonen AVA Publishing SA www.emmi.co.uk Rue des Fontenailles 16 Case Postale Production 1000 Lausanne 6 AVA Book Production Switzerland Pte. Ltd., Tel: +41 786 005 109 Tel: +65 6334 8173 Email: [email protected] Fax: +65 6259 9830 Email: Distributed by [email protected] Thames & Hudson (ex-North America) All reasonable attempts 181a High Holborn have been made to trace, London WC1V 7QX clear and credit the United Kingdom copyright holders of Tel: +44 20 7845 5000 the images reproduced Fax: +44 20 7845 5055 in this book. However, Email: if any credits have [email protected] been inadvertently www.thamesandhudson.com omitted, the publisher will endeavour to Distributed in the USA incorporate amendments and Canada by: in future editions. Watson-Guptill Publications 770 Broadway New York, New York 10003 USA Fax: +1 646 654 5487 Email: [email protected] www.watsonguptill.com

English Language Support Office AVA Publishing (UK) Ltd. Tel: +44 1903 204 455 Email: [email protected] ©AVA Publishing SA 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission of the copyright holder.

ISBN 2-940373-69-8 and 978-2-940373-69-7

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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CONTENTS

006 INTRODUCTION

010 HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF THIS BOOK

01 012 TEACHING MOVING IMAGE CULTURE: PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS 02 014 The disciplinary shift 044 THE POLITICS 022 OF PRACTICE Approaches and outlooks 046 03 Authorship 038 092 The bigger picture ANIMATION 068 Attitudes and ethics RE-IMAGINED 094 084 Artist animation? Re-animating history 102 Re-defining practice

114 Re-thinking artists

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– – – Front matter Contents 004/005 Introduction How to get the most out of this book CO

006 182 INTROD APPENDIX 010 184 HOW TO Conclusion OUT OF

185 Bibliography

188 Further resources and webography

189 Index

192 Acknowledgements and picture credits

04 124 ‘OBJECT REACT’

126 Re-animating pedagogy 05 152 140 Process FROM IDEAS TO IDIOMS 154 148 Practice Objects of desire 164 Impossibly real

170 Themes and dreams

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INTRODUCTION

In recent years, the ‘digital revolution’ has as profoundly instrumental to film in general consolidated major changes in moving image because of the digital animation interventions practices, privileging the as not () that are endemic to even the merely the facilitator of processes involved in most mundane realist narratives and define creating moving image works, but generating the moving image palette. If animation was moving images too. It is possible that we are once understood as an adjunct of film and a closing in on the post-photographic era, backwater in cinema, it now finds itself as where film will be viewed as an arcane the core condition of film-making per se. medium of image generation. For many, this In what is surely to become a seminal is already old news and their work takes for statement in defining this new model of granted the application and assimilation of digital live-action cinema, Lev Manovich computer software and its attendant creative concludes it is ‘ material + tools, which establish new forms of + image-processing + compositing + 2D visualisation and pictorial effect. + 3D computer One of the chief animation’, adding that: consequences of these developments is – the elevation of animation as a core term ‘The manual construction of description for many aspects of creative of images in digital cinema Taiwanese artist Agi Chen image-making endeavours. This is mainly represents a return to brings together the worlds of the traditional cartoon, through the ways in which the intrinsic nineteenth century pre- new media technology and artifice and illusionism of traditional cinematic practices, when arts culture by taking the animation is seemingly embedded within, images were hand-painted colours used in a cartoon, rendering them in new or directly echoes, the simulation and and hand-animated. At the geometric forms, and then synaesthesia that now characterises turn of the twentieth re-embedding them in a scene contemporary film-making. This in turn has century, cinema was to from the original film. in some senses made ‘animation’ a redundant delegate these manual term – a mere catch-all that speaks to techniques to animation, and all manipulated moving-image practices. define itself as a recording It is the intention of this book to address medium. As cinema enters this issue and to delineate animation the digital age, these further through its specific applications techniques are again and authorial intentions. becoming the commonplace In the contemporary era, in the film-making process. animation has been reabsorbed into debates Consequently, cinema can about film-making in general. It is no longer no longer be clearly considered a ‘second cousin’ to live action, or distinguished from merely understood as ‘the cartoon’ or ‘the animation.’ (1) ’. Rather, it is now viewed –

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– – – Front matter Contents 006/007 Introduction How to get the most out of this book

INTRODU

While this view correctly Animation, under these In recent years, the ‘digi determines the historical status and conditions, has come to adopt its original consolidated major chan technical influence of animation and its place meaning as the essential ‘animus’ at the practices, privileging the within contemporary film-making, it remains heart of cross-disciplinary, interdisciplinary merely the facilitator of insufficient on two counts. First, it merely and multidisciplinary approaches to creating creating moving image w defines animation within its parameters as moving images. Film-makers may now be moving images too. It is a form co-opted by the computer and understood as ‘’ of their work closing in on the post-ph neglects to acknowledge the myriad forms without any sense that they animate in the where film will be viewe of animation not made in this way. Secondly, traditional ways while, equally, if sometimes medium of image genera and especially pertinent to this book, is that unconsciously and intuitively, working with is already old news and t it also signals a sense of homogeneity in the the illusionist sensibility of the traditional granted the application a way that animation has been absorbed by animation . Indeed, it is of critical computer software and cinema, and seemingly does not declare its importance to re-explore animation through tools, which establish ne difference any longer. the intentions of its creator and the contexts visualisation and pictoria It is clear, though, in which it is made. It is this, more than One of t that animation can still signal difference anything else, that re-defines and re- consequences of these d in nominally traditional ways – through imagines animation as a state-of-the-art the elevation of animatio the cartoon, 3D , or even vehicle for moving image cultures. of description for many a computer-generated imagery in the dominant This wider definition of image-making endeavour -style aesthetic, and indeed, many other animation affords the opportunity of testing through the ways in whic techniques and approaches. Further, it is a its parameters and boundaries, in order to artifice and illusionism o term with currency beyond the remit of the interrogate how the many and varied animation is seemingly e and programme. approaches to making film, graphics, visual or directly echoes the sim Animation is a vehicle that has come to artefacts, multimedia and other intimations synaesthesia that now c delineate the possibilities available of motion pictures can now be delineated and contemporary film-maki to moving image cultures in any style, understood. Re-imagining Animation will in some senses made ‘an context or technique and, perhaps most address these issues through an engagement term – a mere catch all, importantly, in a range of disciplines. As the with a range of moving-image works, looking all manipulated moving-i previously assured processes and disciplines at the context in which they were produced; It is the intention of this of image production collapse into one the approach to their preparation and this issue and to delineat another, or irrevocably change, it is construction; the process of their making; the further through its speci necessary to ‘re-imagine’ animation. critical agenda related to the research; and authorial intentions. developmental and applied aspects of the In the c work; the moving-image outcomes; and the animation has been reab status of the work within contemporary art about film-making in gen and design practices. considered a ‘second cou merely understood as ‘th experimental film’. Rathe

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These production processes will also be addressed through a variety of core critical perspectives, taking into account the presence and status of the works as they speak to and influence debates about arts education, ideology and aesthetics, technology and authorship, and contemporary moving-image culture. In an era when definitions of social, cultural and arts practices are unclear, subject to blurred disciplinary boundaries and predicated on uncertain ends and outcomes, it is important not merely to reframe the questions about how such practices should be defined, but to table a range of answers. This will be achieved through an understanding of the core processes of creative engagement and an address of animation as a versatile language that, to coin a phrase, can ‘speak in many tongues’. Re-imagining Animation will seek to identify this language, demonstrate and illustrate creative practice, and offer a variety of views as to why animation, from pencil to pixel, offers a radical and uninhibited outlook to moving image culture. – – – REFERENCES 1.Manovich, L. (2001) The Language of New Media, Cambridge & London: MIT Press

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– – – Front matter Contents 008/009 Introduction How to get the most out of this book

These moving image works by artist Anne-Sarah Le Meur, entitled Eye-Ocean, represent the idea of ‘generative art work’ – a piece that takes place in silence and is of infinite length. Two virtual or 3D synthetic lights – a black and a bright coloured one – move, appear and disappear, join and disjoin, over a square animated surface. The computer program driving the piece controls the visual parameters and prompts other variations that make the light phenomena change in simple periodic loops, generating continuous minimalist, slow and sensual infinite metamorphoses. Such generative work is in essence a form of animation, especially given its central condition of metamorphosis. However, it is privileged to a gallery space and the agenda of art critics.

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HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF THIS BOOK

– – – Front matter Contents 008/009 Introduction How to get the most out of this book

These production processes These moving image works will also be addressed through a variety of by artist Anne-Sarah Le Meur, entitled Eye-Ocean, represent core critical perspectives, taking into account the idea of ‘generative art the presence and status of the works as they work’ – a piece that takes speak to and influence debates about arts place in silence and is of infinite length. Two virtual education, ideology and aesthetics, or 3D synthetic lights – a technology and authorship, and contemporary black and a bright coloured moving-image culture. In an era when one – move, appear and disappear, join and disjoin, The structure of the book offers different definitions of social, cultural and arts over a square animated front and back sections practices are unclear, subject to blurred surface. The computer program The driving the piece controls disciplinary boundaries and predicated on the visual parameters and uncertain ends and outcomes, it is important prompts other variations that not merely to reframe the questions about make the light phenomena how such practices should be defined, but change in simple periodic levels of information and interest. The main of the book are white and work loops, generating continuous to table a range of answers. This will be minimalist, slow and sensual achieved through an understanding of the infinite metamorphoses. Such core processes of creative engagement and generative work is in essence a form of animation, as introductory, information an address of animation as a versatile especially given its central language that, to coin a phrase, can ‘speak condition of metamorphosis. text privileges the voice of the authors, the However, it is privileged in many tongues’. to a gallery space and Re-imagining Animation the agenda of art critics. and reference pages. will seek to identify this language, demonstrate and illustrate creative practice, words of the contributing artists, and and offer a variety of views as to why animation, from pencil to pixel, offers a radical and uninhibited outlook to moving image culture. – – provides the central argument of the book. – REFERENCES 1.Manovich, L. (2001) The Language of New Media, Cambridge & London: All images have MIT Press accompanying captions, which attempt to add additional information and suggest further ideas. At the start of chapters, are ‘keywords’ that operate as core concepts

– – – considered in the chapters. More significantly, Appendix Conclusion 184/185 Bibliography Further resources and webography Index Acknowledgements and picture credits they offer signposts to the major concerns BIBLIOGRAPHY addressed in the book. Quotes from the text are _ANIMATION HISTORY _ART AND ANIMATION _ANIMATION STUDIES Giroux, H (1999) Leyda, J (ed) (1988) Stabile, C & Harrison, M Corsaro, S & Parrott, CJ The Mouse that Roared: Disney Eisenstein on Disney (eds) (2003) (2004) Adams, TR (1991) Frierson, M (1994) Allan, R (1999) Bell, E et al (eds) (1995) and the End of Innocence (London: Methuen) Prime Time Animation Hollywood 2D Digital : Fifty Years : American and Europe From Mouse to Mermaid: (Lanham & Boulder: Rowman & – (London & New York: Animation of Cat and Mouse Highlights 1908–Present (London: John Libbey) The Politics of Film, Littlefield Publishers Inc) Midhat, A (2004) Routledge) (New York: Thomson – Gender and Culture – Animation and Realism – Delmar Learning) sometimes highlighted, which suggest (New York: Crescent Books) (New York: Twayne) – – – Faber, L & Walters, H (2004) (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Goldmark, D (2005) (Zagreb: Croatian Film Wasko, J (2001) Adamson, J (1975) Holliss, R & Sibley, B (1988) Animation Unlimited: Indiana University Press) Tunes for Toons: Music Club Assoc) Understanding Disney Culhane, S (1988) Tex Avery: King of Cartoons The Disney Studio Story Innovative Short – and the Hollywood Cartoon – (Cambridge & Malden: Animation: From Script (New York: Da Capo) (New York: Crown) Since 1940 Brophy, P (ed) (1994) (Berkeley & : Napier, S (2001) Polity Press) to Screen – – (London: Laurence King Kaboom!: Explosive Animation University of : From Akira to – (London: Saint Martin’s from America and Press) Watts, S (1997) Press) Barrier, M (1999) Kenner, H (1994) Publishing) – – either an insight about animation itself Hollywood Cartoons: American Chuck Jones: A Flurry – (Sydney: Museum of (New York: Palgrave) The Magic Kingdom: Animation in its Golden Age of , Portraits Finch, C (1988) Contemporary Art) Hames, P (ed) (1995) – Walt Disney and the Demers, O (2001) (New York & Oxford: OUP) of American Genius The Art of Walt Disney: – Dark Alchemy: Films of Patten, F (2004) American Way of Life Digital Texturing – (Berkeley: University From Mickey Mouse to Bryman, A (1995) Jan Svankmajer Watching Anime, Reading Manga (New York: Houghton Mifflin) and Painting Beck, J (1994) of California Press) Magic Kingdoms Disney and His Worlds (Oxford: Greenwood Press) (Berkeley, California: – (Berkeley, Ca: The 50 Greatest Cartoons – (New York: Portland House) (London & New York: – Stone Bridge Press) Wells, P (1996) New Riders Press) (Atlanta: Turner Lawson, T & Persons, A (2004) – Routledge) Hendershot, H (ed) (2004) – Around the World in Animation – or a particularly strident or apposite point Publishing Co) The Magic Behind the Voices Gravett, P (2004) – Nickelodeon Nation Peary, G & Peary, D (eds) (London: BFI/MOMI Education) Gardner, G (2001) – (Jackson: University of Manga: Sixty Years of Buchan, S (ed) (2006) (New York & London: New (1980) – Gardner’s Beck, J (2004) Mississippi) Japanese Comics Animated ‘Worlds’ York University Press) The American Animated Cartoon Wells, P (1998) Sketchbook Animation Art – (London: Laurence King (Eastleigh: John Libbey) – (New York: Plume) Understanding Animation (Washington, New York & (London: Harper Collins Maltin, L (1987) Publishing) – Kanfer, S (1997) – (London & New York: London: GGC Publishing) Design) Of Mice and Magic: A History – Byrne, E & McQuillan, M Serious Business: The Art Pilling, J (ed) (1984) Routledge) – of American Animated Cartoons Jones, C (1990) (1999) and Commerce of Animation That’s Not All Folks: A – Gardner, G (2002) of view. – (New York: Plume) Chuck Amuck Deconstructing Disney in America from Primer in Cartoonal Knowledge Wells, P (2001) Computer Graphics and Bendazzi, G (1994) – (London: Simon & Schuster) (London & Sterling: to (London: BFI) ‘Art of the Impossible’ Animation: History, Careers, Cartoons: One Hundred Years Manvell, R (1980) – Pluto Press) (New York: Scribner) – from G. Andrew (ed), Expert Advice of Cartoon Animation Art and Animation: The Story Jones, C (1996) – – Pilling, J (ed) (1992) Film: The Critics’ Choice (Washington, New York & (London: John Libbey) of Halas and Batchelor Chuck Reducks Canemaker, J (ed) (1988) Klein, N (1993) Women and Animation: (Lewes: Ivy Press) London: GGC Publishing) – 1940–1980 (New York: Time Warner) Storytelling in Animation Seven Minutes: The Life and A Compendium pp 308–339 – Brion, P (1990) (Keynsham: Clive Farrow) – (London: Samuel French) Death of the American Cartoon (London: BFI) – Hart, C (1997) At all points, the book seeks – – (New York: Verso) – Wells, P (2002) How to Draw Animation Tom and Jerry: The Definitive McCarthy, H (2002) Guide to their Animated Merritt, R & Kaufman, JB : Master Cook, B & Thomas, G (2006) – Pilling, J (ed) (1997) Animation and America, (New York: Watson-Guptill Adventures (1993) of Japanese Animation The Animate! Book: Rethinking Lehmann, C (2006) A Reader In Animation Studies (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Publications) (New York: Harmony) Walt in Wonderland: The (Berkeley, California: Animation American Animated Cartoons (London: John Libbey) University Press) – – Silent Films of Walt Disney Stone Bridge Press) (London: Lux) of the Vietnam Era – – Hooks, E (2000) Bruce Holman, L (1975) (Baltimore & Maryland: John – – (Jefferson, North Carolina Robinson, C (2005) Wells, P (2002) Acting for Animators: to raise questions and ideas, and to stimulate Animation in the Hopkins University Press) Pointon, M (ed) (1995) Cholodenko, A (Ed) (1991) and London: McFarland & Unsung Heroes of Animation Animation: A Complete Guide to Cinema: History and Technique – Art History The Illusion of Life Company Inc. Publishers) (Eastleigh: John Libbey) and Authorship Performance Animation (New York: AS Barnes) Sandler, K (ed) (1998) [Cartoon: Caricature: (Sydney: Power/AFC) – – (London: Wallflower Press) (Oxford: Greenwood Press) – Reading the Rabbit: Animation], Vol 18 No 1, – Lent, J (ed) (2001) Sobchak, V (2000) – Cabarga, L (1988) Explorations in Warner March 1995 Cholodenko, A (Ed) (2006) Animation in Asia and Meta-morphing: Visual Horton, A (1998) The Fleischer Story Bros. Animation – The Illusion of Life II the Pacific Transformation and the _ANIMATION PRACTICE Laughing Out Loud: Writing (New York: Da Capo) (New Brunswick: Rutgers Russett, R & Starr, C (1988) (Sydney: Power/AFC) (Bloomington: Indiana Culture of Quick Change the Comedy-Centered response and debate with the reader. – University Press) : – University Press) (Minneapolis & London: Blair, P (1995) Screenplay Crafton, D (1993) – Origins of a New Art Cohen, K (1997) – University of Minneapolis Cartoon Animation (Los Angeles: University Before Mickey: The Sigall, M (2005) (New York: Da Capo) Forbidden Animation Leslie, E (2002) Press) (Laguna Hills, Ca: Walter of California Press) Animated Film, 1898–1928 Living Life Inside the Lines – (Jefferson, North Carolina Hollywood Flatlands: – Foster Publishing) – (Chicago: University of (Jackson: University of Wells, P (1997) (ed) & London: McFarland & Co) Animation, Critical Theory Smoodin, E (1993) – Johnson, O & Thomas, F Chicago Press) Mississippi Press) Art and Animation – and the Avant-Garde Animating Culture: Hollywood Beckerman, H (2004) (1981) – (London: Academy Group/ Furniss, M (1998) (London & New York: Verso) Cartoons from the Sound Era Animation: The Whole Story The Illusion of Life Eliot, M (1994) John Wiley) Art in Motion: – (New Jersey: Rutgers (New York: Allworth Press) (New York: Abbeville Press) Walt Disney: Hollywood’s – Animation Aesthetics Levi, A (1996) University Press) – – Dark Prince Wiedemann, J (ed) (2005) (London & Montrouge: Samurai from Outer Space: – Birn, J (2000) Kerlow, IV (2003) (London: Harper Collins Animation Now! John Libbey) Understanding Japanese Smoodin, E (ed) (1994) Digital Lighting The Art of 3D: Computer Design) (London & Los Angeles: – Animation Disney Discourse: Producing and Rendering Animation and Effects Taschen) Gehman, C & Reinke, S (eds) (Chicago & La Salle: the Magic Kingdom (Berkeley, Ca: (New York: John Wiley & Sons) – The Sharpest Point: Animation Open Court/Carus) (London & New York: New Riders Press) Withrow, S (2003) at the End of Cinema Routledge/AFI) Toon Art: The Graphic Art (Ottawa: YYZ Books) Of Digital Cartooning (Lewes: Ilex)

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– – – Front matter Contents 010/011 Introduction How to get the most out of this book

HOW TO THE MOS OF THIS

– – – 01 Teaching moving image culture 044/045 02 The politics of practice 03 Animation re-imagined 04 ‘Object React’ 05 From ideas to idioms ING THE POLITICS THE E OF PRACTICE OF P

AL AUTHORSHIP A 046 046 068 ATTITUDES AND ETHICS 068 A NS 084 ARTIST ANIMATION? 084 A

The chapters start with a The structure of the boo chapter opener. Each of the levels of information and five chapters is given a text privileges the voice specific colour, which runs through the section. words of the contributin provides the central argu All imag 02 02 accompanying captions, add additional informatio further ideas. At the s ‘keywords’ that operate

– – – Chapter 02 Authorship 046/047 considered in the chapte Attitudes and ethics Artist animation?

AUTHORSHIP AUTHO they offer signposts to t addressed in the book. Quotes f – – – – – sometimes highlighted, w

Animation is made in numerous contexts, although assumptions that the cartoon KEYWORDS IN THIS SECTION Animation is mad from single-person, back-bedroom ‘studios’ is less artistically significant than more Commerce from single-perso to major production houses. As a field, experimental works persists. By extension, It would be naïve to think about animation to major producti therefore, it is characterised by a number of animators labelling themselves as production in all its guises outside of a therefore, it is ch commercial context and the demands of the either an insight about a models and definitions of authorship that can ‘independent’, or indeed ‘artists’, are deemed market economy. Clearly, animators of all models and defin accommodate the terms ‘auteur’, ‘director’, more important than studio-based, more kinds need to make a living and prepare accommodate the ‘artist’, ‘film-maker’, or simply, ‘’. collaborative, sometimes more commercially themselves in a variety of ways to enter the ‘artist’, ‘film-mak creative industry. This is not a homogenous Further, it often acknowledges particular orientated, ‘animation directors’. It is thing, and indeed, should be understood as Further, it often a roles as significant in the production process. regrettable that this apparent schism the creative ‘industries’. This model roles as significan recognises the range of roles, functions, Sections within chapters are or a particularly strident Only in recent times have the claims of the exists. Such hierarchies and dialectics are Only in recent tim needs and requirements of a number of working directors, animators and artists in the Fordist unnecessary and misrepresent the quality practices. There is not a rigid divide directors, animat hierarchies of the major studios, such as across and between disciplines, styles between art and commerce; one infrequently hierarchies of the Disney, Warner Bros and MGM, been viewed and approaches. is the other; one can fund the other; one Disney, Warner B is never removed from the other. introduced with this spread. as authorially relevant, and the achievements This discussion supports as authorially rel Culture of independent animators and film-makers the view that animators, however named or of independent an of view. The understanding and evaluation of animation properly evaluated. termed, or in whatever context they create is largely determined by the culture properly evaluate This has meant that figures and distribute their work, have the same evaluating it. Popular culture generally T perceives animation in the idiom of classic These spreads also contain from the cartoon tradition – Tex Avery, Chuck status and are evaluated on the terms and Disney, , Wallace and Gromit or from the cartoon Jones, , , Paul conditions of their achievements and anime. Arts culture still resists the notion Jones, Paul Dries Grimault, Dusan Vukotic and Pritt Parn, for contexts. Further, the discussion addresses of animation. Educational culture has a mixed Grimault, Dusan V At all po opinion of animation both in its various example – share the same status as more how this re-imagines one or more aspects of forms of production and its study. Animation example – share the main keywords discussed experimental creatives such as Norstein, animation, and any of the assumptions or struggles with its cultural place and experimental cre Norman McLaren, Alexandre Alexeieff, expectations that characterise the popular definition, remaining marginalised or Norman McLaren ignored, while being ironically progressive Kihachiro Kawamoto and Oskar Fischinger. or uninformed view of it. and subversive in many of its idioms. Kihachiro Kawam This encourages a unified and diverse This encourages a within the section. to raise questions and id understanding of animation as a form, understanding of response and debate wit

02

– – – – Chapter 02 Authorship Corporate critique, 062/063 Attitudes and ethics personal visions Artist animation?

Rejected, one of Hertzfeldt’s retired millionaire, or if I had to work three Digital is everywhere most notable films, engages with the day jobs to support them. Not working on one today not because it is limitations of the broadcasting and corporate of my own things just so I could waste time a fundamentally better cultures with regard to the opportunities animating a deodorant ad for somebody else format, but because it supposedly afforded to film-makers and just never made sense.’ is cheaper and easier. artists. Creating a mock set of interstitials There are some clear themes When everybody for The Family Learning Channel and and preoccupations across Hertzfeldt’s films, stampedes in one advertisements for mainstream broadcast, and these are always in some way a direction you start Hertzfeldt critiques both the commercial reflection of Hertzfeldt’s anxiety about the hearing meaningless and ideological cultures of contemporary times he lives in: ‘Sometimes you’re putting statements such as broadcasting, noting that: ‘It was probably on screen the things that scare you and when ‘film is dead’ or ‘2D inevitable for that film to grow political from you get through the film on the other side, is dead’, and all the early on. Usually, most of the deeper themes sometimes you’re not afraid of them old stuff just gets form themselves while I work, with very anymore, or maybe you understand them thrown out. little conscious effort. Sometimes I don’t better. I guess it’s probably the same for Don Hertzfeldt notice a lot of them myself until long after painters who paint not so much for the The text pages contain I’ve finished, but that all bubbled to the sake of whatever the end result may be, surface pretty quickly with Rejected. I was but because they’re expressing something, 22 when I began the film and getting really and working something personal out in disillusioned with how much American the process.’ supporting captions and corporations and consumer culture were Everything Will Be OK is basically just ruining everything in the world. essentially a summation of this – it reflects I was having some success with my films Hertzfeldt’s fear of death itself. However, he and beginning to get many commercial offers, suggests that: ‘Comedy’s essential, even in relevant pull quotes in but I was annoyed by them, annoyed that it a dramatic film, it oils everything. It’s the was sort of expected of me to successfully sugar you give the audience to make the attract corporate America and make mobile medicine go down easier. Other times it phone commercials for them. Call it my lowers their guard and lets deeper things order to demonstrate the rebellious stage I guess. sneak in through the side door. New ‘I still find ads to be technologies come and go, but good writing essentially antisocial and insulting. I could will always be progressive. If the ideas are main points within the never contribute to that world and I didn’t solid, it doesn’t matter how you’re putting really need their money anyway. Luckily, my them, but the way you put them.’ budgets have always been very low, but Hertzfeldt’s anti-corporate, moreover, you have these movies in your head Hertzfeldt plays out his his central and anti-herd approach to technology, and his deep-rooted anxieties, fears convey the increasing lack body text. and you have to get them out, and often it tragic-comic stance, makes his a unique and passion in Everything of control and coherence seems like that’s all that matters. I’d be Will Be OK, which expresses within the character as he vision in the animation field. making these same short films if I were a psychological and emotional tries to maintain his focus states in a range of and identity. As in all vignettes and abstract Hertzfeldt’s work, this designs. The panels represent becomes both a tragic the sense of multiple and comic experience. impressions and thoughts that simultaneously visit

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– – – 01 Teaching moving image culture 012/013 02 The politics of practice 03 Animation re-imagined 04 ‘Object React’ 05 From ideas to idioms TEACHING MOVING TEAC IMAGE CULTURE IMAG PEDAGOGICAL PE IMPLICATIONS IM

014 THE DISCIPLINARY SHIFT 014 THET 022 APPROACHES AND OUTLOOKS 022 APPR 038 THE BIGGER PICTURE 038 THE

01 01

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THE DISCIPLINARY SHIFT

The changes in moving-image practices provide a number of challenges in a range of contexts. The artist or animator may be liberated by new opportunities, but the teacher, student and new practitioner must re-engage with how their work is affected. As well, the exhibitors, broadcasters and corporate marketeers need to reassess their needs. Disciplines are shifting; orthodoxies are changing. It is clear that digital technologies have prompted new interventions and new processes, and this in itself resets the agenda about how the implications of these changes should be addressed.

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– – – Chapter 01 The disciplinary shift 014/015 Approaches and outlooks The bigger picture

THE DISCIPL SHIFT

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KEYWORDS IN THIS SECTION The changes in moving-im Experimental provide a number of chal Within the field of animation, experimental of contexts. The artist or film has largely been cast as non-linear, be liberated by new oppo non-objective abstract work, engaging with formalist issues concerning colour, shape teacher, student and new and line for its own sake. With the digital re-engage with how thei shift, different perspectives on the As well, the exhibitors, b experimental have emerged as a result of artists, animators, film-makers and creative corporate marketers nee practitioners often using the same tools to their needs. Disciplines a create work for different contexts and orthodoxies are changing purposes. All modes of expression – from classical narrative to anti-narrative – have digital technologies have been re-explored, freshened and re-subjected interventions and new pr to experimental approaches. this in itself resets the a Dumbing down the implications of these Cultural debates in recent years have been pre-occupied with the idea that be addressed. society is ‘dumbing down’. This view is largely characterised by accusations of anti-intellectualism; over-investment in celebrities and the banalities of ‘reality TV’; and a resistance to the notion that traditional models of skill and knowledge have been replaced by new capacities and abilities in information and communications technology (ICT). This discussion assumes that society has changed and there has been a de-historicisation and de-politicisation of culture, which undermines effective learning and progressive creative practice.

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NEW DIGITAL ORTHODOXIES?

_ It is important to look at the indices and What drives/promotes/enhances this change? provocateurs of change in animation. It _ has historically been a field characterised In the educational field, do we talk about by a variety of modes of expression, from process for its own sake? the traditional cartoon through to the _ experimental film. Animation has always Should we focus on end users? How do they embraced new technologies and sought experience/assimilate/synthesise the out ways in which new tools might information that is being expressed through facilitate new outcomes. It has always these new modes of expression? been, however, a form of expression, What exactly is the affect or effect which has been easy to dismiss as ‘the of such work? cartoon’, or children’s entertainment, or _ a mere vehicle of popular culture. On the Are we really talking about something that other hand, it is the choice of the avant- is really new? The narrative may have garde, a modernist language, and the height evolved, but is what is being said progressive of experimental cinematic achievement. or original? Does it need to be? How should It is in the latter schism that we determine meaning? animation has found its Achilles heel – it is at _ one and the same time an invisible art, or the Will content ever shift away from the art of the visible. It is a form destined to be intrinsically and maintain credibility? defined ultimately not by formal conditions – frame-by-frame manipulation of materials in the creation of phases of representational motion – but by the artist, context and condition of expression. Arguably, nothing has changed. Animation has always re- imagined itself and is merely in a new phase at the heart of new digital orthodoxies. The difference lies in the fact that this is now acknowledged; and that artists and animators wish to re-engage with established parameters and definitions to re-establish or de-establish the term and the discipline of animation in alternative ways. This is ultimately the subject of this book. It also addresses the digital shift and the sense of change in current practice, and asks some key questions:

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– – – – Chapter 01 The disciplinary shift New digital orthodoxies? 016/017 Approaches and outlooks The bigger picture

Young-Hae Chang Heavy outcomes – and a playful We were, it appears, part Well, it doesn't, actually. Industries, featuring the repertoire of expression of these “possibilities”. But now it does. And for some work of Young-Hae Chang and within a specifically limited We were looking for a cheap, reason this makes people feel Marc Voge, was one of the vocabulary. This is therefore easy way to do things. No good. Though we did not start first key creative practices ‘cutting edge' in a way that expensive, heavy or space- out with specifically to explore the use of Flash students or practitioners consuming materials for us. political intentions, they animation in relation to can see as clever and ‘As for process, well, did happen, it seems, but text. Its piece, Cunnilingus provocative. However, it is we did what we always do, which, with the exception in North Korea, deliberately different from mainstream put text to music. As for of the art issue, is for us plays with a contentious work without being too technical and aesthetic beside the point. We're not idea – the co-option of alienating or abstract. It choices, we chose one font out to convince people of sex and sexuality for also has become an instantly (Monaco), two colors (black anything. In fact, that's ideologically determined recognisable signature style. and white) and one technique what makes what we do seem According to Chang and (Flash). In our case, so beautiful to us. Voge: ‘Our Cunnilingus in animation makes text move, ‘We didn't so much choose North Korea project came movement being what makes art animation as we chose text about when our dear leader come alive. In art, those who (small file size) and music saw the unique possibilities know always talk about how (irresistible) for the Web, of the Internet for his this or that element of this the sum of which imposed message of peace and love. or that composition “moves". animation (Flash) on us. We really don't follow the animation scene. On the other hand, we don't follow the art scene either. This, it seems to us, is what makes our work original: our ignorance of what's going on out there. Students: beware.’

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Arguably, under these accordingly. It is likely that there needs to I thought differently conditions, new models of pedagogic strategy be pedagogical development or evolution to from others and knew and delivery are desperately needed. There mirror changing professional and production it was important to may be an immediate problem with the word modes, but it is clear that the philosophical show that you could ‘pedagogy’ though, as its premise seems foundation of educational or professional create a good story, to signal passivity. What can teachers, facilitation ought to establish creative show your creative practitioners and artists do for students or principles that make skill transfer and skills and have a prospective artists to make their experience cross-contextual play natural. It is therefore professional visual a genuinely profitable one? One immediate worth trying to define the differences sense to show your response might be that educational contexts between ‘discipline’ (in other words, ways technical quality. need to more properly recognise the many of thinking qualitatively and quantitively; Youngwoong Jang different professional and production imperatives in work production; intention; outlooks. In some ways recognition exists, consideration of audience paradigms; and the but it can easily lapse into an industry- ability to think critically or expansively in and fuelled obsession to produce the ‘right’ kind around the topic or task) and ‘subject’. of student or practitioner with appropriate Discipline is, for the most skill sets. This is normally an anomalous and part, delivered within the context of a homogenous view of the creative industries, subject. At its heart, any imperative to un-interrogated by the particularities of skill support and promote creative work ought shortages, contextual and regional needs, to define the tools that are vital to creative or the specificities of production. More individuals. An understanding of context and importantly, and intrinsic to the perspectives need (potential or existing) enables students addressed in this discussion, there is a lack of and practitioners to apply their disciplinary engagement with a ‘bigger picture’ in relation skills broadly, but it is important to instil a to the arts, society and commerce and the more fearless irreverence for accepted ways that the individual may be positioned mores, in the desire to achieve progressive in relation to the political, creative and work and not simply ‘tick box’ outcomes. economic demands of these contexts. There are risks involved, as a ‘world is your oyster’ mentality might give rise to extensive INDUSTRY REALITIES production, but insufficient quality. _ The explosion in self- As counterpoint to localised assumptions, it publication, broadcast and authorship, and would be interesting to examine the realities the development of abundant niche of industry requirements a little more closely. markets have prompted debates about There are certain pragmatic concerns that all dumbing down and the triumph of the ‘new students and prospective practitioners rightly amateurism’, effectively eradicating any clear have – usually, to get a job to pay off their distinctions about what constitutes good or debt – but what remains important is to bad work. It is clear, however, that this very enable students and creative workers to be occurrence has massive implications for the able to fully understand the multifaceted disciplinary shift and needs to be addressed nature of the industry and have more options as an ‘anything goes’ mentality that may

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– – – – Chapter 01 The disciplinary shift New digital orthodoxies? 018/019 Approaches and outlooks The bigger picture

drive this kind of abundance, serving to obscure important values and outlooks central to an understanding of the kind of creativity that might be progressive and enriching. This view may immediately prompt an anxiety that there is a desire in the outlook of this discussion to reimpose an elitist view of quality and a judgemental hierarchy reminiscent either of hard-line assessment processes within educational contexts or a reassertion of old-school arts culture values, but the proposition here is much simpler. It is crucial that more responsibility is taken for creative work. It is insufficient to merely be intuitively creative or driven by a creative fitness for purpose. Rather, it is necessary in such a climate to cultivate a conscious, focused and inventive clarity Youngwoong Jang, winner of the CG animation field – “be areas in the 3D animation about creative endeavours. the Academy for Motion a generalist for smaller field and I did not want to Consequently, a much Picture and Arts Sciences studios and be a specialist specialise. I made my demo Gold Medal for best student for bigger studios". It was reel to apply to CG greater degree of pressure resides with the film, Mirage, has some clear the general answer I got. commercial companies as a CG artist, the pedagogue and the student to views about how a student However, I believed achieving generalist in New York City. critically engage with and justify the nature, might pursue a career in the best quality that I could Actually, most of my reel was animation:‘I had two goals attain within the time and composed of Mirage. I tried significance and purpose of what they do. to catch by making Mirage. resources available was to make a professional quality Nothing can be learned if what is in place One was having my first appropriate to both. To reel not like a typical remains unexplained, un-interrogated or animation to establish my own improve the quality of student’s output. Texturing voice through having a unique my work, I showed it to and lighting were good areas unquestioned. This discussion, therefore, visual style. The other was teachers, classmates and as that I could apply for in the seeks to track and show how such to show my CG skills for many informed people around major studios. I had an discourses might occur and how their seeking jobs. Some people me as I could. I listened interview at Blue Sky Studios said that it was very carefully to their comments with the lighting team after outcomes are significant. difficult to pursue two goals about my work and used this they watched Mirage and I got with one project, but I to analyse it and develop a position as lighting thought differently from it further. I had been technical director – the others and knew it was researching various areas lighting supervisor told me important to show that you of art, design, architecture he saw my lighting ability in could create a good story, and computer graphic my . Lighting is show your creative skills and animation. I trained myself about the look of a film, have a professional visual in the areas of modelling, and part of my visual sense, sense to show your technical rigging, texturing, not just a technical skill. quality. I asked many animation, lighting and You have to have both aspects.’ classmates and teachers compositing. I knew I wanted about how to get a job in to work in various creative

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Skill sets within the context theory; no progress without history, and There is no theory of many educational training and production the insistence that all outcomes must be without practice; no contexts inevitably aspire to transcend the goal-oriented. practice without theory; practical and relate to research It is important to constantly no progress without methodologies, critical thinking and ask what educational contexts are producing. history… contextual understanding. This is important Does ‘production’ remain an appropriate Paul Wells as there is a clear attempt not to let the age- term, for example? It is possible that the old theory/practice divide inform outlooks. opportunity for creative experience may help The reality of many deliveries, though, is that to cultivate an attitude/aptitude that can theory and practice do remain not merely transcend some of the more inhibiting separate, but oppositional in the eyes of aspects of traditional processes, especially students or creative practitioners. if they maintain an unresolved tension between theory and practice. The ideal KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL SETS remains to produce imaginative, creative _ individuals who defy categorisation, and Practical and technical knowledge is who in turn speak to the breakdown in obviously important as it forms the skeleton disciplinary norms within the field of of any creative process. However, overtly animation. Such a conceptual and disciplinary vocationally oriented outlooks can sometimes ‘collapse’ needs to be embraced by deliverers abandon critical ideas in favour of the and institutions, who must maintain the cultivation of a particular type of operative – principles that underpin a discipline, while one who may not be capable of developing ensuring that there is enough flexibility in cogent ideas and only executing those of order to constantly evolve a robust others. Some might argue that this is the critical methodology. dominant requirement of many working All arts education should contexts, but it is surely not serving those be about incitement, not about complicity, contexts to good effect, nor reflecting well and this is something that the freedoms upon those who seek to educate with a more of expression in animation can readily holistic perspective. accommodate. It is something that industry In the field of animation, this should recognise, but importantly, should not has been reflected by a range of people with hope to measure, quantify or successfully high degrees of technical competency in the co-opt. In many ways, industry should be operations and applications of software, but co-opted more into educational contexts to no knowledge of skills encourage the richness of ideas, lateral and or, more importantly, no view of why they use extraordinary thinking, breadth of vision and the freedoms and limitations of their digital critical analysis as the key drivers in the resources in the way they do. This is a evolution of the creative industries and the consequence of not seeing that there is no innovation economy. theory without practice; no practice without

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RE-ENGAGING RE-ENGA DEFINITIONS DEFINIT

In experiencing a disciplinary shift, animation market. This context provides the ultimate In experiencing a discipl needs then to once again reflect upon what challenge for students and creative needs then to once again it is, how it might be taught, and how it is practitioners, but there is no reason why it is, how it might be taug received in institutions. The discipline and one should not service the other directly. received in institutions. T form of animation has been radically altered This in itself should properly motivate the form of animation has be again, especially in terms of its context and work and prompt the proper articulation of again, especially in terms in its changing roster of practitioners. the factors that drive a piece of animation, in its changing roster of Other disciplines have in moving image or motion graphics work. Other di essence ‘fed’ animation, emancipating it The will to communicate, the desire to act essence ‘fed’ animation, from the two camps of commercial cartoon, pragmatically and to problem-solve are from the two camps of c with its character-based animation and ostensibly objective concerns pertinent with its character-based experimental art practice. Regardless of the to all artists, and are fundamentally at experimental art practic richness of these two strands of activity, the heart of the re-imagining of animation richness of these two st animation and new moving image are in the contemporary era. animation and new movi manifested on every mobile device, LCD manifested on every mob screen, feature film and website. It is screen, feature film and apparent that a disciplinary shift, more apparent that a disciplina readily embracing illustration, graphic design, readily embracing illustr architecture, product design, fashion idioms, architecture, product des interaction design and medical imaging has interaction design and m occurred and ‘re-imagined’ the form. occurred and ‘re-imagine With the democratisation With the of animation production, new potential of animation production, philosophies of expression, easy vehicles philosophies of expressio of distribution and exhibition – MySpace, of distribution and exhibi Facebook, YouTube, for example – there is Facebook, YouTube, for e some anxiety about the nature and definition some anxiety about the n of the form, and the ultimate requirements of of the form, and the ultim the more established producers and providers the more established pro as they reassess their next investment and as they reassess their ne

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APPROACHES AND OUTLOOKS

So, what then are the new approaches and Arguably there is more outlooks that characterise the re-imagined animation happening now than ever before, state of animation? Many, of course, sit but so much of it is generated as a calling within similar parameters to the past, but the card, and consequently as a declaration and conditions by which the work is done is now validation, that the creator of the piece can sometimes of a different order. Although readily fit, not merely into an industry as it animation has often been seen as merely is currently configured, but into corporate children’s entertainment, what does it now culture in general. In such a context, should mean to engage the child in the multimedia, learning institutions accept a quasi-business multi-distraction world of today? Indeed, identity wholesale and merely mediate how should the student respond to the social between training and employment? Should and cultural conditions that now prevail? they provide an alternative culture of Should the work undertaken operate as a innovation and experiment free from premeditated calling card to appeal to some commercial constraints? notion of the creative industries, or are freely Many might conclude that expressed artworks enough? one could easily facilitate the other, but this This leads on to bigger is surely about empowering individuals to concerns about the role and function of develop new models of working that fail to learning institutions, particularly concerned recognise such a polarity and instead work with how involved they should be with in different ways. A final core aspect of the industrial contexts and how far a context discussion is an exploration of how far this in which the pure concerns of the animator is possible and under what terms and or artist are dealt with and enabled. conditions it might be achieved.

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APPROAC AND OUT

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KEYWORDS IN THIS SECTION So, what then are the ne Research outlooks that characteris Research is a term that is not sufficiently state of animation? Man related to the outlooks and practice of within similar parameter creative artists, but it remains absolutely fundamental to the development of enriching conditions by which the w and progressive work. Engagement with core sometimes of a different questions and hypotheses; attention to animation has often been processes and environments; and the creation of critically engaged material outcomes children’s entertainment are all intrinsic to every artist’s work, mean to engage the child and these are part of the research multi-distraction world o necessary to inform provocative and developmental projects. how should the student New traditionalism and cultural conditions t In the contemporary era, the dominant Should the work underta 3D computer-generated aesthetic created premeditated calling car by the artists at Pixar Animation Studios, Dreamworks Animation, Sony Pictures notion of the creative ind Imageworks and a host of other major expressed artworks enou Hollywood studios, has effectively replaced This lead the ‘classical’ 2D animation styling of the Disney Studio. In essence, this aesthetic, concerns about the role as well as the narrative and thematic learning institutions, par preoccupations of such films that feature with how involved they s it, constitutes a ‘new traditionalism’. These works draw readily on the American industrial contexts and h cartoon tradition in general. This form of in which the pure concer computer-modelled animation has, therefore, or artist are dealt with a become the new classicism, which other works ape, react to, reject or critique, in the same ways as animation around the world for many years responded to the dominance of Disney as a style and a brand.

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RE-THINKING MOVING IMAGE PRACTICE – A COMPARATIVE MODEL

Innovation in any medium can be achieved more fervently and admiringly than ever through a number of means: the impact of in new books, documentaries, exhibitions, new technologies; different trends in creative festivals and conferences. On the other practice and critical analysis; shifts in hand, it has pronounced traditional forms; cultural tastes and understanding; and, most it is a thing of the past that has reinvented significantly, fresh imaginative visions. Artists itself through new digital applications work in many different ways and, whether at and processes. the start of a career, or having endured the shifts and vicissitudes of arts culture over DEVELOPMENTAL SHIFTS a long period of time, there is always the _ possibility of embracing a fresh opportunity Arguably, all the arts and most other or stimulus in the development of new work. disciplines have been affected by the impact Winsor McCay’s work, like This might arise out of a particular brief, of digital technologies, but it has always been that of many early cinema an opportunity for collaboration, the formal the case that artworks seem to go through pioneers, was a mixture of development of personal preoccupations, or particular shifts in their development. In his trick effects and deliberate manipulations of images in a re-engagement with the established codes, book, Hollywood , Thomas Schatz what should be regarded as conventions, rules, expectations and uses the work of Henri Focillon to describe ‘proto-animation’. This was achievements of a field. this phenomenon: part of animation’s experimental phase. Further, and this is – particularly the case in animation, the ‘(Focillon)…observes that the capacity for the form to embrace and continual reworking of a combine all arts disciplines and engage with conventionalised form – cross-disciplinary, multidisciplinary or whether it is in architectural interdisciplinary interfaces with approaches style or a genre of painting – and materials beyond the arts, means that generates a growing innovation and progress is always possible, awareness of the given the seemingly infinite possibilities conventions themselves. available to the artist. With the dominant Thus a form passes through practice in animation taking place in the an experimental stage, short form there is even greater variety, given during which its conventions that there are fewer generic formulas that are isolated and established, the artist might feel compelled to follow. a classic stage, in which the For the most part, then, the conscious conventions reach their choices made by the artist/animator define “equilibrium” and are the outlook and originality of the piece mutually understood by United Productions of America and, ultimately, define the nature of artist and audience, an age (UPA) used modern art forms (such as in Mr Magoo) to animation itself. of refinement during which challenge the dominant In the digital era, animation certain formal and stylistic styling of The Walt Disney has simultaneously re-engaged with its past details embellish the form, Studios and the cartoon comedy at Warner Bros. This and looked to the future. On the one hand, it and finally, a baroque (or was part of animation’s has embraced its history and achievements “mannerist” or “self- classical period.

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– – – – Chapter 01 The disciplinary shift Re-thinking moving 024/025 Approaches and outlooks image practice – The bigger picture a comparative model

reflexive”) stage, when the stop-motion animation, cut-out and collage form and its embellishments animation as developmental strategies in a are accented to the point continually emerging form. The baroque stage where they themselves has essentially arrived with the digital era, become the “substance” or from the earliest experiments with computer “content” of the work.’ (1) animation in the late 1960s and early 1970s, – to the achievements of Industrial Light & This trajectory can be readily Magic and later Pixar in the mid-1980s, traced in the , for through to the emergence of Toy Story. example, where early pioneers in the United Finally, the availability of affordable digital States, Japan, Russia and Argentina looked equipment and software in the contemporary to establish the terms and conditions of the era has enabled a variety of artists, cartoon out of a combination of primitive practitioners and animators to exhibit and cinema practices and indigenous arts in what distribute their works and moving images was an essentially experimental phase. across a range of platforms. Although a number of animation practitioners There remains one key flaw were to develop work in the 1920s, it is in this trajectory. Animation has always been traditionally and unsurprisingly acknowledged a profoundly self-reflexive medium, right that it was The Walt Disney Studios that from its emergence as a populist yet effectively created animation’s ‘classic’ stage modernist art in all the contexts in which by establishing an animation industry, it found purchase and progress. Constantly enhancing its technologies and applications, aware of its own high artifice and illusionism, and developing its classical styling and and the overt presence of an author always aesthetic, which still survives – much configured in the self-conscious nature of the imitated but much challenged, too – into image-making, animation has insisted upon the contemporary era. its distinctiveness and potential difference, The age of refinement in if not subversiveness as a form. As animator animation embraces a number of aspects: Jonathan Hodgson has noted: the redefinition of the Disney hyperrealist – aesthetic in cartoons such as the work of ‘Whether you’re an animation Warner Bros Studio, United Productions of or a live-action director now, America and independent artists, as well as you’re using the same animation studios across the world including equipment and tools – After Halas & Batchelor in Britain, Effects, Final Cut Pro, Studios in Russia, the Zagreb Studios in the Photoshop and so on. But Contemporary practitioners, former Yugoslavia and the Toei Studio Films I do find my brain works AL + AL, use all the digital tools at their in Japan; the recognition of experimental, in a different way when disposal to create a new non-linear, non-objective forms of animation, using all that equipment… moving image palette, exemplified in the works of artists such as because I have to think to re-imagine animation. This is part of the Norman McLaren and Oskar Fischinger; and harder about the technical ongoing baroque trajectory the consolidation of other practices like 3D side all the time.’ (2) in animated forms.

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This is a pertinent point Fundamentally, the because it identifies the convergence of live artist was naming the art and placing action and animation, and also highlights the it within a particular kind of tradition, significance of the artistic choices that are contributing perhaps to the baroque being made in the use of technology and the stage of animation history. model of technique. Ironically, the technology and the technique draw together the visual COMPARATIVE MODELS effects artist and the fine artist, as well as _ the traditional animator, the old media The comparative examples here, Incarnation practitioner and the new media auteur. (2006) by Scott Allen, and Object React: Inevitably, then, ideas about what animation Vacuum Cleaner (2006) by Naor Aloni, are is or might be have changed and it is only both based on a response to the Dyson through exploring the nature of technology vacuum cleaner. The two bear comparison and technique that it is possible to identify, because Allen’s film chooses a more symbolic not merely the meaning and effect in any one and abstract response to the piece, and work, but the particularity of its application deploys animation in an inventive if quasi- in the definition of the form. traditional form. On the other hand, Aloni has One example of the ways used a more literal response to the artefact Allen creates intimations that this can be measured is in a project in a of supporting a more realist of traditional Japanese undertaken by the Victoria & Albert Museum, narrative underpinned by visual effects. pastoral values and pictorial iconography as Onedotzero, the Institute of Contemporary Allen was inspired by the an establishing premise Arts and Loughborough University. Very design of the Dyson vacuum cleaner and of his film. simply, a number of student practitioners its innovation in domestic cleaning. He took part in a project in which they were immediately recognised that there were a asked to create moving-image responses to number of thematic issues that arose from a range of historical artefacts in the Victoria choosing a state-of-the-art cleaning tool. He & Albert Museum. notes: ‘I was not disappointed when I first Each student was saw this vacuum of all vacuums. The sexual encouraged to thoroughly research their connotations were just so unashamed I had chosen object in relation to its historical to find out who, what, why and when. I meaning and material culture. They began to look at the history of Japan and developed a range of narratives in relation Japan today. I found out about Hiroshima and to an object, some choosing to reveal the Nagasaki and the physiological effects this object’s meaning, others opting to imagine its may have had on the country. I wondered, place in a particular scenario. Simultaneously, “Is this the reason the country has become the students themselves were defining their materialistic to the point of obsession? Could own aesthetic and technical practice, some materialism be a way of regaining control – choosing to call it animation, others film- a plastic plaster to cover one of humanity’s making and some moving-image-making. greatest wounds?”’

Allen uses the convention of ‘re-animation’ drawn from the gothic narrative and ‘mad science’ to suggest the impact of modern technologies on organic life, here represented by the heart.

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Allen drew together work serves to reconfigure not merely our particular themes prompted by the object, view of an apparently ordinary, everyday suggesting: ‘My idea was to create a timeline domestic appliance, but reconfigures a from the moment of the nuclear bomb to the whole range of issues about gender, present day, then taking it forward to the technology and society. warped future, where the human bond with Allen’s work innovates in technical advancements is concerned with ways that cleverly use the tools available absorbing our identity. become to him but, more importantly, in its use of nothing more than the possessions we judge ideologically charged and aestheticised ourselves by.’ The themes that emerged were imagery to offer up new meanings in identified as a particular kind of efficiency contemporary visual culture. He challenges represented in the functionalism of the the assumptions embedded in material vacuum: a sense of aversion to dirt and and social existence. In the same fashion dust – our living ‘debris’; a relationship to that animation has always done, the oppressive domestic identities, particularly compositional and juxtapositional elements for women; a kind of eroticism in the shape of the piece offer up metaphysical and and form of the design; the connection with metaphorical meaning as a function of advanced technologies in Japan; the tentacle the image-making itself and not as a The transformation or sex of Japanese anime and the phallic tubes consequence of linear or literal storytelling. incarnation of the woman associated with traditional hoovers; and the This is a very important aspect of the begins, suggesting the tentacle sex of anime films way in which identity can often be defined ways in which animation in all its and the reincarnation of by technology – the age-old tension between configurations works. It is through the the body in Frankenstein. humankind and . Ultimately, Allen particular manipulations of the moving felt: ‘When you scratched the surface of the image, in whatever constructed form, that marketing, it was all about desire. From the a high degree of meaning and effect are product design to the diagrams on the box, attained. More significantly, it demonstrates the reference to the human body made the authorial ownership of the image and me feel as if a housewife had morphed its implications. into her top-selling appliance. It was the Naor Aloni felt that this best solution.’ degree of authorial ownership was a very These associations provided important factor in determining the process: a ready platform for Allen’s work and soon ‘In retrospect, the difficulty with choosing established a potential visualisation scenario an object derives simply from the potential in which a woman was redefined in the shape available in any connection to an object to of a Dyson vacuum cleaner. It created a simply reinforce your general view as a visual graphic metaphor that called up the artist. Some will argue that as a visual artist associations suggested above, and made a you can and should be able to put your particular comment about the specific kind signature on any project you’re deciding of oppression endured by some women in to take on, and I agree, and should have Japan – locked into a traditional model of probably chosen one with the furthest domestic subservience and service. Such a connection to me for the exercise and the The transformation is complete as the Dyson domestic cleaner becomes the indistinguishable female body of the domestically oppressed Japanese woman.

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challenge. I chose to react to the Dyson Aloni insists that: ‘My vacuum cleaner, though, because it already response was based on my intention to react possessed some of the elements I wanted to the object and not to present it. My aim to see in my visual response. The object is throughout the first stage of research was powerful and beautifully designed, right down to get to know the object, restricting myself to the little details. The distinctive character from coming up with visual responses or combined with the functionality almost ideas at that point. I did so by trying to suggested a conflict, and after the early gather any piece of related information stage of research I thought that emphasising I could get hold of and purely spending time a clash of ideologies seemingly embodied in with it, taking photos. For me, the risk of the design would be interesting.’ producing visual responses too early Research remains a sometimes means falling in love with some fundamental component in the development ideas and not letting go. The second stage of such work because it creates a potentially was to find any visual correlations within the visual vocabulary from which to choose when information I had. At that point, linking the finally creating the work. Allen’s choices of collection of visuals with the information on place, event and outcome helped him to the object led me to some ideas.’ develop metaphoric as well as literal Here, there is one object, metamorphosis, using the freedoms of the but two different kinds of re-imagining, vocabulary to extensive effect. Aloni, on the playing out age-old tensions in cinema other hand, wanted a greater degree of between the limits of live action and the control in the piece using the formalism of freedoms of animation at a point in time live action to represent a particular idea. The when new technologies enable a complex re-animation of the space as the instigator mediation between the impossibly real and of the critical perspective underpins the the possibly surreal. piece. ‘My idea was to create a tornado storm The very tension at the in a house. This was based on the principle of heart of moving image practice, then, is the cyclonic separation in the vacuum. also responsible for the variability of Putting the movement in reverse helped me expression – at one and the same time to emphasise the functionality of the object, form has become content and vice versa. while showing how a storm was putting – things back in order.’ This narrative conceit – sought to show how the intrinsic chaos of – existence has been measured, ordered and REFERENCES 1.Henri Focillon, subject to repression; left to its own devices, ‘The Life Forms in Art’ the world is arbitrary and out of control, yet quoted in Schatz, T. (1993), it is the cyclone here that re-imposes order. Hollywood Genres, (New York: Random House) pp 37–38 2.Jonathan Hodgson quoted in Cook, B. & Thomas, G. (eds) (2006), The Animate! Book: Re-thinking Animation, (London: Lux / Arts Council) p 68

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Naor Aloni’s work restores social order through the force of a cyclone. As the world exhibits its chaotic collapse, a cyclone revises the sense of organisation, repression and sobriety that underpins a cultured dinner event. This is the world made clean and real, only revealed by the disruption of animation and the effects of change.

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RE-THINKING CGI AS A DOMINANT AESTHETIC

Since Pixar Animation Studio created the first I wanted to explore art, design and fully computer-generated animated feature, animation, and establish my own style by Toy Story, in 1995, computer-generated 3D studying at MFA Computer Arts at the School work has become the dominant form of the of Visual Arts. Mirage is an autobiography mainstream animated film, along the way based on life’s uncertainty. In many religions, replacing Disney’s classical 2D styling as a question helps to provide a way to the core aesthetic of what Shiloh McLean experience spiritual awakening. There is a calls ‘new traditionalist’ animation.(1) question at the heart of Buddhist meditation: McLean’s term reflects the How can a pot, which is broken at the fact that Pixar, while innovating technically, bottom, be filled with water? This question has essentially embraced the well- represents the problem of endless human established ‘rites-of-passage/emotional desire. I thought that this idea could be journey’ storytelling techniques of the Disney developed into a story for my final year studio and the comedic verve of classic animation. I was also interested in the Warner Bros cartoons in a contemporary, but juncture between the organic and the essentially traditional, model. Critical mass mechanical, which I wanted to represent has now been reached in the computer- in my film. I wanted to draw something generated feature and the ‘wow’ factor of uncanny and create scenery that was The biomechanical boy scales merely engaging with the fact that a film has dreamlike in Mirage, because I did not want a reed in his undersea been made using computer technologies has to mimic the real world. I designed a robot environment seeking out water – literally his lifeblood. passed. This has led to a re-examination of character and added the fish character to the evolution of computer-generated works give the robot a dilemma in which he might in a variety of national production contexts have to take another’s life to survive and and, most particularly, an engagement with continue his own journey.’ the ways in which animators and film-makers Mirage boasts a high degree are using computer-generated imagery – a of technical skill in its execution of 3D way that still reflects its presence as a computer animation, creating a futuristic mainstream aesthetic, which has been boy-figure – part skeleton, part robot, part co-opted for personal statements. flesh and blood. He is obsessed with Youngwoong Jang’s Student collecting water – seemingly his lifeblood – Academy Gold Medal winning film Mirage while, ironically, living under the sea. Jang (2006) was predicated on state-of-the-art, cleverly illustrates how the single- computer-generated animation and mindedness of a person can blind them to a personal meditation on life’s intrinsic other possibilities and alienate them from purpose: ‘I have been trying to live a better other points of connection or understanding. and happier life by pursuing one goal and then Although the boy reaches his goal of attaining another goal, constantly responding to my more water for his water chest, it is only endless desire. When I came to New York, when he confronts a goldfish, equally in need

Yang successfully creates a new world, as suggested by the combination of organic and industrial forms and its place beneath the sea. It is a place that has a sense of both past and present, and a sense of strangeness, that contributes to the view of the loneliness and apparent alienation of the boy robot.

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of water, that he realises others might need the object of his obsession. His single- mindedness has made him unaware of the ways in which he inhabits his environment. He slips the goldfish into his own water chest to share the water, and in doing so has a moment of revelation and enlightenment. The boy confronts the He can pursue his desires and needs, but in object of his desire – a stem containing a droplet a more inclusive and connected way. of water. His search is Jang suggests: ‘The basic seemingly fulfilled, but concept of Mirage is that things can be it is a moment that leads to a more revelatory changed by shifting one’s point of view. understanding of Mirage has two levels. The first is about his existence. learning to coexist and the second is about the pursuit of happiness. Although the main character seems to be on a never-ending journey, I tried to express that happiness may not be too far away. It is already in your heart. When the robot climbs up the metal object shaped like bamboo, I hoped the audience would see a character struggling to appease its endless desire. Like the robot, I am living in New York City and looking at many situations as a foreigner, and though The boy robot is designed in a way that reveals the I have been living here for four years now, humanity of the child I feel that I am still looking at the world principally through his through etched glass.’ facial expression, often starkly juxtaposed with his The key to Jang’s metaphor mechanistic construction. is the creation of a particular world, Here, there is a sense simultaneously related to some notion of of both horror and fascination surrounding lived experience, but equally, a distantiated, his confrontation with biomechanical and alternative existence, the bulbous stem and which throws into relief its questions, and the water within it. possible meanings and effects. – – – REFERENCES 1.Shioh McLean, The Art of Digital Storytelling, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: MIT Press, 2007 The boy has a moment of revelatory satisfaction as he places the goldfish in his water chest and essentially reawakens his heart through the realisation of sharing. The metaphorical and metaphysical meanings are based on a simple idea played out in an innovative narrative world.

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RE-THINKING THE BROADCAST CONTEXT

Although there remains a constant need for four replacement head and body positions I tend to like animation traditional models of animation for television with a full set of mouths, blinks and eye where you can still feel that concentrate on and positions. After all the pieces have been the hand of the artist. simple, often humourous, narratives, it is also designed they are then prepped and animated Jennifer Oxley the case that visual and cultural literacy for using Adobe After Effects. The goal is to children is changing, and there is a need to create animation that is both bouncy and find different ways of communicating with fluid while staying true to the natural them through inventive visual idioms and movements of real animals.’ different approaches to the . In many senses, this Josh Selig, producer of approach, which echoes more craft- Wonder Pets!, notes that: ‘The series began orientated forms like cut-out animation and as short films that we made for Nick Jr. collage, seeks to bridge the gap between the These were called Linny The Guinea Pig familiar and the new image and they featured Linny leaving her cage and practices. Oxley adds: ‘I tend to like going on adventures in outer space and under animation where you can still feel the hand the ocean. Linny was animated to beautiful of the artist. Even though some of the classical music by Tchaikovsky, but she didn’t computer animation being done today is speak or sing, and she was all by herself. absolutely phenomenal, there is still Based on the success of these shorts, we something magical about seeing a real brush added Tuck and Ming-Ming and decided that stroke moving across the screen or slight these three classroom pets would use fingerprints in an animated clay model.’ teamwork to save young animals in distress. Oxley’s creative sensibility is influenced by a I wanted to continue to use classical music, combination of her respect for Jim Henson’s so we developed our current approach work on Sesame Street, the storytelling of having the characters both sing and idioms of the Aardman studios, particularly speak their dialogue.’ This use of music is in the recent Creature Comforts series, and challenging since the quasi-operatic form her experience with animals: ‘As a child I was of expression is radically different from the in a programme called Junior Rangers and idioms of the popular song used in most worked with an actual park ranger rescuing The show’s engagement with series. There is a distinct challenge to and taking care of sick and injured animals. nature and animals children to engage with unusual models of It’s funny that I’m now working on a is a key theme in the delivery potentially outside their cultures about three classroom re-imagination of the animated form, explored of experience. pets that save animals in distress.’ at the conclusion of In order to support the this discussion. challenge of the soundtrack, Selig and his PHOTO- creative director, Jennifer Oxley, developed _ a fresh visual styling through a process Selig and Oxley believe that it is especially called ‘photo-puppetry’. Oxley notes that: ‘The important to empower pre-school children, style combines the look of real photographs so it was crucial to create a fresh approach with the flexibility of animation. Using Adobe to empathetic educational strategies. Selig Photoshop, real photographs are used to stresses: ‘It was important to me that create the backgrounds and characters. Wonder Pets! not have any actual super An average character will have three to powers. Linny, Tuck and Ming-Ming

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The playfulness of the narratives enable the characters to operate as perpetual performers. The use of music, dance and choreography successfully supports and conveys the are able to accomplish extraordinary things idea of teamwork. because they know how to work together and that’s something that all young children can do. We chose a guinea pig, a duckling and a turtle for Wonder Pets! because we wanted variety, both in terms of what the characters looked like and what they could do. Their personalities were developed to reinforce their roles on the team: Linny is the leader, Tuck is the emotional heart of the group, and Ming-Ming is pure confidence. Every episode of Wonder Pets! has what we call a ‘tieback’. This is a story beat that takes place in the classroom, which foreshadows a solution the pets will come up with later in the show. We also have recurring songs such as, ‘The Phone Is Ringing!’ and ‘What's Gonna Work? Teamwork!’. I believe the mix of familiar songs and story elements with exciting new animals and locations has been a major factor in the success of Wonder Pets!’ Little Airplane has re-imagined animation to enable children to re-engage with animals and not merely see them as cartoon characters, by prioritising a style that uses documentary actuality photo-animation, coupled with the melodramatic idioms of opera. Zinkia’s work on Pocoyo returns to a simple aesthetic, Photo-puppetry techniques prioritising the emotional and physical revise the aesthetics of gestures of the characters, who for the most the children’s series in part play out their exchanges in empty Wonder Pets! and play an important part in spaces and environments. The use of global presenting the animal to illumination and textures is much more children as not merely reminiscent of clay than computer-generated animated characters. imagery and contributes to the sense of tactility and physicality in the characters. Although the series draws on sources as varied as anime, it is the way in which the characters engage in a playful children’s theatre that prompts a particularly The reference to super-hero stories in Wonder Pets! is immediate emotional and visual identification radicalised by the ways in the child viewer. in which collaboration, common sense and problem- solving acumen become the heroic everyday aspects of successful communication.

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Zinkia’s Pocoyo manages to refine the aesthetic of children’s animated series further, privileging first and foremost the actions of the characters and the closeness of their relationships. The simple, clean design also enables the animation to embrace a range of engaging choreographic motion and events.

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RE-THINKING EDUCATIONAL MODELS

The examples so far have both implicitly and DELIVERY AND DISTRIBUTION explicitly engaged with ideas about how _ animation can educate as well as entertain Tyyskä represents a kind of practitioner who or challenge. At the heart of this is a sense of embraces multiple skills and disciplines as rethinking what might be effective in relation his core tools, and recognises that there are to how animation, or moving-image practice, possibilities for new kinds of delivery and might be taught, and how animation might be distribution: ‘When I was 15 years old, used to teach related or other disciplines. I learned a lot of playing techniques by Finnish animator and watching instructional videos of my guitar guitarist, Mika Tyyskä, wished to combine heroes. I often dreamt that when I was a these skills in an online delivery of guitar famous guitar hero, I would be shooting my tuition, using the character of Mr Fastfinger: own instructional videos. Although that ‘The whole thing started in 2000. I was seemed like a joke at the time, making Guitar studying at Lahti Institute of Design and Shred Show felt like fulfilling this old dream I needed to come up with an idea for a in a cool way.’ multimedia workshop. I got the silly idea The reception of the show for an animated cartoon character teaching reflects the diversity of the audience that can guitar playing. I made an interactive be reached even when this is seemingly a demo with a typical heavy metal guitarist niche interest: ‘The feedback I've received character on the screen, playing simple from all kind of visitors has been amazing. riffs. I felt there was some potential The project seems to appeal to many types of with the overall idea. people from very different age groups. Many ‘I returned to the concept in of the website visitors aren’t guitar players, spring 2004 as I had decided to develop the but they just love the experience. Guitar Tyyskä creates web pages that prompt investment in the act concept as my thesis work for the school. I players, and especially young musicians, of learning the guitar, but came up with the world of Mr Fastfinger, a have found the website an inspiring source which also entertain and character who is a sort of embodiment of all of learning, material and fun.’ inform in their own right. my guitar heroes. Steve Vai, Eddie Van Halen, Tyyskä recognised that Frank Zappa and Jimi Hendrix. For me this animation could be deployed in a way that was a perfect project to work on as it reconfigured the teaching , replacing included all the things that I’ve ever been the teacher-guitarist with a fictional interested in – from guitar playing to character who might have wider appeal. animation, from sound design to illustration, Tyyskä notes: ‘As I was developing the from interactivity to the transcription of overall concept for Guitar Shred Show, music. I knew that there wasn’t this type it was clear to me that I didn’t want to of content for guitarists on the Internet, create this for guitar players only. I didn’t so I saw an opportunity.’ want to just do a guitar lesson, I wanted to combine guitar playing with action and

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fantasy. I believe that the younger generation like they are actually playing. The animation I enjoy and get is more aware that animation can be pretty can also be quite unmusical in rhythm and more inspiration much anything. We are not used to seeing expression. This is something I really from low-budget animation used for everything yet, so don’t like in cartoons. With Mr Fastfinger made combining animation bravely with new choreography was also very important. by independent things can achieve interesting results and It had to go tightly together with all of artists than high- considerable attention.’ the riffs and licks. To get inspiration for end productions Inevitably, in attempting the choreography, I watched a lot of by big studios. to re-imagine how animation could facilitate music videos and live performances of Mika Tyyskä technical tuition, Tyyskä encountered Mr Fastfinger’s role models.’ problems, recognising that animating detailed As well as contemporary figure positions for chords was difficult, but guitar heroes, Tyyskä was influenced by the in essence, this wasn’t at the heart of how he visual styling of Genndy Tartakovsky’s viewed education: ‘I simply decided that my Samurai Jack, a seminal cartoon series in biggest mission with this project was to its self-conscious use of a range of graphic inspire everyone. For guitar players, it would design idioms. Crucially, Tyyskä feels that provide musical inspiration, even if I wasn’t his inspiration doesn’t really come from able to explain everything in detail. For a ‘top down’ model where established artists non-guitar playing visitors the inspiration and animators influence the next generation. can be found in the sensation of being able He believes in a ‘bottom up’ peer model, to jam like a guitar hero with the help of a which he can readily engage with through computer keyboard. the Internet: ‘One of my daily sources is ‘I had to resolve the biggest blogs such as www.drawn.ca, which focuses question, which was would anyone be on illustration, art, cartooning and . interested in taking a guitar lesson from a I enjoy and get more inspiration from low- cartoon character? To win the respect of budget animations made by independent guitar-playing users I did my best to make artists than high-end productions by big Mr Fastfinger as believable and as real a studios.’ Tyyskä has developed his project guitarist as possible. As a guitar player further by taking it into a live performance myself, I was able to create accurate context, noting that ‘there are plenty of finger animations. On typical cartoons, the possibilities for mixing cartoon fantasy characters just wave their hands on top of and real world.’ their instruments and it doesn’t really look

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Tyyskä recognises the importance of enabling guitarists to learn how to play using computer technologies that they may use every day at school, college and work. Mr Fastfinger embodies the shapes of contemporary rock guitarists and encourages empathy and interest in guitarists, music fans and the general public. This is reinforced by the creation of a fantasy world related to similar mythic and martial arts narratives, which are often appealing to a similar constituency of largely male participants.

Mr Fastfinger and Tyyskä jam together in a cartoon/real- world combination.

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THE BIGGER PICTURE

Tyyskä’s work and outlook point the way to It is still often the case that the increasing necessity to embrace cross- a hierarchical position is adopted about the disciplines not merely in graphic and visual status of certain work and of specific arts cultures, but in other areas of work and practices. The high/low culture debate education and, crucially, into an engagement persists despite considerable work, which has with the bigger picture. clearly evidenced the value and pertinence of There is often the tendency popular cultural forms in their own right. to create work based on personal However, even within arts culture itself, the preoccupations, or on formalist aesthetic graphic arts – comics, graphic narrative, enquiry, but it remains important to draw some aspects of graphic design, and certain upon major issues and debates from the ‘cartoonal’ forms – still have to argue for real world. Although a more contentious their status as ‘art’ as determined by statement, it is arguably the case that established arts culture criteria. This particular academic disciplines and discussion, overall, is engaging with this commercial contexts have significantly topic, but it is useful to address a particular narrowed their fields of enquiry in order to example that reconciles the use of a graphic preserve a set of presiding conditions about print form, which has been adapted as an what they might represent, and which in turn animation, draws upon a personal story, preserve the core identities and ideas that and yet speaks to important historical sustain a conceptual, aesthetic or market- and political issues. based status quo.

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THE BIG PICTURE

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KEYWORDS IN THIS SECTION Tyyskä’s work and outloo Politicisation the increasing necessity One of the assumptions of this discussion disciplines not merely in is the idea that contemporary culture is cultures, but in other are less interested in history and politics, privileging the ‘here and now’ and the education, and crucially, transient over what are arguably crucial with ‘the bigger picture’. and critical lessons from the past. This There is discussion suggests that the conscious use of animation – and related art forms to create work based on – can recover history and politicise the preoccupations, or on for personal and professional context. enquiry, but it remains im Modernism upon major issues and de While it has been argued that this is the era of postmodernity, and the triumph of real world’. Although a m postmodernism – effectively a decentred, statement, it is arguably de-historicised, de-authored world subject particular academic disc only to relativism, fragmentary ideologies and reflexive ironies – it is argued here commercial contexts hav that animation, in all its forms, succeeds narrowed their fields of in maintaining a modernist agenda in preserve a set of presidi promoting new languages of politically charged expression and artistic enterprise. what they might represe preserve the core identit sustain a conceptual, aes based status quo.

01

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VISUAL CULTURE: GRAPHIC DESIGN, GRAPHIC NARRATIVE, MOTION GRAPHICS

In the contemporary environment, to have a In many ways, this added particular stance about an issue is ironically a particular purpose to the development of sometimes perceived as limited and, in some Satrapi’s work, not merely politicising the senses, fixed. Alternatively, an insistence on personal, but using an approach that sought authorship is seen as a resistance to the popular audience, while nevertheless postmodern attempts to resist such an radicalising the expectations of the graphic identity. In this kind of culture, there can form she assumed it had. ‘After I finished be a tendency to dilute a point of view, or university, there were nine of us, all artists submit to a high degree of relativity, which and friends, working in a studio together. ultimately ceases to stand for anything. One That group finally said, “Do something with of the consequences of this can either be an your stories”. People always ask me, “Why ignorance of alternative points of view or a didn’t you write a book?” But that’s what prejudicial resistance to differing agendas, Persepolis is. To me, a book is pages related particularly beyond the exigencies of to something that has a cover. Graphic novels western cultures. are not traditional literature, but that does not mean they are second rate. Images are THE PERSONAL AS POLITICAL a way of writing. When you have the talent _ to be able to write and to draw it seems a Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis is a memoir shame to choose one. I think it’s better to about growing up in Iran. It offers an insight do both.’ characterised by the politicisation of her This is an interesting insight gender and race identity, and is charged with in itself, as it underlines how the traditional ideological challenge by virtue, first, of its literary text is still valued above graphic status as a graphic novel, and second, by its forms, but, as Satrapi points out: ‘We learn adaptation as an animated feature. Satrapi about the world through images all the time. recalls the 1979 revolution in Iran, when In the cinema we do it, but to make a film the Shah was removed from power: ‘This you need sponsors and money and 10,000 revolution was normal and it had to happen. people to work with you. With a graphic Unfortunately, it happened in a country where novel, all you need is yourself and your editor.’ people were very traditional, and other Learning about the world has been a key countries only saw the religious fanatics concern of this discussion so far, and who made their response public.’ Satrapi’s observation points out the Satrapi’s graphic novel importance of embracing and advancing shows a bigger picture of Iran beyond these visual literacy. It is not enough to merely received images and stereotypes. Of the intuitively understand visual models – to evolution of her graphic novel she says: ‘From be educated with them and through them the time I came to France in 1994, I was requires that the teaching of visual literacy always telling stories about life in Iran to has increased attention and primacy in a my friends. We’d see pieces about Iran on range of curricula. television, but they didn’t represent my experience at all. I had to keep saying, “No, it’s not like that there”. I’ve been justifying why it isn’t negative to be Iranian for almost 20 years.’

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– – – – Chapter 01 The disciplinary shift Visual culture: Graphic 040/041 Approaches and outlooks design, graphic narrative, The bigger picture motion graphics

Marjane Satrapi’s ground- breaking narrative about her upbringing in Iran has made the successful transition from graphic narrative to animated feature. It speaks to audiences about a lifestyle, culture and identity still largely unknown or misrepresented in the West.

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From Satrapi’s point of view, the conflict imperatives of the news media, That is why I wanted however, she stresses: ‘You have to have a to encourage a greater understanding people in other very visual vision of the world. You have to of other cultures, and to promote more countries to read perceive life with images otherwise it doesn't constructive initiatives in education through Persepolis, to see work. Some artists are more into sound; they shared knowledge. She adds: ‘If people are that I grew up just make music. The point is that you have to given the chance to experience life in more like other children. know what you want to say and find the best than one country, they will hate a little less. Marjane Satrapi way of saying it. It’s hard to say how It’s not a miracle potion, but little by little Persepolis evolved once I started writing. you can solve problems in the basement of I had to learn how to write it as a graphic a country, not on the surface. That is why novel by doing.’ I wanted people in other countries to read By evolving the work in this Persepolis, to see that I grew up just like way though, the artistic imperatives in the other children.’ novel were always allied to the desire to say something specific and challenging: ‘I'm a NEW AUDIENCES pacifist. I believe there are ways to solve the _ world’s problems. Instead of putting all this Like Tyyskä, Satrapi is finding an audience money to create arms, I think countries beyond the anticipated constituency. ‘It’s so should invest in scholarships for kids to study rewarding to see people at my book signings abroad. Perhaps they could become good and who never read graphic novels. They say that knowledgeable professors in their own when they read mine they became more countries. You need time for that kind of interested. If it opens these people’s eyes not change though. I have been brought up to believe what they hear, I feel successful.’ open-minded. If I didn’t know any people Crucially, this also bridges a culturally from other countries, I’d think everyone invested generational gap. was evil, based on news stories. But I know This becomes a crucial a lot of people and know that there is no aspect of Satrapi’s outlook with the graphic such thing as stark good and evil. Isn’t it novel’s adaptation into an animated film. The possible there is the same amount of work is reaching more audiences while not evil everywhere?’ sacrificing the original novel’s graphic look or Satrapi’s position here rightly its ideological content. Satrapi champions the shows how the power of the global media role of the artist as an open-minded, visually has shaped the ways in which people think of literate, yet philosophically engaged person, other cultures and philosophies, largely to the and it is this model of creative endeavour detriment of other nations characterised by that this discussion readily encourages. religious or political difference. Satrapi’s open-mindedness and creative sensibility is deployed, therefore, to use art to challenge

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– – – – Chapter 01 The disciplinary shift Visual culture: Graphic 042/043 Approaches and outlooks design, graphic narrative, The bigger picture motion graphics Art or ambience?

ART OR ART OR A AMBIENCE?

Tomato, a major international graphic design Tomato, a major internat company, has employed a version of ‘ambient company, has employed animation’, which is correspondent to the animation’, which is corre ‘nothing matters’ ambiguity of some ‘nothing matters’ ambigu modernist practices. Often, such work modernist practices. Oft enables companies to work successfully enables companies to wo in a corporate marketplace by making this a corporate marketplace ambiguity – saying nothing in a manner that ambiguity – saying nothi postures as good and particularly clever postures as good and par design – supplant the message. This is not design – supplant the me about being tame with what one says, but it about being tame with w is strategically about saying nothing at all. is strategically about say This can operate as a This can pertinent model – a postmodern pertinent model – a post impersonation of art – in itself. The nature impersonation of art – in of the intelligence and value of such work, of the intelligence and va of course, becomes questionable. Is such of course, becomes ques art, design and animation contributing to the art, design and animation dumbing down of the culture, but suggesting dumbing down of the cul that vacuity in the imagery is as valuable as that vacuity in the image authorially determined views? Given the authorially determined v insatiably hungry range of cross-platform insatiably hungry range o media eager to embrace content, sometimes media eager to embrace in whatever form, art or animation that does Animating banality or in whatever form, art or re-engaging with a modernist not pose a question of itself, or indeed idiom of ‘nothingness’, not pose a question of its attempt to answer one, may be simply commercial sequences can attempt to answer one, m encouraging opting out, not thinking and often be groundbreaking and encouraging opting out, n reflect some of the less not having a critically engaged sensibility. engaged aspects of not having a critically en This essentially defrauds the visual. contemporary culture. This essentially defrauds

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VING E AL ONS

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– – – 01 Teaching moving image culture 044/045 02 The politics of practice 03 Animation re-imagined 04 ‘Object React’ 05 From ideas to idioms THE POLITICS THE OF PRACTICE OF PR

046 AUTHORSHIP 046 AUTH 068 ATTITUDES AND ETHICS 068 ATTI 084 ARTIST ANIMATION? 084 ARTI

02 02

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AUTHORSHIP

Animation is made in numerous contexts, although assumptions that the cartoon from single-person, back-bedroom ‘studios’ is less artistically significant than more to major production houses. As a field, experimental works persists. By extension, therefore, it is characterised by a number of animators labelling themselves as models and definitions of authorship that can ‘independent’, or indeed ‘artists’, are deemed accommodate the terms ‘auteur’, ‘director’, more important than studio-based, more ‘artist’, ‘film-maker’, or simply, ‘animator’. collaborative, sometimes more commercially Further, it often acknowledges particular orientated, ‘animation directors’. It is roles as significant in the production process. regrettable that this apparent schism Only in recent times have the claims of the exists. Such hierarchies and dialectics are directors, animators and artists in the Fordist unnecessary and misrepresent the quality hierarchies of the major studios, such as across and between disciplines, styles Disney, Warner Bros and MGM, been viewed and approaches. as authorially relevant, and the achievements This discussion supports of independent animators and film-makers the view that animators, however named or properly evaluated. termed, or in whatever context they create This has meant that figures and distribute their work, have the same from the cartoon tradition – Tex Avery, Chuck status and are evaluated on the terms and Jones, Paul Driessen, Osamu Tezuka, Paul conditions of their achievements and Grimault, Dusan Vukotic and Pritt Parn, for contexts. Further, the discussion addresses example – share the same status as more how this re-imagines one or more aspects of experimental creatives such as Yuri Norstein, animation, and any of the assumptions or Norman McLaren, Alexandre Alexeieff, expectations that characterise the popular Kihachiro Kawamoto and Oskar Fischinger. or uninformed view of it. This encourages a unified and diverse understanding of animation as a form,

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– – – Chapter 02 Authorship 046/047 Attitudes and ethics Artist animation?

AUTHORS

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KEYWORDS IN THIS SECTION Animation is made in num Commerce from single-person, back It would be naïve to think about animation to major production hous production in all its guises outside of a therefore, it is character commercial context and the demands of the market economy. Clearly, animators of all models and definitions of kinds need to make a living and prepare accommodate the terms themselves in a variety of ways to enter the ‘artist’, ‘film-maker’, or s creative industry. This is not a homogenous thing, and indeed, should be understood as Further, it often acknowl the creative ‘industries’. This model roles as significant in the recognises the range of roles, functions, Only in recent times have needs and requirements of a number of working practices. There is not a rigid divide directors, animators and between art and commerce; one infrequently hierarchies of the major is the other; one can fund the other; one Disney, Warner Bros and is never removed from the other. as authorially relevant, a Culture The understanding and evaluation of animation of independent animator is largely determined by the culture properly evaluated. evaluating it. Popular culture generally This has perceives animation in the idiom of classic Disney, The Simpsons, Wallace and Gromit or from the cartoon traditio anime. Arts culture still resists the notion Jones, Paul Driessen, Os of animation. Educational culture has a mixed Grimault, Dusan Vukotic opinion of animation both in its various forms of production and its study. Animation example – share the sam struggles with its cultural place and experimental creatives s definition, remaining marginalised or Norman McLaren, Alexan ignored, while being ironically progressive and subversive in many of its idioms. Kihachiro Kawamoto and This encourages a unified understanding of animat

02

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ART AND COMMERCE

In the context of what might be said to THE CHILDREN’S AUDIENCE constitute great art (or indeed, just art), the _ great irony is that despite animation’s ability A high majority of mass-media animation to transcend political, geographical and is aimed at children and generally manifests generational barriers in conveying and itself in one of two distribution channels – delivering a message, it is still often viewed broadcast media or gaming. Animation as insubstantial and lightweight. Animation within gaming has been following familiar is still considered innocuous and juvenile, formats, but it has lately emerged as a despite its proven usefulness as a primary distinct and very interesting new strand: propaganda tool in Maoist , for example, behavioural training. or indeed its proven efficacy as a ubiquitous Nintendo’s Animal Crossing repressive and manipulative political tool in is a game aimed at the very young and Western corporate media. employs animation to foster specific social Equally, as a generally skills and life lessons in children. Animal replicable and distributable mass medium Crossing introduces capitalist values or form, animation has largely been deemed (working for a living, mortgages or undesirable by an art world immured in a consumerism) and a never-ending, but very different commercial model. This increasingly hard-to-achieve aspirational seeming innocuousness is very useful, level of luxury and opulence. Through it, and the acceptance of it as a distinctive one is schooled in social benevolence (for characteristic of the form by art culture, profit) and envy. There is no discernible end or immersion of it within the art world to the game, or indeed any real objective. and its commercial markets, is distinctly One simply climbs the property ladder undesirable. This is especially so if animation and experiences, accepts and actively is to be further groomed and maintained as perpetuates the obsolescence that a highly effective and (very interestingly) broadly drives consumerism. trustworthy medium for the delivery of corporate directives.

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– – – – Chapter 02 Authorship Art and commerce 048/049 Attitudes and ethics Artist animation?

Similarly, Nintendogs is also It is therefore not surprising In the light of rich in life lessons. One is taught the virtues that the art world is less inclined to take CGI, the persistent of patience and obedience, and is schooled in animation seriously when it has come to juvenilisation of aspiration and competition. In both games, largely embody a corporate language that, animation to lend however, there is an unseen but omnipresent unlike contemporary art, so obviously wears innocence and lesson in brand allegiance, a subliminal its industrial heart on its sleeve. Unlike the stealth to adult engendering of affection for a faceless washing powder claims of efficacy fed to agendas demands Japanese corporation. Interestingly, through mothers between Peppa Pig and LazyTown, understanding the adoption of the ‘cute’, both games are it is evidently somewhat hard to shift the and attention. particularly successful in disguising the traces of the original, corporate, industrial Johnny Hardstaff less-than-cute origins of the technology military agendas that conceived much of that they use. the technology used in contemporary Likewise, children’s mainstream animation, if the primary broadcasting proffers a seamless diet of life conflict-based concerns of gaming are lessons and codes of morality endemic to anything to go by. In the light of CGI, the Western orthodoxies that is designed persistent juvenilisation of animation to specifically to provide respite from, and lend innocence and stealth to adult agendas create a disingenuous context for, high- demands understanding and attention. impact political propaganda – television advertising. Where once advertising was peripheral to children’s television, the medium is now entirely dependent for its existence upon revenue streams from global industry. The majority of children’s animation exists as a ‘wholesome’ vehicle to dispense advertising messages – as well as to lend a perceived innocence, frivolity and innocuousness. Television advertising takes this a step further by adopting the language of animation to dress its directives in primary colours and unlikely physics.

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COMMERCE AS ART

Beyond children’s television programming, frustration (pre-CGI) of not being able to Of all the objects we the heaviest use of animation is without hone imagery of the highest ‘artistic’ quality. had to choose from in doubt to be found in corporate advertising This former desire, once sated, has borne a the Object React and promotion. Through recent technological practice. Arguably, in an age defined by the project, I found the developments, the tools and processes of post-war engineering of BMW et al, that statue, Kharamukha animation have been largely adopted and highest aesthetic is often best embodied in Samvara, the most defined by graphic designers, as if by default. the physical output of mass-production. CGI visually stimulating – The designer’s transition from ‘commercial technology offers this aesthetic mimicry to it looks like a freeze artist’ to ‘director’ has not been without those who wield it. Electronic media offers frame from a soap implications or repercussions. It has had a the opportunity to play at an industrially opera cliffhanger. significant impact upon the direction and the determined aesthetic level that has in some Selina Steward underpinning ethos of graphic design and way – largely through the efficacy of what were once modernist roots steeped advertising – come to represent excellence. in social value and social change. From From the mid-1990s until television advertising through to online very recently, animation appeared to be on promotions and onwards to architectural the cusp of a revolution at the hands of a visions of future corporate ventures, it is new group of users who, through ignorance the graphic designers who are often driving and lack of formal animation training, and animation, despite the heaviest use of unencumbered with any great legacy of animation now being largely servile in process, were suddenly and widely working its purpose. in moving graphic image. Animation became more prevalent, and this ‘digital revolution’ THE NEW GRAPHIC DESIGN in moving image became most notably _ embodied in a raft of media organisations, Designer/directors are not, broadly speaking, such as Resfest, Onedotzero and the large imparting messages of social value. They are number of ‘animators’ that they championed. less activists, and more like industrial However, the graphic designers were widely messengers. They may package the message, uncomfortable with the term ‘animation’. but they do not design its content or its They felt that the term did not represent meaning. Graphic design has become the what they were doing, and that it failed to natural home of digital animation, and in turn, recognise that they were doing something graphic design has therefore become an different to, and significantly more industrially directed service industry. It is progressive than, the worlds of Peppa important to consider why this has happened. Pig and Toy Story. Designers have perpetually chased authentic Preparatory materials for and refined aesthetics, born from a former Selina Steward’s Kharamukha Samvara project.

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In adopting the John- common commercial approach to subversion Whitney-Sr-coined ‘motion graphics’ (his and dissent, which is namely to undermine electronic film-making company ‘Motion through appropriation and consumption. Graphics’ was formed in 1960) some 35 The same magazine profiles JWT’s new years later, designers had taken a once- state-of-the-art post-production division – experimental definition and applied it in a www.thenursery.tv – a unit designed to fundamentally flawed manner, failing to generate animated shorts for ‘the kind of recognise both the sheer breadth of existent young male viewer who is spending more media and the potential within not only time watching shorts on YouTube and animation, but also graphic design itself. Most Google Video than sitting through TV ads.’ tellingly, in dropping the word ‘design’ from It goes on: ‘Within JWTwo, the definition, ‘motion graphics’ also dropped the ad industry’s largest and most the process of design from its animation technologically advanced in-house production activities and instead largely focused on an unit, is a New York-based romper room for over-reliance upon corporate software to art school graduates – hand-drawing and deliver message-free, ‘content-lite’ material. digital animators, line artists and illustrators. In so doing, corporate policy invaded the Together they create the kind of raw, digital vernacular and the aesthetic of what should animation that will take hold on social media Selina Steward immediately have been, and what was once, counter- sites and allow JWTwo to learn more about recognised in the Kharamukha culture. The messages of Honda were now how media is shared online.’ JWTwo Director Samvara a tension between its dramatic possibilities, brought to you courtesy of Autodesk, and the of Emerging Media, David Rosenberg, notes its aesthetics and its messages of despair or change were barely that through creating these ‘anarchic’ and symbolic intention brought to you at all, and if they were, they ‘irreverent’ animations, the important thing Interestingly, it was the aesthetic aspects were shaped by one of only three major it does for JWT is build relationships with that were initially more software developers. video-swapping sites: ‘To be able to pick up important as there was In the advertising agency the phone, speak to someone at Google or a direct correspondence between the sense of JWT’s (J Walter Thompson) in-house YouTube and get preferential treatment geometric plasticity magazine JWT Now, Aart Jan van Triest, is going to benefit our clients when it and artifice in the brass Vice President of Marketing Foods, Unilever comes time to apply lessons learned to statuette and the specific kinds of representational Asia/China, explains how they prepare for their business.’ forms available in the unexpected, and what role innovation Though these forms of computer animation. plays in this: ‘We prepare for the unexpected creation and distribution may appeal to by staying connected to what I call the “dark some people wishing to work in the creative side” of society – by understanding people industries, there is considerable concern who live out-of-the-ordinary lives, who about the content generated. As notions of already live parts of life that will become subversion and counter-culture persist, it mainstream in the future.’ Indeed, and whilst seems that the revolution will not only be flippantly expressed in the language of Star televised, it will be streamed, screened and Wars, within this reference we see the podcast, but it will also be entirely without

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substantive opposition, or recognition of Artists have to find a way of alternative perspectives. To achieve within working that is either complicit with the tools this context takes a significant re-imagining and outlooks that they are afforded, or find of possibilities and potential. some way of subverting these models, either The democratisation of through a different kind of manipulative software has been principally held up as a technique, or more likely through the ways significant contributor to the development in which established image cultures might This correspondence served of motion graphics and the liberation of be challenged or reconfigured. the dual purpose of creating a contemporary visual styling creative talent, but democratisation is Selina Steward, in part, to the piece, while equally somewhat of a misnomer in this instance. addresses this in her work on the speaking to the Dalai Lama’s Whilst CGI technology has been made more Kharamukha Samvara, a Tibetan deity, stated intention that in the face of Chinese occupation widely available, it is characterised by the often represented through brass statuettes, following the 1949 military presence and influence of a limited number one of which she based her animation upon: coup, artefacts should embody of large software developers. Indeed, the ‘A statue of a rare Tibetan Buddhist deity Buddhist teachings and reach an extended audience through level of corporate control over moving from the highest level of tantric teaching, their aesthetic appeal. graphic aesthetics is not something that the ass-headed Samvara, embracing of the Ultimately, there is some other genres of animation have either “Wheel of Supreme Bliss”, represents the irony in this as the Samvara is a sacred, contemplative been restrained by or so obviously visually transcendence that results from tantric object; its shift both in infected with. meditation. He is in sexual union with context, and ultimately in This is important in the ways his consort Vajravarahi, symbolising its representational status as an animated object, in which other approaches might be imagined enlightenment through the blissful union inevitably changes the and executed. Evidently, this may be one of of compassion and wisdom. Under one meaning as well as the effect the first revolutions that has occurred from foot he crushes a female figure, Kalarati, of the object as a symbol. Steward suggests: ‘The the top down. Arguably, this controlled and “Night of Time”, who represents nirvana – Samvara is a deity for manufactured revolution, with its origins in liberation from suffering. Under the other Buddhist meditation; the corporate governance, finds its exponents foot he crushes the male figure of Bhairava embodiment of a philosophy and a role model for the unwittingly substituting the possible visual the Terrifier, who represents Samsara – person meditating; an languages of a counter-culture for that of the cycle of life and death.’ idealised form of the Buddha an ongoing succession of software releases. he aspires to become. The privilege of viewing the How should artists and animators respond object is usually reserved to this seeming contradiction? for practitioners who have received the appropriate initiations. The object depicts fierce rites of destruction and sexual yoga and was kept restricted so that the uninitiated could not misinterpret the dramatic symbolism.’

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Steward continued her about obtaining enlightenment research on the piece more quickly. The tradition in order to facilitate not in Tibetan art is to merely the dramatisation of represent multiple layers of the symbolic ideas in her information in one piece, and animation, but to engage with it can be a visual overload. Buddhist teachings in the I wanted to simplify the service of narrative: ‘I imagery.’ In literally intended to show the object calling the object into being “called into action” action, Steward deploys and attempted to divulge animation to interrogate some of its secret wisdom. the image systems at the I wanted to play on the heart of Buddhist thought. misconceptions that prevented Revealing some aspects the object from being of the metaphors at play revealed; what looks like in the statuette also gratuitous violence is prompts other layers of actually the fight to end interpretation, particularly suffering, and what looks for Western audiences. like seduction is really

The final piece is insightful and reveals a philosophical and spiritual outlook, while equally foregrounding the graphic design and art-led computer- generated idioms of the contemporary era. The work has an elevated mystical sensibility and a genuine correspondence to progressive animated film. There is some irony in the observation of two Tibetan lamas from the Jamgon Kongtrul Labrang, who, although not well-versed in or the possibilities of animation, after seeing the piece, noted that ‘everything comes from and dissolves into emptiness’.

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Selina Steward’s engagement with her object prompted a range of narrative options, which she suggests through her dramatic and aesthetic choices.

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The rise of dominant corporate aesthetics by ‘meeting industries’ needs’ – not redefining corresponds with the emergence of or refining industrial needs, nor even postmodernity and the conditions of challenging them, but instead meeting postmodernism. Anathema to graphic them – surely an impossibility in the light design’s modernist roots, the validity of of the diversity of the creative industries? saying literally anything that postmodernism has seemingly permitted and validated, has CHALLENGING EDUCATORS essentially devalued everything. Suddenly, _ it has become far easier to say nothing and This discussion suggests that it is crucial to even this has been embraced by postmodern challenge and question the complicit stance aesthetics. A model of conservatism has that educational institutions sometimes take ensued. A culture of saying very little has in this respect. Formerly, it would not have evolved, if not actively and purposefully, been unlikely for once radicalised arts-based and where once within graphic design, for institutions to be the sole place looked to example, success might have been expected for innovation and ingenuity. It is important (the optimism of Ken Garland might be a good that arts education resists surrender and in place to start) it is now often consigned to a some ways challenges its financial sponsors mere gesture, which sometimes will not only and clients with less reactionary agendas suffice, but be treated as positively radical. and perspectives. Within the field of animation, this is made yet Arguably, the commercial more complex by the variety of work, which industrial arena is not a forum where new, on the one hand receives the validation of dangerous or innovative things happen. Nor arts culture, while on the other, is dismissed indeed do socially benevolent things happen as mere ‘cartoon’, even in its newly within industry, unless there is a significant configured computer-aided, facilitated profit to be made at the expense of other or modelled forms. things. If the new, the dangerous and the Further, the animation innovative cannot happen in educational industry, at one and the same time a contexts then they cannot happen at all. production context in its own right and The great irony is, of course, that this is a utilitarian application and language of happening at a time when individuals do have communication permeating virtually all other unprecedented access to remarkable means creative and corporate production, apparently of creation and global, uncensored mass- determines how animation should be media distribution. The opportunity for a understood. This problem often underpins political voice to be heard is now as never how educational contexts determine their before. The author has been facilitated, but ethos and delivery, which is predicated the impetus needs to be taken up, explored inevitably on measuring future success and meaningfully engaged with.

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Thorsten Ulbrich’s work seeks 1930s and the Second World to create a contemporary War. This intends to be a metaphor about modern-day study suggesting that Germany that reflects some contemporary Germany is aspects of its deeply imbued with the effects of problematic, political, the past, even as it tries ideological and humanitarian to forget, move on and issues during the period of find salvation in its National Socialism in the modern culture.

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Thorsten Ulbrich has worked professionally something I could reflect upon and say the For me, creativity as a designer, developed works in educational most about. The book was written in pre-Nazi represents a contexts and undertaken personal projects, Germany (1929) and was meant as a warning Weltanschauung – being preoccupied by the questions of how against the upcoming regime and its politics. an attitude towards best to create work and the social agenda of As a German born in 1974, I was educated the world. There is the work itself. about the Third Reich; nevertheless I still room for personal, He recalls: ‘I had worked for have many unanswered questions about the emotional, daring, some years as a designer and seen different time. My parents were born in 1939 and my original and uncommon approaches to problems in art and graphic grandparents were in their thirties during approaches in design design. As a student, I was very concerned the Second World War, so I am fortunate and it can make sense about the narrow-minded, market-driven to have always learned about the period to favour individuality concepts expressed at my college. Depending from personal accounts from them. I never against conformity and on the clients, briefs or intentions of the really thought about it like that until recently, mass compatibility. artist, there can be unhelpful market-made but I would have liked to talk with my Thorsten Ulbrich constraints, or simply the will of the client grandparents about certain issues, such as can often dictate the outcome of a work. the question of their possible “guilt”, for But I consider art and design as a vehicle to example. But they are both dead now and provide a creative solution to a given problem. there will never be a chance again.’ There are more creative disciplines allied to He adds: ‘I know from my art or design, from writing to acting to grandfather that it was a difficult time for animating, and so on. For me, creativity him, in the beginning of the Nazi regime. represents a Weltanschauung – an attitude He fought the Nazis as a member of the towards the world. There is room for Reichsbanner, a social democratic alliance to personal, emotional, daring, original and protect the Republic. Later he had to join the uncommon approaches in design and German army, fighting for the Nazi ideology it can make sense to favour individuality simply to protect his wife and two sons from against conformity and mass compatibility.’ repression and punishment for not obeying There is some irony in the the orders. Now that I have reached a certain fact that Ulbrich’s film, Deutschland, age, I am interested more and more in how Deutschland über Alles, looks at this very the average German felt during the time, tension, but from the highly charged and people like my grandparents or my parents, complex perspective of the nature of not the familiar faces portrayed in the media. resistance to oppressive and conformist The book deals a lot with doing the right thing regimes and, most particularly, the Nazi at a difficult time and standing up for your regime in Germany before and throughout the values and opinions. It was written before Second World War, a subject close to his own the Nazis came to power and Tucholsky is background and interest: ‘As soon as I saw widely acknowledged for his early prophetic the book, Deutschland, Deutschland über warnings. His daring texts, together with the Alles by Kurt Tucholsky, I knew it was montages of John Heartfield, went against

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the grain and totally polarised many readers, learned from past experience how to protect yet still managed to be constructive and ourselves from mass demagogy, whatever it positive in their suggestions.’ may try to influence us with.’ Interestingly, these stands Ulbrich’s approach, however, against prevailing and oppressive regimes sought to use animation to partly re-animate have characterised a great deal of animation history and to draw attention to the both during the Second World War and the manipulation of the media in the facilitation oppressive intervention of the Soviet Union of the mass consumption of ideological in countries of the Eastern bloc. Animators principles. This enabled him to work with almost uniformly made abstract or contemporary graphic design and animation metaphorical works, which in their lack of idioms to explore how similar kinds of an explicit position and their condition as inculcation occur in relation to late capitalist animation – understood as an innocent societies. Using antiquated and medium even then – subverted the system outmoded graphics as an image of ‘modernity and avoided suppression. Although artists gone wrong’, Ulbrich points out the complicity such as Jan Svankmajer in of arts cultures and mass media in found their work banned, the work of reinforcing and ‘en-culturing’ a particular artists in Zagreb, for example, worked status quo, privileging those in power. Terry without censure.(1) Gilliam once remarked that although the Ulbrich wanted to relate future was supposed to look like the Tucholsky’s ideas to the present day and modernist city of Things to Come, it actually create a narrative that reflected enduring looks like the cluttered, often unkempt and issues: ‘Upon reading the book, I felt like it disorganised, uniformly overstocked shopping hadn’t lost any of its power. Everything is still mall.(2) Ulbrich’s abstraction of the key pertinent to the politics, economy and society issues is unashamedly committed to making of today. Looking at neo-liberal politics and the viewer think about the work and not trade policies, the educational system, the become complicit in an explicit or too easily decline of moral values, religious extremism accessible narrative. This, of course, and fundamentalism, hegemony and is creative risk. Ulbrich adds that: ‘The demagogy, I often feel that these are downside of this approach, though, is that it dangerous developments, leading to a demands a lot of attention of the audience possible catastrophe. I think it is important in order to be readable and understandable, and interesting to deal with the question of which is something that we have lost as a how to make up one’s own mind in a system consequence of the mass media and the of blind faith and mainstream acceptance. constraints of our fast-paced world.’ Significant differences between today’s society and that of the 1920s and 1930s notwithstanding, I think that we could have

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Most of the animators and problematises the way it might be taught and artists participating in this discussion see made influential. One only has to watch one their work in a spirit that foregrounds art cinematic gaming interlude to recognise the as an important presence in its own right, deeply undesirable effects of not enabling offering insight and revelation about material animation to develop a unique and strong culture and alternative perspectives about body of critical theory, given that the the human condition. These are clearly social manipulated moving image – animation in values and not those predicated on the needs all its applications – is our most culturally of industry. While such practitioners value ubiquitous visual manifestation. Ironically, the importance of animation in these animation is arguably the victim of an respects – and this is the case across the enduring hierarchy in the traditional arts. history of animation – animation has often There are often misleading assumptions been marginalised from key academic about its purpose and effect; even more debates and contexts. Film studies and so as animation is the core visual film theory within the Academy has often language in an age when messages can absented animation from critical dialogues, be conveyed in the subliminal blink of an which is at the very least curious given the eye, while the relevance of cinema is range that animation has and the uses to increasingly challenged. which it is put, and in an era where film Animation is repeatedly studies is in danger of losing its object to underestimated and this discussion seeks the post-photographic, digital world. to stress the importance of understanding animation within contemporary society. ANIMATION: A DISPUTED DISCIPLINE If animation has been co-opted for the _ purposes of merely delivering corporate When animation is addressed, it is often agendas or the mere aesthetics of difference, looked at in the context of cinema. This then then it remains crucial to remember what immediately limits the way it might be animation might deliver as a language of understood, how it might extend its potential, free expression and possible subversion. and the applications it might embrace or – inform. The other aspect to this is that, – given the diversity of animation as a form, – it can find itself delivered in a variety of REFERENCES 1.Wells, P. (1998) environments within educational institutions, Understanding Animation, from computer science to media studies to London and New York: art and design. While on the one hand this Routledge 2.Interview with Paul Wells, recognises the place of animation in a range December 1994 of significant contexts and disciplines, it also dilutes its presence and focus as a discipline in its own right. While this has to be accepted and developed as a way of extending the field of animation studies, it significantly

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CORPORATE CRITIQUE, PERSONAL VISIONS

In the light of the rise of corporate idioms old stuff just gets thrown out. We should be and the expectations implicitly at the heart expanding our toolbox when we add new of this, the personal responses and outlooks technologies to it, not subtracting at the of individual artists become increasingly same time. So instead of having 100 years’ significant and valuable. While this is not worth of amazing film-making toys to play necessarily political or aesthetic resistance with, artists today are working with software as such, it is, nevertheless, a necessary and cameras that are rarely more than a few response to dominant models and the years old and that bothers me because it intrinsic conservatism of supposedly means all these artists have little choice but progressive imagery. Don Hertzfeldt, in to essentially work from the same palette – films such as Rejected and Everything Will and in animation especially, you begin to Be OK, represents an excellent example of notice how everyone’s movies sort of start Don Hertzfeldt’s breakthrough a positive engagement with this climate to look and feel the same.’ success, Rejected, makes a of creativity. Hertzfeldt is a self-trained stinging comment on the animator who initially worked on VHS. While banality and facile nature of American commercial TRADITIONAL HARDWARE at film school he was drawn to animation as culture and its implied moral _ it was a cheaper form to work in: ‘I think and ideological agendas. Hertzfeldt re-imagines animation in the I've always approached animation from a contemporary era by going back to basics. strange angle, a bit like a regular film-maker, He notes: ‘I shoot everything on a beautiful who just happens to animate. Editing, writing, old animation camera that was probably built sound, direction, those are the things that in the late 1940s. Now I guess I’m one of usually come first in my head. Animation the last people on earth shooting animation is often just the busy work I need to traditionally on 35mm film like this, which get through to connect the dots and tell is a scary thought because I simply could the story. not have made my last few movies without ‘In theory, animation is this camera. Many of the visuals, not just the purest way to make a movie. You can all the experimental shots, would have been physically craft every frame of the picture impossible to capture digitally and extremely by hand and that is a really powerful thing. difficult, if not impossible, to simulate in You’re not forced to make compromises – a computer. you’re not limited by the weather, an actor’s ‘Digital tools do certain performance, or running out of time on set. things very well and film cameras do other Animators are free from all those restraints certain things very well. One will never be of ‘reality’, yet historically, animation has “better” than the other, they’re just different, been the most misunderstood of all film and but there’s a herd mentality in the industry. media. Early on it was branded a children’s Digital is everywhere today not because it is format and most animated films today are a fundamentally better format, but because only made to sell toys. Others are little more it is cheaper and easier. In many ways it is than technology test reels. Ironically, places more practical and that’s to be expected, where you’ll find animators are places where there’s nothing wrong with that, but when they are asked to achieve photorealism, everybody stampedes in one direction you rather than get away from it! It is a bit rarer start hearing meaningless statements such now to actually find animators who are really as “film is dead” or “2D is dead”, and all the free to explore.’

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Rejected, one of Hertzfeldt’s most notable films, engages with the limitations of the broadcasting and corporate cultures with regard to the opportunities supposedly afforded to film-makers and artists. Creating a mock set of interstitials for The Family Learning Channel and advertisements for mainstream broadcast, Hertzfeldt critiques both the commercial and ideological cultures of contemporary broadcasting, noting that: ‘It was probably inevitable for that film to grow political from early on. Usually, most of the deeper themes form themselves while I work, with very little conscious effort. Sometimes I don’t notice a lot of them myself until long after I’ve finished, but that all bubbled to the surface pretty quickly with Rejected. I was 22 when I began the film and getting really disillusioned with how much American corporations and consumer culture were basically just ruining everything in the world. I was having some success with my films and beginning to get many commercial offers, but I was annoyed by them, annoyed that it was sort of expected of me to successfully attract corporate America and make mobile phone commercials for them. Call it my rebellious stage I guess. ‘I still find ads to be essentially antisocial and insulting. I could never contribute to that world and I didn’t really need their money anyway. Luckily, my budgets have always been very low, but moreover, you have these movies in your head Hertzfeldt plays out his his central character and and you have to get them out, and often it deep-rooted anxieties, fears convey the increasing lack and passion in Everything of control and coherence seems like that’s all that matters. I’d be Will Be OK, which expresses within the character as he making these same short films if I were a psychological and emotional tries to maintain his focus states in a range of and identity. As in all vignettes and abstract Hertzfeldt’s work, this designs. The panels represent becomes both a tragic the sense of multiple and comic experience. impressions and thoughts that simultaneously visit

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retired millionaire, or if I had to work three Digital is everywhere day jobs to support them. Not working on one today not because it is of my own things just so I could waste time a fundamentally better animating a deodorant ad for somebody else format, but because it just never made sense.’ is cheaper and easier. There are some clear themes When everybody and preoccupations across Hertzfeldt’s films, stampedes in one and these are always in some way a direction you start reflection of Hertzfeldt’s anxiety about the hearing meaningless times he lives in: ‘Sometimes you’re putting statements such as on screen the things that scare you and when ‘film is dead’ or ‘2D you get through the film on the other side, is dead’, and all the sometimes you’re not afraid of them old stuff just gets anymore, or maybe you understand them thrown out. better. I guess it’s probably the same for Don Hertzfeldt painters who paint not so much for the sake of whatever the end result may be, but because they’re expressing something, and working something personal out in the process.’ Everything Will Be OK is essentially a summation of this – it reflects Hertzfeldt’s fear of death itself. However, he suggests that: ‘Comedy’s essential, even in a dramatic film, it oils everything. It’s the sugar you give the audience to make the medicine go down easier. Other times it lowers their guard and lets deeper things sneak in through the side door. New technologies come and go, but good writing will always be progressive. If the ideas are solid, it doesn’t matter how you’re putting them, but the way you put them.’ Hertzfeldt’s anti-corporate, anti-herd approach to technology, and his tragic-comic stance, makes his a unique vision in the animation field.

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COLLABORATION AND PURPOSE

Myriam Thyes, in her online and public screen in public areas: I created and painted new collaborative project Flag Metamorphoses, designs and symbols on flags and hung them worked with a number of other artists and beside and between official flags. In the last animators to play out ideological and political three years, I started working again with preoccupations as they were embodied in the themes I had used before in painting, drawing symbols and aesthetic resonance of national and photo assemblies, but this time flags. Thyes explains: ‘For the last 15 years with animation.’ my themes have dealt with symbols, myths Working in such a direct and and visual signs from architecture, politics, politicised way, Thyes saw the opportunity to films or religions. My works are explorations embrace both a democratic approach to the of their meanings – a questioning, a creation of work responsive to a core theme reassessment, a “destabilisation” and a while engaging with other artists, but also in creation of new associations. In order to relation to its dissemination to a global undermine entrenched representations, I audience on the World Wide Web: ‘Thanks to work directly with them to develop them the Internet, I got the idea and possibility to further, transform them and then juxtapose open the flag animation project to other them against new representations. I use artists, and so it started growing. Flag animation, abstraction, collage and found Metamorphoses lays stress on the relations footage (video stills) to present critical views between nations as changing ones: only in the of the current political, (psycho-) social, permanent recreation of values, symbols and cultural and religious systems. I reconsider ways of life, in mixing with others and abstraction and graphical aesthetics as a differing from others, that identities, cultures means of critique in our over-saturated media and societies stay alive. I gather as many culture, proposing that simplicity and individual and international points of view imagination can still move us.’ about flags as possible. I approach artists, Thyes’s work is a very designers and whoever is interested in particular response to what she describes contributing to Flag Metamorphoses, a very human ‘double wish’ to have both through mailing lists, websites, personal an individual identity and yet belong to a invitations, lectures, workshops, Since 1995, China has lost bigger group, often represented through presentations of the project in exhibitions more than six million nations, which are themselves ‘imagined and festivals, and every possible way.’ hectares of arable land to communities’. On her choice of flags as Inevitably, this level of cities, factories, roads and deserts. At the same time, iconic stimuli, Thyes recognises that their engagement prompts differing approaches soya bean imports from Brazil symbolism often endures beyond the actual and levels of interrogation. The political to China have increased conditions a nation lives through, sometimes level looks at relationships between 10,000 per cent. The pulses are now by far the most remaining largely aspirational: ‘Flags have neighbouring countries, colonial ties and important item on the become very significant again during the cultural imperialism. On the other hand, bilateral balance sheet. last few years – in sports, politics and the artistic level examines the collapse and Myriam Thyes addresses these issues symbolically fundamentalist propaganda. In 1996 and revision of largely geometric forms into more in her film. 1997, I worked with flags as installations amorphous, organic and fluid configurations.

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Thyes herself has created a number of flag transitions – one dealing with the Spanish invasion of ; another the centrality of Calcutta to the religious, cultural and economic tensions between and Bangladesh; further, the colonial exploitation of the Congo by Belgium and its Western affiliates. Much of the Flag Metamorphoses deals with conflicts as this was the original context in which the flag found its purpose. It is Thyes’s view that ‘peace can only be achieved and maintained if people can create, celebrate and adapt their own symbols of identity, and respect the symbols of others.’ _IRONY AND EXPLOITATION British digital artist, Rona Innes has created a flag metamorphosis addressing the relationship between Malawi and Mozambique, where internal strife – flooding, drought, endemic poverty and overwhelming debt – has contributed to the ease with which colonial exploitation of rich mineral resources has taken place. Innes uses the common colours and forms in the flags of the two nations to play with the irony that the Rona Innes’s reflection on countries’ pride in their landscape and the neighbouring countries resources – including uranium, gemstones of Malawi and Mozambique and gold – has been significantly undermined focuses on the colonisation and exploitation by the by warfare, extreme climates and the actions British and Portuguese. of the Portuguese in Mozambique, and the The subsequent inability British in Malawi. In both, black represents to sustain economic growth, or be free of debt, and the the people of the African continent, and attentions of indifferent green symbolises the land and the enduring global brokers are also evidence of the maintenance of nationhood. issues that are addressed.

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In both flags, red is colonising influences as the subject and concerned with the struggles for liberation object of his piece. It begins with the original from colonial oppressors and is associated Chinese flag of the late emperors; the flags In Barry Roshto’s film, the with the blood of the martyrs in the cause of and related symbols of the French colonial pre-1876 Chinese flag with freedom. The difference in the intrinsic oppressors; Vietnam’s own internal divisions its emperor dragon conveys the emergent impact of the outlook of the countries is best expressed and preferred identities related to the rise of People’s Republic and the through the symbols on the flags, though: the Viet Minh; and the inevitable shadow strength of South Vietnam, Malawi’s rising sun suggests the dawn of of the , along with the impact which is symbolised in the red spot. hope and freedom for the whole of Africa, of the Vietnam War. while Mozambique’s rifle, hoe and open book Myriam Thyes recognised offer a mixed message of a belief in literacy, that the key concept of changing cultures democracy and working the land, facilitated was readily revealed through the use of by militarist defensiveness and authority. animation’s core language of metamorphosis, The Mozambique flag is the only flag to and in the way animation could reveal and yet feature a rifle. challenge the dense meanings embedded in German-based American national image systems: ‘Animation is a artist, Barry Roshto, has created a piece wonderful and perfect way to express called Red and Yellow, which deals with the transformations and recreations. The evolution of the Vietnamese flag and notes: abstract and graphical language of Flash ‘One of the most formidable events of my fits with flags and other symbols. When The fleur-de-lys and Marianne childhood and teenage years in southern USA working with Flash, I can look at the result are symbols for the French was a conflict which I had absolutely nothing immediately and make changes quickly – this Republic and the struggle of the ordinary citizen. to do with. It happened in a place that I have resembles drawing, painting or other direct These intrinsic French never visited, involving a nation of people techniques. Some people may think animation symbols impacted on and with which I have had very little contact. doesn’t support art because they only know influenced Vietnamese peasant lives. But the war in Vietnam, with all of its the commercial use of it, but even in the traumatic effect on US society, is only a brief commercial sector, Japanese anime feature episode in the ancient and ongoing struggle films contain a lot of artistic imagination.’ of the Vietnamese people. This struggle is Conceptually, Thyes felt that evident in the evolution of the Vietnamese the best results might be achieved if the flag. Although it has taken on diverse form, metamorphoses themselves took place borrowed symbolic content from colonial within a single frame: ‘What I have in mind powers, and remains a subject of heated is generally one changing image, not a film debate even today, there is a central thematic with scenes and cuts. I prefer morphs and thread: red blood and yellow skin.’ transformations, a scene that develops by Roshto sophisticatedly uses metamorphoses and replacements of objects the changing flags that have emerged out of and shapes, in order to avoid the change of Buddhist ideologies begin to Vietnam’s complicity with, and resistance to, the complete image at once. conflict with French cultural identity. It is epitomised in the juxtaposition of a Buddhist prayer pagoda and a winged dagger from a French paratrooper’s badge.

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FORMALIST APPROACHES St Joseph’s Cathedral in _ Hanoi, styled after Notre This use of the formalist limits of the frame, Dame in Paris. while addressing the conditions of transition and meaning within it, reflects Thyes’s background and identity as a visual artist. The particular influence of Russian constructivism and the work of the Bauhaus movement are reflected in her collage technique and political satire. Her cinematic influences are also pertinent: ‘I like Pedro Almodóvar French colonial power is for his photography, his image composition challenged and undermined and his use of colours, and, of course, for by Vietnamese resistance, his deep humour. I also like the experimental epitomised here in the myriad of tunnels created by the and rhythmical films of Maya Deren, and the Vietnamese in order to mixture between video and animation. transport resources and I admire films such as Antz or as facilitate guerrilla warfare. This approach undermined both intelligent entertainment, but visually it is French and American military not what I’m looking for when it comes to and political power. new experiences in animation. I think there is much more to explore and there are many undiscovered possibilities in animation.’ An image symbolising the vying tensions between residue French colonialism, the rise of Vietnamese communism and the schisms of political tension and conflict.

Roshto composed an American flag using the icons of the fallen soldier and prisoner of war (helmet, rifle and a bowed head) to allude to the 56,000 killed or missing in action. The starless (stateless) blue section symbolises the four million lost vietnamese.

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ATTITUDES AND ETHICS

Animation can often be treated as the the resistance of animators living under ‘innocent child’ of contemporary media, repressive regimes or through periods perhaps due to the seemingly juvenile uses of conflict, seems a thing of the past, it is largely put to (albeit in the service of despite the need for more alternative distinctly adult agendas). This association is and oppositional perspectives. Culturally, still regularly bound up with the perception of there is a sense of ‘de-historicisation’ in the the cartoon – animated features mainly made fragmentary conditions of postmodernity. to appease younger audiences – and many Humankind needs the stop-motion series made for television. cultural and historical background of In the digital era, and in an existence, recording, examining, processing, age in which animation is understood as a preserving and re-examining in order to mature arts medium, it can be deemed a resist the loss of identity. With the loss stance. A temporal record of a psychological of identity, there is nothing to calibrate state. An emotional memory. Effectively, ourselves against. Without the capacity an invocation of mind. Either radicalised for assessment, then there can be no or complicit, it is the animation and resistance. Arguably, humankind in the realisation of our dreams. It is the animus. West is witnessing the steady erosion of It is breathing life. It is the internalised the capacity for dissent, and there is a animation of our thoughts made external. need to realign more animated art However, our animated political thoughts are and film with politics, ideology and rarely ever made external. The generation of material culture. patently political animation, represented in

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ATTITUD ETHICS

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KEYWORDS IN THIS SECTION Animation can often be t Radical ‘innocent child’ of contem Art has always sought to reflect, idealise, perhaps due to the seem interrogate and reveal culture; in turn it is largely put to (albeit it has comforted, disturbed, elevated and challenged in equal measure. In an distinctly adult agendas) increasingly fragmented world, arts still regularly bound up w cultures speak to niche audiences, and the cartoon – animated f experimentation in the form of a recognised avant-garde has been made relative and to appease children’s aud specific. To achieve a radical perspective stop-motion series made in these conditions is increasingly In the d difficult, but can be achieved through a re-engagement with ideology, ethics age in which animation is and aesthetics. mature arts medium, it c Re-contextual documentary stance. A temporal recor Animation has always embraced documentary state. An emotional mem forms. The apparent artifice and illusionism of the animated form is reconciled with the an invocation of mind. Eit non-fictional parameters of the documentary or complicit, it is the anim form by prioritising the subjective realisation of our dreams intervention in representing social and cultural issues. These ‘naïve’ authorial It is breathing life. It is t voices re-contextualise documentary codes animation of our thought and conventions. They prioritise personal However, our animated p perspectives; reposition received knowledge in the form of ‘grand narratives’, and rarely ever made externa respect different forms of knowledge and patently political animat different versions of the truth.

02

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Essentially, there is a dominant approaches have occurred – the We are just staging contradiction – in what should be a period use of testimony (interview, confession, ourselves as artists of divergence and opportunity, there is observation); the use of actuality in the face of the instead a cultural narrowing where there (fragmentary records of accidental disturbing things now is less statement-led vision and more soundscapes, edited as impressionist happening in the world, literal work. Within this context there is a narratives); and those that are reconfigured and we are addressing redefinition of the word ‘radical’. It has lost (vocal idioms matched with images that read the audiences at an much of its sense of challenge and has come against the meaning of what is being said). ethical level. to mean simply anything that has a diluted, In relation to the re- Pierre Hébert predictable and vague political slant; anything contextualisation of the image, there have more confrontational has become somehow been four key developments: the creation of unapproachably extremist. A prime example virtual, evidential, reflexive and performative of this would be the work of Banksy. contexts. The virtual context is evident in Politically vague and naïve, its diluted non- works such as Virtual History where messages have found a highly lucrative computer-generated faces are superimposed commercial niche on the commercial on real characters. Evidential contexts utilise periphery of the contemporary art scene, animation to evidence statistical, empirical falling somewhere between the White Cube or technical research and authenticate a and poster shops. There is clear recognition particular situation, such as in Red Vision’s that new contexts and modes of invention visual effects for Hiroshima. Reflexive are required. In the field of animation this contexts use animation to address and is taking place in what might be termed interrogate itself, such as in McLaren’s ‘re-contextual documentary’. Narratives. Performative contexts are best represented by veteran National Film Board DOCUMENTARY STYLES of Canada visionary, Pierre Hébert, and his _ live-performance animation in works such There is an established tradition of imitative as Special Forces. documentary, echoing established documentary Hébert notes: ‘Like all the stylings in the travelogue and cinéma vérité, Living Cinema projects, Special Forces, for example, and an increasing amount of had a strange and indirect trajectory where work in subjective documentary, featuring concerns of technique, meaning and singular voices as the embodiment of a ‘naïve’ aesthetics were intermingled. We first history. But recently, these models have started with the idea of controlling both our been developed further through the music and video live processing softwares re-contextualisation of the documentary with game pads. It was simultaneously enterprise through interventions in sound a technical idea that was going to generate and image. In relation to sound, three a lot of programming work and a stage idea.

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Naturally, we started to ‘It all comes from my long include computer games graphics and sound practice of animation scratched directly on in our improvisations, and for a while it film. This is how I started in animation under seemed that it was going to be a piece about the influence of Norman McLaren and Len gaming. But it was difficult to get a satisfying Lye. When I began to wonder why that format for the piece. In August 2006, when technique remained so central for me for the Israeli army started to bomb Lebanon, such a long time, it became obvious that we felt that we could not let that pass and its crude graphic and dynamic quality, its we decided to transform our uneasy piece totally marginal situation in relation to the into a commentary about the war in Lebanon. legitimate use of cinema technology, and the It seemed to us that it was totally in tune fact that it was so physical were at the core with our previous Living Cinema pieces. The of my particular style. They were the reasons following week we received an email inviting why I started to perform live, scratched us to perform at the Irtijal Festival of Free animation. Those three aspects (crude Improvised Music in Beirut. The idea of doing images and movements, technological the world premiere in Beirut gave a very illegitimacy, and – to use Len Lye’s words – strong focus to our work. It made it a very “the bodily stuff”) continue to be central acute and emotionally intense way to elements to my technical and aesthetic be involved in the subject matter of a piece.’ approach to my latest work with . Hébert insists: ‘We are not It involves doing everything to keep the doing propaganda work, we are not trying to technological apparatus transparent, so that convince anybody of any political ideas. It is a very strong human and physical element not that we don’t have political ideas. In a remains visible at the centre of it. In other way we are just staging ourselves as artists words, working against the shiny computer who accept to be on the “razor blade” in face look that is usually praised, so that the of the disturbing things now happening in the automated processes are put in tension with world, and we are addressing the audiences the human experience that must be at the at an ethical level. In that sense, the fact core of any art, and which is the profound that it is being performed live is important basis of communication with the audience.’ because it implies that it is never a closed discourse, but a proposal that is always dependent on how we are personally affected by the development of the world situation.’ Hébert’s particular signature style of ‘drawing’ live in this kind of animation performance remains fundamentally related to his preoccupations across his career.

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Pierre Hébert combines images from news coverage of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict with hand-drawn animated images performed live on stage in order to heighten the emotional effect of fleeing children, falling bombs and indiscriminate brutality.

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Hébert’s response that ‘Special Forces includes he is pioneering a form of performative a number of key motifs – a child’s face, documentary takes up the idea that it is the an abandoned doll, a missile and fleeing language of animation itself that is at the figures – which reflect the work’s core heart of re-interrogating orthodox and taken- political concerns: ‘In developing the piece, for-granted aspects of reality and its we had many questions and uncertainties representation. He suggests that: ‘The about the political ground on which we were Gillian, the prostitute at the centre of Alex and tradition in which I can situate myself is very standing, and also about what it meant to go Dave Beasley’s animated marginal to mainstream character animation; to Lebanon and show the people who had documentary, Revolving Door, it is constituted through a much smaller suffered through it, images of their war. oscillates between a childlike naïvety and corpus of works. My basic interest is in how So finally we took what we may call a streetwise grittiness, animation can relate to the real world and humanitarian rather than a political approach. captured in the tension how it can relate to other types of images So the question of dead children (they were between live action and animation in the film’s within a common and general relationship actually the majority of the casualties) aesthetic styling. to reality.’ seemed a good starting point and making ‘My work certainly has to the child’s face a sort of witness of all the do with a documentary approach in a broad mess, became a good dramatic support for sense of the word. If I could express in an the improvisation.’ extreme fashion what my interest in Work like Hébert’s becomes animation is, I would say that I am more a crucial tool not merely in the contexts of interested in what animation does to the art, performance and animation – all areas perception of reality and to the perception that reflect his background and influences – of other types of images than in what it does but in education too. This work challenges just by itself. I am more fascinated by the and insists that the viewer recognises and effects it produces than in the worlds it interprets their own visceral responses, and creates. I should also add that the three engage with the ethical acceptability of the stylistic elements I mentioned earlier are political, military and corporate agendas fundamental to this relationship to reality – often underpinning conflicts based on the the crudeness of graphics and movements, ideologies of faith and belief. This is a long As in Marjut Rimminen’s because it contradicts any phantasmagoric way from the acceptance often encouraged Some Protection, another interpretation; the technological illegitimacy, in mainstream commercial work. Educators example of ‘subjective because it questions the basis of cinema as a need to enable student cohorts to understand documentary’, the fairground becomes a metaphor for representation of the world; and the “bodily that the ennui and apathy that they legitimate fantasy and stuff”, because having a strong feeling for the experience in relation to all things political escapism, and an ironic relationship between the animated images is often an intentional social construct. orthodoxy set against the difficulties of street life. and the animating body is a fundamental and People are consistently encouraged to feel primary element of the relationship between politically jaded and that all action is futile. animation and reality.’ There is a need to understand that this suits corporate interests and market stability perfectly. Hébert’s stance, in person and through his work, resists this orthodoxy.

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Education needs to lead its Gillian is captured students in the urgent re-appropriation of looking in the mirror – such political and cultural history. In these a clear metaphor for her confronting her own identity circumstances, education clearly has a – as she considers her responsibility to nurture and empower childhood and the feeling instigators and initiators, not just to train of abandonment she felt when taken into care. This led cogs to work within one definition of a to her running away. . Education should be empowering individuals, and part of that empowerment is for approaches such as ‘re-contextual documentary’ to inform people about experiences outside their immediate knowledge and context. RE-CONTEXTUAL_ DOCUMENTARY Re-contextual documentary in this sense becomes an important educational model, The Beasleys enjoy a playful taking up marginalised, dismissed or reference to the fantasy prejudged aspects of social existence, in idioms of B-movie street girls, which are a far cry order to promote ‘the creative treatment from the realities of of actuality’ (John Grierson’s original Gillian’s unglamourous short definition of documentary) as a way and painful existence. of promoting new visual literacies, and thus to foreground significant social and cultural messages. If corporate and institutional culture fears mistakes and failure, this almost becomes the very subject of re- contextual documentary, which as the term suggests, repositions the argument or agenda of the particular issue. This is clearly the case in Dave and Alex Beasley’s Revolving Door, a true account of what it was like to work the streets of St Kilda, Melbourne’s red-light district. The film- A client cruises the St Kilda makers hoped the production of the piece area, explaining why he is would provoke debate, discussion and, seeking out a prostitute ultimately, social change. and, in a casual manner, talks about the pleasures of unprotected sex and his fears of infection.

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Initially, the piece was a The film also functions as conventional documentary shot over an a reaction to conventional, highly structured extended period, utilising hand-held cameras (and often quite static) computer- to convey a sense of dynamism and energy generated/assisted animation, and in an attempt to capture and evoke the consequently uses the hand-drawn approach adrenalin of prostitutes working the streets. to reinforce its apparent immediacy and The capture of what the Beasleys describe spontaneity. Crucially, the over-animating as ‘raw energy’ was intrinsic to the idea of of live-action performance – here the real communicating lived experience and not activity of a St Kilda sex worker – merely an overly mediated view; it was their enhances the tragic circumstances of drug intention to use superimposed animated addiction, client indifference and brutality, material on the live-action footage to and the social powerlessness of the suggest a range of thematic and conceptual street girls in the face of middle-class perspectives. These include the idea that resident opposition. Gillian, the featured prostitute, may herself The Beasleys recognise that have actually drawn the frames, reflecting the film itself is provocative and ethically the naïvety of her understanding of her engaged, so supported it with an extensive own experience. companion website: ‘The companion website Further, the use of colour adds an entirely new dimension to Gillian’s on top of black-and-white footage story. Again, it is meant to break away from contributes to a sense of artifice in traditional Web paradigms, attempting to the world; the animated and colourful build a site that is tactile, heuristic and open once more representing Gillian’s often to the serendipitous, accidental discoveries. innocent perception of a complex life. It also works as a powerful global marketing The animation also works as an effective tool – especially amazing as we haven’t really mask to protect the identity and anonymity marketed the site and are averaging more of the participants, which is crucial in the than 500 hits per day, which has proven revelation of the often morally ambivalent, to us the awesome potential of the Web.’ anxious, or oppressive activities of prostitutes, clients and police alike. The Beasleys add: ‘We’re not preaching to the converted – with such confrontational subject matter, animation is the perfect medium to soften the impact, giving the audience the choice of either enjoying the The police become suspicious visual ride or immersing themselves in of Gillian and arrest her for prostituting herself. Gillian’s world.’

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We’re not preaching to the converted – with such confrontational subject matter, animation is the perfect medium to soften the impact. Alex and Dave Beasley

Gillian and her street-girl colleagues buy resources such as condoms, needles and swabs from a dealer.

Middle-class residents protest against the open presence of prostitutes in a well regarded residential area.

Gillian is beaten up by a client, but must continue her lonely life on the streets, unable to break the cycle of her addiction and her economic disadvantages.

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The conscious use of cross- to be chosen to facilitate an idea to its most platform, related deliveries of animated enriching and revealing extent. Essentially, artwork successfully extends the parameters animation technologies offer individuals the of re-contextual documentary and enables opportunity to have a voice. Not only a voice, the Beasleys to deploy animation as a but also a proven, successful and effective subversive tool: ‘Animation art is the best voice. In so doing it is possible to level and sometimes only means of getting the social playing field, appropriate the a political message across. The deceptive aesthetics of industry, and to subvert innocence of animation actually means the and invert these visual language systems. audience is more likely to be open-minded, particularly in today’s political climate of fear RESISTING CORPORATE AGENDAS and oppression.’ Influenced by Maggie Fooke, _ the Melbourne-based animator, Ken Loach, In a time when the creative dreams and the British left-wing film-maker, and Peter visions of the individual are increasingly Greenaway, an artist/film-maker often shaped by the capabilities, strengths and concerned with layered screen aesthetics, limitations of digital animation technologies, the Beasleys wanted to engage with a hand- the Beasleys demonstrate that these tools drawn rotoscope approach, which was can be used for challenging ends and definitely ‘retro’ as a deliberate reaction outcomes. Where once the dreams and to the recent uber-clean computer- visions of practitioners led the development generated photorealistic work currently of CGI technologies, now CGI technology being pumped out. can shape human dreams and visions, and This kind of approach it is important that the software does not deliberately sets out to challenge the determine an approach. Arguably, corporate thematic, aesthetic and technical agendas can lie at the very heart of even the assumptions of contemporary production, tools that we use to design, develop and insisting that form properly service content deliver our work. Corporate culture provides, and not merely operate as an arbitrary refines and sells tools, and it is crucial that aesthetic. In being socially engaged and animators and artists, as Hébert and the technically inventive without sacrificing Beasleys have done, filter out corporate impact or artistic ambition, Revolving Door political doctrine from the visual and privilege points the way to a successful pedagogic personal work with integrity and challenge. model. This is teaching without preaching, insight without oversight. While the culture of digital animation technologies offers everyone a voice and implicitly encourages investment and experimentation, it is still the case that the most pertinent tools need

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ART AS POLITICS, POLITICS AS ART

In his piece, Ask the Insects, Steve Reinke grave. Moreover, the power of the footage develops the idea of manipulating and comes from its autobiographical nature: enhancing actuality footage in a more the fact that we end up with a bunch of personal exploration, using animation not to headstones that all bear the name, the focus on an observation of social conditions, signature, of the author.’ but to chart the emotional experience of participating vicariously within social ACTUALITY ANIMATION parameters. _ He comments: ‘Ask the Rather than seeking closure to the material Insects started with a particular piece of through the imposition of a traditional footage. I videotaped with the camera narrative model, Reinke uses the material to resting on my shoulder as I walked the route interrogate aspects of what occurs when the I used to walk from my childhood home, image is manipulated, and how this might be through the Ontario village to the understood as animation. The footage of the school I attended from kindergarten to grade walk then becomes a series of introductions, eight. The school is on a hill. On the other side false starts, gaps, interruptions, stoppages, of the road is a graveyard that slopes down this trip to the schoolyard that becomes to a river. It was a summer afternoon and instead a trip to the graveyard. during the ten-minute walk the sky darkened ‘The first thing I did ominously and a few drops of rain fell. I’d was treat the footage with various digital thought (and thought I remembered) my filters. The colour is enhanced, but there are father was buried well into the graveyard, actually three layers of footage, each jittering but when I got there I found that his grave at different rates, superimposed on one was right next to the road, along with a slew another with various types of keying and of other headstones with our name. mode changes. Of course, almost all digital ‘My work is often based on video, whether documentary or not, is monologues told in the first person in which colour-corrected and filtered in various ways, the narrator says things that might be but I was trying to be more expressionistic. personal. But these monologues, while As well, the jitter in the images suggests a they might have discursive or rhetorical certain instability of time and event. So one similarities to confession or autobiography, could argue that even this piece of highly never were. Often they were kind of meta- indexical, documentary footage is kind of confessional or meta-autobiography. an animation.’ However, I did not see how I could do that with this footage. It was just too particularly, profoundly personal: walking through my hometown to my school and my father’s

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Reinke, a theorist of contemporary approaches to artist-led manipulated moving image(1), as well as an established practitioner, continues to work with the footage in a formalist manner: ‘It was partly in order to argue that orthodox photorealistic images could be seen as animation that I made each of the eight or nine little sections that precede it a different type of animation. They’re mostly done with After Effects, so they’re not different types of animation in the sense of stop-motion or , for example. They’re different types of animation in that they propose different relations between the “real” photographic world and the imagined-constructed- animated one. ‘One of the sections is explicitly about animation. In it, I argue the opposite of what I’ve said above, that the abstract blobs one sees pulsing on the screen are not animation, but live-action footage digitally manipulated.’ This deliberate challenge to image-making orthodoxy signals a change in the recognition and interpretation of animated forms, foregrounding two core image systems: the first is explicitly animation in a frame-by- frame, illusionist mode, predicated on now- established conventions of the cartoon, 3D stop-motion, new traditionalist CGI, collage and cut-out; the second is animation as a form predicated on revealing itself not through its own codes, but through manipulation, composition and collision Reinke plays with various with other image-making approaches. idioms of animation, ranging from the classical Disney Reinke feels that: ‘A work style to scratching on film. in the first category cannot have anything This suggests the mutability to say about animation: it is too busy saying of the image as a model by which shifting thoughts, something through animation. Hybridised emotions and perceptions or messy meta-works can say something might be understood. Reinke toys with well-known iconography and dissembling forms, challenging the audience to engage with shifting registers of reality and fantasy.

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about animation because it is not clear what Animation has always been they are generically. In the one case, one a self-reflexive language of expression, forgets that one is watching animation while, foregrounding its own codes and conventions. in the other, one just does not know if they However, the digital shift in which creative are watching animation.’ This tension is at practitioners find themselves using the the heart of a ‘re-imagining’ of animation same tools, has further complicated the because it simultaneously acknowledges vocabulary by which animation might be the established, if various, characteristics perceived and understood. Reinke’s notion of established notions of animation, while of the rhetorical is an important extension using the very tools and approaches that to the self-reflexive because it refers to create it to engage with other image forms the impact of other image systems and as a way of interrogating and extending its approaches to visualisation upon traditional vocabulary and achievement. animated forms, and facilitates a way in Reinke focuses on the which they might be critically recognised challenge that underpins this re-imagining: and engaged with. ‘I find images strange things. When I use Interestingly, this might language, I have a pretty good idea of what incorporate everything Reinke cites as his I’m saying or trying to say. And people favourites, from Winsor McCay’s The Sinking listening to me know that the words are of the Lusitania, through to Alfred coming from me and, fairly often, what I Hitchcock’s Spellbound. Reinke makes an mean by them and why I am saying them. interesting observation: ‘When animation So, while speech always has a speaker, reaches the art world, strange things happen. and the meaning of the speech is largely According to Rosalind Krauss (art critic and determined by the relationship between the theorist), nothing happened between Disney content of the language and the possible and William Kentridge.’ intentions of the speaker, images can exist At the heart of such an freely. They are not spoken. As an artist observation is the sense that animation is who works with making meaning through still effectively the art of slow, incremental combining speech and image, I find this development informed by a pro- or pre-filmic quality of images confounding. Animation sensibility, and the conscious manipulation gives me a way to speak images, to use of form. The only real difference is the self- images rhetorically, and to unmoor evident presence of the process itself, photographic images from their referents. or its apparent absence. Re-imagining I don’t want to turn image to language, animation, then, inevitably becomes a I just want the possibility of deploying stance, and one that is inherently political, images rhetorically. I find this force that with or without intent and intrinsically renders text visual and images textual open to question as art or expression. very powerful.’

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PERSONAL AS POLITICAL

Canadian video artist and teacher, Jan I wondered what I could possibly do for Peacock, has been drawn into debates someone at home that I would not be able to about animation, through a questioning of do for the same person in a museum. How to her own practice and what she believed to be contend with scale and time, how to use light comparable work within her own discipline. and darkness, movement and stillness, sound She explains: ‘For some time, I had been sick and silence, engagement and separation – of seeing video projections and had a pressing everything would have to change in relation awareness that I should stop making them to the overriding intimacy and private myself – at least until they were no longer experience of a home environment and the de rigueur in the art world. Trends like this overlap of lives being lived there. With an produce habits of looking that are difficult audience of one family, how does one leave to combat: perception levels out, is less the public contexts and histories of video, articulate, active, and engaged. I like relocating and re-describing it to be as forms that freshly animate and energise intimate as these lives being lived together? involvement in looking – both maker This question led me to the work.’ and viewer.’ For many viewers of the This idea of freshly animating piece Midnight Reader, which features chimes readily with Roland Barthes’s extensive sequences of a person’s hand engagement with Jean-Paul Sartre’s touching a range of domestic environments, perception of photography, where Sartre there is a sense in which the person feeling claims: ‘[C]ases occur where the photograph the environment is an animator, who is in leaves me so indifferent that I do not even effect animating the space. The hand in bother to see it “as an image”. The essence becomes the tool of expression, photograph is vaguely constituted as an replacing the pencil or brush, but in a certain object, and the persons who figure there sense foregrounding Hébert’s sense of the are certainly constituted as persons, but ‘bodily stuff’ at the heart of the animation only because of their resemblance to human process. Peacock notes: ‘That’s completely beings, without any special intention. They congruent with my sense of the work. My drift between the shores of perception, original idea was to make a video drawing drifting between sign and image, without of the interior of a home, and this drawing ever approaching either’, which prompted would be one continuous line made out of Barthes to remark: ‘In this glum desert, touch and light. When installed, the video suddenly a specific photograph reaches me; night-light object acts as a window that it animates me, and I animate it. So that is opens on to the temporal detail, the life of how I must name the attraction which the house. Conversely, the house passes The fingertips exploring makes it exist: an animation.’(2) through that opening, via the recorded hand the surfaces of taken-for- granted household items Peacock wanted to take and the light that illuminates and guides the and environments re-animate this sense of attraction as animation hand. This is animation in the figurative their presence. into the domestic environment and to sense, too, as if the fingertips, in tracing reconfigure her approach: ‘The Canadian the object or surface, make it luminous and Art Foundation asked me to make a work retrieve it from darkness. It is important to for their fundraising auction in Toronto. keep in mind that all viewers outside of

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those who actually live in the house are Peacock’s comment about secondary to the work. The house is deeply, current students not differentiating between but dormantly, animated for those who live applications and technologies is pertinent there in embedded, unconscious ways. The in the sense that in not seeing the fingertip tracing with light re-animates differentiation between platforms, it is memory and experience that associate almost inevitable that there will not be a with individual histories of the viewer.’ differentiation in discipline, nor any specific This sense of the work recognition that a discipline has a history and echoes Jan Svankmajer’s belief in the life a relationship to cultural history. Crucially, entrapped in objects and environments, which these histories and applications need to be the artist/animator effectively re-animates recovered and their significance addressed, and releases. The presence of the hand also not least of which, in a spirit of affinity and According to Jan Peacock: echoes any number of animations featuring disparity. This may also be partly achieved ‘The aesthetic aim of the the hand of a draughtsperson, painter or through the proper engagement with artistic night-light object is silence sculptor as it executes a work, but the influences, and the role and function they and unobtrusiveness; it is a small luminous surface absence of an artistic implement prompts play in helping to delineate the character embedded in a wall, flush the idea of a universal animus played out of particular kinds of animation. with the wall’s surface, as through the hand and a metaphoric Peacock stresses: ‘I pay a if maintaining contact with the skin of the house. It suggestion of the difficulty in defining lot of attention to artists who concentrate is situated in a place of animation in the contemporary era. on structures of time and language. I don’t passage (stairwell, hallway, With the ‘digital shift’, think so much about influences, but I have foyer) so that it can guide one’s movement, and so that ‘animation’ has now become a complex term sometimes found affinities. I would say one is always coming upon it with a number of possible meanings for that the way Bill Viola handled editing in his with surprise. In spite of animators themselves. Peacock adds: early work shaped events in time in a way the smallness and silence of the object, there comes that ‘Animation has become a hugely expanded that is very close to my thinking – that little shock of recognising field that seems to touch on everything – temporality itself is available, malleable, where in the house the hand this has happened with design as well. And, up for grabs in the metaphysical and is at the moment you find it, sometimes followed by because of our shared digital tools, all the phenomenological senses and through a moment of puzzlement. fields are now in deep overlap, to such an technical experimentation, for a simple For those who are living extent that the categories are no longer reason: we have such limited articulations with Midnight Reader, the locating becomes more descriptive. How do you separate video of our experiences and consciousness of difficult as the landscape from film from design from animation? time, that there is only hypothesis of the house changes over I rely on having lived and worked through and experimentation.’ months and years.’ a certain amount of their history as separate – practices to understand how their specific – and distinct cultural trajectories have – converged and blurred, but my students don’t REFERENCES 1.Chris Gehman & Steve Reinke, have those histories and so don’t make those The Sharpest Point – distinctions. Animation, broadly, is shaping Animation at the End time, shaping events in time so as to reinvent of Cinema, Ottawa: YYZ Books, 2005 our experience.’ 2.Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, London: Flamingo, 1984 pp42–60

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ARTIST ANIMATION?

The term ‘artist animation’ has gained personal artistic goals, and for exhibition in currency in recent years. On the one hand, contexts outside the broadcast and theatrical it is a term that seeks to differentiate domain. There is a further implication that between fine artists working in animation, animation may be a highly pertinent tool in and traditional animators; on the other hand, creating distinctive worlds rather than it is a potentially divisive and elitist term, distinctive texts in themselves. Although coined in arts cultures, which effectively virtually all the artists and animators denies the recognition of an artist working discussed in this book have created ‘worlds’, in traditional, especially cartoonal forms. this highly specific concept will be pursued In a field that has produced in the following examples. such major figures as Norman McLaren, , Yuri Norstein, Chuck Jones, Hayao Miyazaki, Caroline Leaf, Nick Park, Paul Driessen, Joanna Quinn, Dusan Vukotic, Osamu Tezuka, Jan Svankmajer, John Lasseter and , to deny them the epithet ‘artist’, would be churlish. In a more progressive and positive sense, though, the term points to the desire to elevate animation as a fine art practice, and to see it as a pertinent language in the pursuit of highly

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ARTIST ANIMATI

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KEYWORDS IN THIS SECTION The term ‘artist animatio Cartoon currency in recent years This is one of the most difficult it is a term that seeks to things for artists and the commercial between fine artists wor sector to talk about. There is seemingly something pejorative in the term for those and traditional animators who might consider it the lowest form of it is a potentially divisive animation, intrinsically bound up with coined in arts cultures, w character animation and gags. The cartoon is simply a formulation in animation; denies the recognition of it can be as artistic as any other in traditional, especially c approach, form or technique. In a fiel Manipulated moving image such major figures as No The phrase ‘manipulated moving image’ has been posited as a definition of current Reiniger, Yuri Norstein, C animation practice, challenging the Miyazaki, Caroline Leaf, N conventional notion of frame-by-frame Driessen, Joanna Quinn, animated film, with a view that the image now possesses a higher degree of constructed-ness Osamu Tezuka, Jan Svan through layering, compositing and mixed-media Lasseter and Frédéric Ba composition. The term was suggested to more epithet ‘artist’, would be properly embrace animated artworks, but equally, it describes all aspects of post- progressive and positive production and visual effects in mainstream term points to the desire cinema. This may readily prove the elision as a fine art practice, an between live action and animation in the creation of contemporary film-making, but pertinent language in the it does not fully recognise the distinctive language of animation set against the conventional nature of ‘live action’. Furthermore, it misrepresents the rhetorical specificity of animation by immersing it within the broad parameters of moving image creation.

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ALTERNATIVE WORLDS I

The animation installation inevitably Greg Barsamian’s installation, Animation conjures up attempts to define a space as a unique No, Never Alone, was inspired by a Christian a huge variety of territory; a small world particular to an spiritual song bearing the same title. In purposes and goals. artist, but an environment seeking out addressing ways of seeing, Barsamian notes: As a tool it is near its empathy and common bonds. The status ‘The premise of the piece is intentional ripened stage. It is of the animation within it may be various and blindness. We are, above all, filter now possible to create challenging. It is sometimes the case that mechanisms. But the filtering required for almost any image you when a fine artist uses animation to make faith is particularly intense. The images are can imagine with a point, the technical execution when a subconscious response to the intentional startling fidelity. As a compared to professional animators working blindness required in true belief. The work tool for subconscious in animated features may be seen as flawed, is viewed as a free-standing sculpture. imagery it is ideal. or indeed, merely making a point that has Darkness is required for the animation Greg Barsamian been made hundreds of times over in a range technique to succeed. The technique derives of cartoons in a gallery. Context, in this spirit, from pre-cinematic devices such as the is all. This is especially the case with works . A strobe light replaces the slits explicitly working through humour – a gallery found in original devices. As each sequentially joke is ‘wit’ (by implication clever and formed sculpture passes, the strobe light insightful); a cartoon comic event merely a flashes giving your eye an image. Image after ‘gag’ (by implication potentially vulgar and image, at a rate of ten per second, they are excessive). While Zilla Leutenegger’s built by the mind into the illusion of motion animated cleaning lady signifies the much like a flipbook. disempowerment of women, Tex Avery’s ‘As a sculptor I’ve always effacement and exaggeration of bodies been enamoured by complexity, with the in a variety of social scenarios, is ‘just provision that all parts are necessary and all for laughs’. parts create “organic unity”, or work toward Essentially, these approaches a common goal. Equipping sculptures with are the same and merely differentiated by the dimension of time greatly enhances the cultures, contexts and critical communities. potential complexity of an otherwise static Recognition of intention, purpose and medium. This is not to say that time does not outcome is fundamental to the understanding play a role in traditional sculpture. As a of the nature of any art, but is particularly person walks around a sculpture, the two- important if the fragmentation of animation dimensional image in our minds is like an cultures is not to undermine the work animation. The shape changes wildly as we created in them. These ‘ways of seeing’ move about. Control of that animation is are ultimately the subject and object of partly under the control of the viewer, artist animation. however, and I am interested in controlling it more completely.’

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This need for a sense of INTERIOR STATES complete control is common to most _ animators and chimes with a need to create Animation’s intrinsic capacity to capture and a particular world that reflects their own facilitate the representation of interior states preoccupations, memories and level of of mind – memories, dreams, fantasies, consciousness. Barsamian seeks to render solipsistic preoccupation – has been his piece not merely as a literal catalyst for embraced throughout its history. As perception, but a state of consciousness in its Barsamian notes: ‘Animation conjures up a own right: ‘The darkened room also aids my huge variety of purposes and goals. As a purpose. The creaks, clicking of the strobe tool it is near its ripened stage. It is now and its flickering all help to create a possible to create almost any image you can subconscious-like atmosphere. That is imagine with startling fidelity. As a tool for something central to my work. Studies in subconscious imagery it is ideal. This is one information theory and cognition credit the of the qualities of the technique that drew conscious mind with operating at about the me to it as a sculptor. Adapting it to three- speed of language, that is, 15 bits per second. dimensional objects was a way to marry At the same time our senses are bringing in the two. Combined with my “suburban 20 million bits per second. motorhead” upbringing, it allowed me to add ‘Consciousness filters out the dimension of time to sculpted objects the vast majority and in its chauvinism thinks while satisfying my internal need to get dirty otherwise. It sits beside a mile-wide river of and make things. As an illusion, the technique information, dips a finger in here and there, is a compelling one. Animating a three- and claims to know what is happening in the dimensional object in real time and space river. Worse, it often claims to be in control suspends the disbelief and creates a tension of the river! We’re treated to bits of the reminiscent of dreams. The conscious mind expanded flow in flashes of insight, hunches, wants order. It can find order in almost emotions and, of course, our dreams. It’s for anything. It is the nature of that order that that reason that I’ve recorded my dreams defines us. But we must remember that our for many years, culling them for bits of experience viewed from any one angle is insight that smack of universality. The fodder incomplete and viewed from all angles is for this gristmill is a subconscious and incoherent. I do not offer order. Instead conscious reaction to my world; the political, I offer the world of the unconscious where social and emotional content of my the emotions run wild and self-deception is experience. The language I work in is that an oxymoron.’ of the subconscious.’ Barsamian’s alternative The palpable sense of self- ‘world’, then, is ironically the one we imposed claustrophobia, or externally determined experience all the time, but have little oppression, is a consequence understanding of, until such works offer of unconditional investment empathy and insight. in Barsamian’s challenging installation – a metaphoric fabrication of solipsistic consciousness.

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ALTERNATIVE WORLDS II

If Barsamian’s world is essentially a One of the most perpetual present, a constant interrogation compelling frontiers is of consciousness-in-the-moment, then the animation of human Joanna Priestley’s installation work is more beings in commercial determinedly erected on the premises feature films. There are of the past. new advances in the animation of human _PRIESTLEY AND PLAY figures every year and pretty soon they will Extended Play is an experimental look real. exploration and rediscovery of youthful Joanna Priestley preoccupations. It is set within the spotlight of an elliptical border, games, diagrams and objects of amusement to create an evocative metaphor of childhood pastimes. Arguably, play is at the heart of the animated form and is recovered through the processes of creativity. Priestley has clear views on this: ‘Children love play. As we age, we become encrusted with responsibilities, obligations, lists and schedules. We forget how to play. We leave playing to the professionals! We call them artists and pro-athletes. Isn’t that ridiculous? Everyone should play. Everyone should make art. Everyone should enjoy sports and games. My best friend is phenomenally creative, but she refuses to make images or objects. She Joanna Priestley combines the thinks that is only for professional artists! icons and idioms of childhood I love animating and find it playful in an play with the innovation of obsessive kind of way. There are types of circular frames, which echo ball games too. animation that I do not find playful, like lip-synching or filling hundreds of shapes with colour, but for the most part, I thoroughly enjoy it. If animation wasn’t fun, no one would do it because it is so complicated to master.’

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This sense of fun, coupled the transition between the walls, and to with a particular compulsion to address play create tension between the intersection of as a conscious activity that takes place in perpendicular elements. The entire piece real time, in real locations led to the was designed as a loop that would play development of her piece. Priestley explains: continuously as pedestrians passed along the ‘I began experimenting and playing with corner sidewalk. Several weeks before the images in 2006 while working on the sound premiere, we learned that budget constraints for Streetcar Named Perspire. It took a limited us to one projector. We switched from year to create the soundtrack and as the two walls to one. One week before the months wore on, I became fidgety. As a premiere, I produced a soundtrack with vocal counterbalance, I started experimenting artists Janet Day and Shannon Day (mother with shapes and colours in Flash and decided and daughter) and vocal sound effects to stop working whenever it ceased being wizards Sam Mowry and Martin Gallagher. playful. I researched the iconography of play Marc Rose added core sound effects and and games. It was a totally experimental designed and created the mix two days process, free of the structure and goals before the opening. Every step of the process of film-making. was play. ‘After six months of play, ‘It rained the night of the I reluctantly put the animation aside and opening and we scrambled to move Extended moved on to a new film. Two months later, Play inside. This part was not playful. We Marilyn Zornado asked me to submit a moved to a strange, second storey, computer proposal for an installation for the Platform lounge that had huge paper balls for lights. International Animation Festival. I brought Perfect! We dimmed the lights and put gels in out the play experiments and realised that the paper balls to reflect the circular format most of the images were in a circular format. of the installation. Mowry and Gallagher I designed a storyboard for Platform with performed sound effects live as part of the image balls and ovals that moved around two installation, using voice, bicycle, coins, cards, perpendicular walls. My goal was to create balloons, drum, basketball and light sticks.’ an installation that was completely playful, Priestley’s engagement one that expressed a clear sense of play with play, and the continual improvisation to the viewer. and adaptation that characterised this ‘I reworked the animation process – itself echoing the imitative and over the next five months and began transformative qualities of children’s play collaborating with digital effects artist, activities – speaks directly to both the Daniel Phillip Johnson. He reformatted mutability of the language of animation everything, multiplied images and created and the contexts it has traditionally been interesting transitions and new compositions. placed within. Extended Play was designed for two perpendicular walls, so animated elements could change shape while moving across

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_PLAY AND DISPLAY Priestley’s aesthetic flexibility engages with this idea by working through different geometric compositions and contexts for display: ‘My entire 18-film career has been contained in a rectangular format. It was very exciting to break out of that and create animation in a circle. This presented challenges, since our eyes are accustomed to seeing geometric, centred shapes within circles; quadrangular compositional rules do not apply. It was fascinating to work in a long thin format on a wall measuring 48 feet by 13 feet. I found that many separate, little movies could co-exist. It’s much easier to be playful with that much space. Doing this project opened up my thinking about what animation can become. I would like to try new installation experiments with multiple projectors and props. Knowing that Extended Play would be seen outside in my own neighbourhood, I felt free to experiment with content, composition and structure. I wouldn’t show it in a theatre, but might include it as a bonus item on a DVD now that some people have huge home screens and enough projection resolution to see the detail in the animation.’ Priestley uses the Priestley, recognised as an opportunity to feature experimental film-maker within the field of iconographic shapes and forms animation, has a broad vision of what this from children’s games to create a formalist aesthetic, field constitutes and is in some ways playing with the geometric skeptical about the delineation of ‘artist and colourful as both art animation’ as a separate category, in that and play constructs. this could misrepresent what might be viewed as actually progressive in the form.

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_NEW FRONTIERS? cutting edge. Eight years ago, websites with Cartoons made by gritty, interactive, animated narratives felt individuals with great Priestley notes that: ‘One of the most cutting edge. Showing animation out of the passion and unique compelling frontiers is the animation of back of a truck to prevent AIDS in Pakistani vision can inspire human beings in commercial feature films. street kids was avant-garde 20 years ago, as creativity in viewers. A few years ago it became possible to was combining animation with performance That’s the edge I love. integrate realistic animation into live action in the mid-80s. Abstract animation was Joanna Priestley in such a way that the viewer could not tell avant-garde 75 years ago, and now many what was animated. There are new advances new abstract films are released each year. in the animation of human figures every year Cartoons made by individuals with great and pretty soon they will look real. People passion and unique vision can inspire are creating huge motion-capture libraries creativity in viewers. That’s the edge I love.’ for animating nearly infinite varieties of Priestley’s comments merely movement and combining multiple mo-cap confirm that animation has consistently sequences for variety. Now there are re-imagined itself and her crucial perspective programs for realistic skin transparency and on producing and showing work that inspires translucency. If only they could make the others, is surely at the heart of how ankles bend and the eyes twinkle properly. educators, scholars and practitioners ‘The Platform Installation ensure yet further re-imagining. Festival in 2007 was a wondrous, three-ring circus, but did not feel cutting edge because some of the pieces were a decade old. There are so many different frontiers that people are working on now that nothing feels avant- garde. Three years ago, teeny, squawking animated movies on phone screens were

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TICS ICE

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– – – 01 Teaching moving image culture 092/093 02 The politics of practice 03 Animation re-imagined 04 ‘Object React’ 05 From ideas to idioms ANIMATION ANIM RE-IMAGINED RE-I

094 RE-ANIMATING HISTORY 094 RE-I 102 RE-DEFINING PRACTICE 102 RE-D 114 RE-THINKING ARTISTS 114 RE-T

03 03

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RE-ANIMATING HISTORY

It is important to recognise that the More importantly, our alternative worlds discussed in the previous dreams, ambitions and memories are sections, whether personal or social, have sometimes dangerously embedded in the worked as interrogative interventions into attractions of CGI technologies and media assumed or taken-for-granted realities. that record our dreams, engender our desires Animators and artists realise that save for and store our memories. Therefore, it is not nature, there is nothing within our virtual/real unnatural for us to want to exist in and culture that cannot be defined as in some through alternative worlds. Such worlds way graphic. inevitably draw upon the intrinsically Animation and design have metaphorical and metaphysical nature of become the natural state of artifice that we animation as a language, and revise the exist within. Our every waking moment is perception of existence in order to get a bathed in its light. Aesthetically triggered better understanding of it. semiotic systems sway our every judgement, Arguably, some of these our every decision. We are continually worlds are escapist or banal, and a directed and manipulated, increasingly ceding prerequisite for the creation of a more control of our lives to an external confident successful notion of the alternative is authority of mood, colour, message and tone. to suggest what an original vision is an Design, predicated in static or moving image alternative to. When an artist claims to be forms, has been so deeply absorbed into the ironic, it surely begs the question ‘Ironic contemporary consciousness that it is hard about what?’. Further, in making these to recognise the myriad ways in which it worlds available, animators are suggesting stimulates, challenges, pleasures and angers. feelings and ideas that are often difficult Its ‘naturalisation’ is part of Priestley’s claim to articulate, offering other kinds of that it is difficult to identify an avant-garde. experience. Ironically, this might yet tap Our dreams, ambitions and memories are into a more common experience that has inextricably bound up with the perceived been beyond the viewer to comprehend or values that have been shaped, honed, understand, but which is recognised and packaged and sensitively delivered through understood through the empathy the commercial idioms, which in themselves work has foregrounded. have often absorbed the avant-garde as the new mainstream.

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RE-ANIM HISTORY

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KEYWORDS IN THIS SECTION It is important to recogn Visual literacy alternative worlds discu Much is stressed in educational contexts sections, whether perso about traditional notions of literacy – worked as interrogative the written form, reading literary texts, understanding language, etc. It remains assumed or taken-for-gr vital in the contemporary era, however, Animators and artists re to place much greater stress, much earlier, nature, there is nothing w on visual literacy. The ability to read and understand images is a fundamental aspect culture that cannot be d of understanding the media, art and politics way graphic. in the modern world, and animation can be Animati used as a ready vehicle to promote and illustrate its significance. become the natural stat Historiography exist within. Our every w There are many ways in which history has been bathed in its light. Aesth written and constructed. The primary sources semiotic systems sway o which were once the most valued aspect of writing the narratives of history – our every decision. We a statistical records, legal and social directed and manipulate documents, investigation of artefacts, etc – control of our lives to an are being replaced by the records of the mass media, thus significantly altering the authority of mood, colou demands and complexities of developing Design, predicated in sta authoritative historiography. This therefore forms, has been so deep allows a much more relative, subjective, counterfactual and personal view of history contemporary conscious to characterise current practices. to recognise the myriad stimulates, challenges, p Its ‘naturalisation’ is par that it is difficult to iden Our dreams, ambitions a inextricably bound up wi values that have been sh packaged and sensitively commercial idioms, whic have often absorbed the the new mainstream.

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VIRTUAL EXISTENCE It is crucial that such spaces _ are not colonised wholly in this way and Animators and designers, due to their that animators and artists do not create immersion in technology, are accustomed to a replacement reality complicit with this and more accepting of the notion of ‘virtual model. The explosive widening of the existence’. They flit between realities within discipline should not simply be about their daily existence via platforms such as escapism in its most benign form, or in the Web, television, computer gaming and globally troubled times, a bid to elude the the media. As creators, they understand trans-generational transmission of trauma. and adhere to one singular virtual truth in It is also important that work does not particular – if you can imagine it, then it attempt to comfort the self through the exists. The phenomenon of animators construction of mere stability, less a political creating their own worlds seems entirely stance than a metaphorical foetal position. natural. These alternate worlds are built The generation of new idylls from the virtual matter of global cultural might authenticate and legitimise a new, references, of shared childhood media history virtual existence in an increasingly and social history. They are idiosyncratic in fragmented society, and there is a danger the extreme, but globally understood. that animated films are simply an aide- Within the figure of the memoire to artificial memories, in some way avatar in Second Life we could arguably aimed at making real what is perceived and see a distinctly political attempt to escape what might ultimately be illusory. Imagined from real yet seemingly dead lives that are worlds should not be an attempt to keep the characterised by a desire to achieve an real world at a safe distance and should unattainable lifestyle. Second Life deals embrace the complexity of relationships, and expressly in animating oneself, or even in the genuine impact of the social and political. re-animating oneself. One could argue that Although many animators enjoy the control this is a bid to make good life’s injustice and that animation gives them and the worlds disappointment, or indeed a second chance they can create with it, many, indeed most, at freedom and choice without consequence. are characterised by a common sense of However, what once constituted an escape social responsibility and an almost utopian has increasingly become a secondary vision of the benefits that film and design capitalist market, a corporate industry can bestow. recognising that it can ostensibly operate on a secondary level through virtual trade and promotion.

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VIRTUAL HISTORY

CONSPIRACY AND CONFRONTATION American myth: the transparent war force, _ almost invisible, finds itself embedded in Conspiracy theories rage about some of the images of a quasi-advertisement-like bliss. major world events of the modern era – most Empire is therefore a graphic illustration particularly, the Kennedy assassination and of the American way of life and of its war- the events of 9/11 – fuelled by the proven mongering background. The key questions criminal complicity and corruption of remain: Does the American way of life only Watergate, which has encouraged the view exist because of the military force of its that all political action is open to mistrust army? Are prosperity and comfort and challenge. This is in some ways inevitable necessarily bound up with the force of the and perhaps evidence that public doubt and US military strike force and models like it? scepticism are ironically barometers of a ‘Flesh is based on a visual progressive democratic spirit. Animators and principle that is the contrary to the one artists working with these ideas may face explored in Empire: the buildings of a greater risks by engaging with some of the megalopolis are covered in images from porn ‘sacred cows’ of major incidents – offence films. Several ideas are intertwined in the to the grieving, potential disrespect for the surfaces of which the town is made. The dead, challenge to government and God, or images of an idealised American life are scepticism about racial or religious ideologies. replaced by images of sensual and shameless In recent years, one of the women, while the warlike imagery, usually most ethically challenging animated films in imagined through fighters and tanks in this regard is Edouard Salier’s Flesh. Here, foreign cities, is replaced by American the principal events of 9/11 are presented architectural structures attacked by airliners. as the consequence of a self-indulgent, Those attacks have finally no effect on the hedonistic America, and the attacks town; on the contrary, they only increase the themselves are played out like computer spectacular decadence they are trying to games on skyscrapers and public dwellings knock down. The more the planes attack the alike, and are covered in pornographic images. town, the more debauchery, gigantism and Salier explains: ‘Flesh is the second volume violence proliferated. Whereas Empire of a two-film series about the American illustrated American violence as a foundation Empire. The first one is called Empire, which for supposedly protecting family and I made when George W. Bush was re-elected economical values, Flesh explores the in October 2004. First of all, I did not want to hypocrisy in America, which pretends to be make a simple-minded anti-American film, modest and moral, but is in fact immensely because I am coming from the generation violent and decadent.’ Edouard Salier’s that has grown up with American culture. controversial Flesh creates an American city Empire points a finger at the US political environment covered with system and superimposes two sides of the provocative images from pornographic films. It signifies the decadence and self-indulgence of American culture, and implies that the loss of life during 9/11 was especially wasteful.

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Salier’s approach favours a ETHICAL_ CONCERNS I don’t consider myself mix between the glossy aesthetics of news as an spectacle, the soft focus of hardcore erotica, At a recent conference at the Tate Modern, or experimental director. the often harsh, sub-animated action of UK, ethical concerns were raised about It is very important to the computer game, and the hand-held Flesh, suggesting that bringing together me to experiment but feel of amateur vérité – a potpourri of pornography and the imagery of 9/11 was not fundamental to contemporary reality stylings that at once in some way unacceptable. Salier resists my practice. evoke popular cultural forms, but foreground this view though: ‘Flesh is open to multiple Edouard Salier their fantastical representational feel. readings and plays with the ambiguity of the Computer animation and visual effects two camps. It doesn’t favour any side, but it readily service this uncertain yet profoundly doesn’t let anyone off easily either. The text recognisable space. that opens the film contains a reference to Salier notes: ‘The sets and the 70 virgins promised by recruiters as a planes have been modelled, animated and reward to terrorists. Although this section of textured; we used stock shots for the the Koran leads to confusion and obviously “virgins” video, and everything was needs to be handled with care, its usage by composited on After Effects – very the recruiters of suicide bombers is without democratic tools you can use on a basic a doubt abusive. One possible ironic reading personal computer. Flesh is my first full 3D of the film that justifies the visions of these animation piece. The technique was always naked girls is that it is a fantasy of a dictated by the material I wanted to develop. kamikaze before he hits the towers. Thus, To create the visual style of the film we the decadent West he intended to destroy is would have to work with 3D. It is clear that also a source of desire, one that is ironically as a tool for new film-makers, the new encouraged by a religious fundamentalism technologies applied to animation can be that attacks the West, all the while playing used for more political statements, as artists on its attractions.’ can often create films alone. But I don’t It is this aspect of titillation, consider myself as an animation director or of course, which remains challenging – it experimental director. It is very important can distract from, confuse, and render to me to experiment, but not fundamental ideologically incoherent some of the to my practice. I don’t want to make themes in the film. What it does throw into experimentation at all costs. I try above all relief, though, is the idea that America’s to communicate an emotion, a “message” or fundamentalist, self-righteous extremism a feeling, no matter what the form, which sits uneasily against the reality of an eight- imposes itself subsequently according to the billion-dollar-a-year porn industry, a ready meaning I want to convey. But if I manage metaphor for the excesses of corporate to do it and develop original visual ideas at pleasure, excess and greed. the same time, it is all the better.’

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Salier continues: ‘The film compares and contrasts the Americans and the terrorists. America is as corrupt, libidinous and excessive as the religious fundamentalists present it. America, the superpower, is subject to the contradiction that it can bring fervour and energy to its convictions, and this can feed its aggression towards others, and yet it can contain within itself an inherent violence that is a challenge to the foundations of its very own empire. Flesh shows how the kamikaze planes fuelled the flames and stirred the arrogance and imperialist mindset of a superpower that is full of contradictions. The airliner attacks ultimately have no lasting effect on the city. On the contrary, they increase the spectacular decadence they are trying to destroy.’ The film does not intend to take sides for or against the United States or the Islamic fundamentalists – it is a reinterpretation of the events of 9/11 and their aftermath, which spurred on the reassertion of a superpower, enhanced its military supremacy and encouraged the spread of US hegemony. Accompanying this warlike rebirth comes the rising significance placed on domestic morals and puritanism, which, ironically, mirrors the radicalising of the fight by Islamic fundamentalists against the decadent West. Salier’s virtual history, subjective and complex as it is, insists upon knowledge of seemingly opposing cultures Salier’s combination of 9/11 and an understanding that people from imagery and pornography is ethically and ideologically different backgrounds, disciplines, ideologies challenging, but it prompts and prejudices need to rethink assumptions; what he views as a necessary in this, the language of animation as a debate about hidden and profound political agendas re-imagining tool has become invaluable. of late capitalism.

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RE-CONTEXTUALISING HISTORY

Salier’s film uses animation as a tool in the historical figures. Once the faces were deliberate provocation of history – a ‘what complete, the busts were laser-scanned in if?’ scenario predicated not on projection, but order to create digital copies in the computer. on a ‘re-presentation’ of the issues in the The faces were then extracted from the light of sometimes repressed or resisted heads and textured. During the live-action perspectives. Animation also offers the shoot, the actors wore specially designed possibility of a genuine ‘what if?’ scenario rigs with markers, which allowed for the by enabling the creation of plausible subsequent tracking of their heads in the reconstruction. Tiger Aspect Productions and footage, and the replacement of their faces The Moving Picture Company produced a with the computer-generated versions. The documentary drama entitled Virtual History: actors then repeated their lines in a facial The Secret to Kill Hitler, which focuses motion-capture session. Their facial on events that took place on the 20th of July, movements, including all dialogue and 1944. It follows the war leaders – Adolf gestural expressions, were recorded and Hitler, Sir Winston Churchill, Franklin D processed, and then applied to the computer- Roosevelt and Josef Stalin – as they take generated faces, bringing them to life and significant decisions in what will be the last offering the possibility of re-animating and phase of the War, including the plan to reconstructing historical events. assassinate Hitler. The fully textured digital faces were lit to match the on-set lighting CONSTRUCTING HISTORY conditions and then composited into the live- _ action footage. Once The Moving Picture The Moving Picture Company deployed Company team was content with the computer animation techniques to combine plausibility of the recreated leaders, digital treated live-action footage and specially grade and damage effects were added to constructed facial imaging. Their goal was the shots. In order to fully authenticate based on historical documents and accounts, and emulate archive material, the team and to transform the faces of actors into researched the properties of different film exact replicas of the major protagonists and stocks of that period, and also created a turn contemporary live-action material into probable ‘life story’ of the exposed film. authentic 1940s colour archive. The process Archive footage can potentially go through a used to recreate the political leaders complex history of changes in itself, subject involved the following main stages, which to different kinds of storage, chemical demonstrate the combination of traditional deterioration, and the uses and abuses of craft skills and digital imposition. Firstly, ownership; so this was taken into account as plaster casts were made of the actors’ part of the ways that modern technologies heads. A sculptor then used these as a base could imitate this. Likely American, German upon which to fashion realistic faces of the and British-film looks were created, each

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displaying different colour slants and of representational idioms. What is at stake, propensity to damage. The resulting archive in the contemporary era, is the scale and footage closely matches those of the 1940s – degree of ‘constructedness’. Pioneer presenting a mixture of conditions that echo documentarist, John Grierson, always the implicit history of archiving, as well as accepted that documentary was concerned the historical events themselves. with the ‘creative treatment of actuality’, but in the case of the virtual history represented PHOTOREALISM REVISITED here, actuality is created for treatment; _ although based on thorough research and This attention to detail ultimately supports historiographic integrity, it nevertheless the idea of realism, which renders the makes the animated imaginary the same imaginary events as if they were real. as the proven real, and this significantly This significantly problematises the status redefines all non-fiction-based work. not merely of documentary, but of any supposedly photorealistic record of a non- fictional event. It should be recognised, though, that photorealism, since the beginning of cinema and throughout the history of documentary forms, has never been a wholly trustworthy record of such events. It is subject to a variety of technical and mechanical interventions, and most importantly, the dictates and choices of authorship and the deliberate construction The Moving Picture Company combined the physical presence of a real actor, appended a computer-generated face to the original actor’s head, and treated the footage to look like damaged archive material in their reconstruction of the attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler.

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RE-DEFINING PRACTICE

John Finnegan, Associate Professor for ‘The impetus for the specific Computer Graphics Technology at Purdue content for these projects was inspired by University College of Technology at New Rutgers University’s SIGGRAPH 2002 and Albany, and his colleagues, Richard Kopp 2003 Educator’s presentations entitled and Carley Augustine, recognised that it Animating Art History. The team from was important not only to engage with ideas Rutgers describes a process where animators about history and technology, but also to look and art historians come together and build at how art history might be able to facilitate tools-animated artworks that can be used a greater degree of recognition about the to teach art history. The three-dimensional relationship between (animated) art and aspect of the tools developed adds a level of (computer) science. visualisation and appreciation that doesn’t Finnegan explains their necessarily exist experientially in the original project, Modeling Art History: Exploring work, but can affect how a student views Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks Outside and perceives the work with these newly and ... IN!: ‘The art history portion of this developed tools. Also, the animated Vermeer project was inspired by a number of factors project from the SIGGRAPH Computer in the creators’ range of experience. Firstly, Animation Festival, created by Interface the creators came to computer graphics Media Group, Washington, DC, shows the technology and to three-dimensional painting, The Music Lesson by Johannes modelling and animation from the disciplines Vermeer, and this was influential. Using of theatre, fine art, graphic design and computer graphics tools and visualisation instructional/educational technology. techniques, the Vermeer work was The perception is that engineering and deconstructed to show changes made by technology-focused curricula are not as the artist, and also allowed exploration of likely to seek these resources. Liberal the space in which the painting subject exists. and fine arts programmes are by nature It added a thoroughly new appreciation for more inclusive of a broader range of the work of this master, and how his process topics than math, science and engineering- for a painting might change over the life of based programmes. the process of creation.’

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RE-DEFI PRACTIC

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KEYWORDS IN THIS SECTION John Finnegan, Associat Art history Computer Graphics Tech Art history underpins approaches to animation University College of Tec in a number of ways. Its achievements can Albany, and his colleague be the source of a visual styling. The techniques and approaches undertaken by fine and Carley Augustine, re artists can be used by animators; and the was important not only t images themselves can be used for formalist about history and techno experimentation, historical investigation and technical knowledge. at how art history might Collaboration a greater degree of reco Increasingly, there is clear recognition relationship between (an of the role and function that collaborators (computer) science. play in bringing their individual expertise to the development of a project. Artists Finnega may view their strengths in visualisation, project, Modeling Art H calling upon composers to add creatively Edward Hopper’s Night to the project. These kinds of collaborative projects can function as experimental and ... IN!: ‘The art histo research as well as creative outcomes. project was inspired by a in the creators’ range of the creators came to com technology and to three- modelling and animation of theatre, fine art, grap instructional/educationa The perception is that en technology-focused curr likely to seek these reso and fine arts programme more inclusive of a broad topics than math, scienc based programmes.

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_ANIMATING NIGHTHAWKS The Nighthawks project required us Finnegan chose Edward Hopper’s realist to extrapolate from masterpiece, Nighthawks, as the subject for data we could observe his students to research and recreate as a in Hopper’s painting three-dimensional animated space. The to data not visible in object was to create the diner in the painting the painting. Using and as much of the surrounding environment inference, or projection as possible with the ultimate goal of being from ‘what we know’ able to enter the painting and the diner, and to ‘what we conjecture’ see what the subjects in the painting are is always a good seeing. Nighthawks was chosen for the learning process. architectural nature of the subject matter. Jerry Banick Finnegan notes: ‘The students realised through analysis and discussion that they would have to include and model many items that weren’t evident in the two-dimensional painting by Hopper. Once they realised that a viewer could come into the world of the painting and essentially enter at the diner, they should be able to see things such as the floor, the ceiling and behind the counter. This sparked their curiosity. Additional research and modelling was outlined and assigned and they continued production.’ Having viewed Hopper’s original painting, the group felt even more invested in creating a highly authentic environment: ‘It raised their internal expectations as they now had been in the presence of the original, and it mattered more that they get it right. The group even went so far as to photograph themselves in costume and composite themselves into the final rendering – a move that would make Marcel Duchamp smile.’

Notes and plans for the re-animation of Nighthawks.

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This re-animation of the an empty, deserted landscape, but one which painting is essentially a re-imagining of its is filled with a deadly presence and threat – status as an artwork and its place as radioactivity – that can’t be seen, can’t be historical evidence about art, American touched, can’t be smelt, but only heard culture and the relationship between the through a Geiger-teller machine, seemed to perception of the artist and the subject me to be a good starting point for a project engaged with. For the students, it is an in which sound and image are the catalysts apposite approach to understanding the and stimuli for each other. My own creative compositional and material difference energies were continually prompted by a between 2D and 3D, and most importantly, personal experience related to my fascination aesthetic concerns, when played out through for Chernobyl. A couple of years ago, I had to the pragmatic nature of real and imagined be treated for thyroid disease and they had environments in computer animation. to inject a radioactive kind of fluid in order to Participating student Jerry Banick notes: see the problem. My doctor told me that the ‘The Nighthawks project required us to rate of thyroid diseases was much higher extrapolate from data we could observe since the Chernobyl disaster, and this merely in Hopper’s painting to data not visible in developed my interest further. the painting. It was necessary to infer ‘What we wanted to achieve things such as the possible look and texture was a video piece that evoked a world, but of the diner’s floor, the lighting fixtures and also a world in evolution, and you never know the backside of the counter. That type of whether it is a positive evolution or a negative thinking, using inference or projection from one. I always wanted to portray a reversed “what we know” to “what we conjecture” kind of Chernobyl in the sense that the is always a good learning process.’ landscape is at first empty; explosion and This process of conjecture implosion occur, which changes the tones is once more particularly enabled by the of the video (the constant play between freedoms of the animated form, which black, white and greys) but in the end, intrinsically moves beyond both the confines something is growing in the landscape of the real and the representational. (the flower-like figures).’ Video artist Anouk De Clercq uses a key historical source as an associative and symbolic prompt in her work, Anouk de Clercq’s Kernwasser Kernwasser Wunderland: ‘I had been Wunderland creates a particular world that is fascinated by Prypyat and Chernobyl in part abstract and part particular for a very long time. The idea of suggestive of a decimated environment. Shapes and forms are half seen in the dust clouds, echoing the peaks and troughs of Geiger-counting instruments. These are combined with organic forms that are insistent and resistant to the effects of nuclear fallout.

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_HISTORICAL SOURCES ‘Concerning the sound/image: we wanted neither of the two layers to be an illustration of the other. We wanted the two layers to play with each other; sometimes the sound takes the lead and moves the image forward, sometimes it is the image that asks the music to speak what it can't say.’ If the Nighthawks project invited students and subsequent viewers to interrogate a historical space through a virtual artwork, De Clercq wishes to engage with an implied historical condition through the use of a real gallery space. She notes: ‘In a traditional screening venue you don’t get to play with that other element: the space. Since 2002, I have been presenting COLLABORATION Antennae revolves picking my work in galleries or museums and this _ up signs of life, yet also adds the possibility of creating a space for De Clercq recognises that even though this presents an abstract shape in the void. the images and sounds. This includes was a collaborative project in which artists considering the colour of the walls, the are focused on developing a core concept, seating element, how the place is designed, the digital animation technology became an looking at the carpet on the floor, where the important protagonist. ‘We worked mostly audience comes in, and the spatial qualities online and rarely met. Eavesdropper sent us of sound. We have built a dark labyrinth a couple of sound excerpts based on the where people had to find their way in the Chernobyl subject. The computer and the dark, with only the sounds of Kernwasser animation program never stops surprising so Wunderland to guide them. At the end of you can’t possibly work in a rigid way, I feel. the labyrinth, there was a big projection of The computer and the software is the fourth the piece on a specially designed screen.’ collaborator in this project. But anyway, Joris and I made the first three minutes of the piece, as the introduction to the landscape. We sent that to Eavesdropper so he could make the sound to it. Then Joris and I continued to work on the image. We didn’t talk much, we sent each other images and sounds.’

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RECLAIMING ANIMATION HISTORY I

Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre’s McLaren’s Negatives is an about one of animation’s most influential figures – Norman McLaren. His experimental works provide much of the foundation for the numerous approaches that are taken in the field even in the contemporary era. His interest in technology, technique and formal enquiry, all imbued with a political zeal about the value of animation as a democratic and expressive form, has prompted many artists to engage with their own work in a spirit of enquiry and artistic questioning. It is important to recognise McLaren as a key influence and to promote his legacy, but contemporary artists must also foreground his significance historically and aesthetically. Saint-Pierre’s work seeks to do this. She says: ‘I discovered Norman McLaren when I was studying film animation at Concordia University in Montreal. I remember being introduced to his work and thought I had never seen anything quite so amazing. Norman McLaren is a singular artist who really has made paramount innovations in film-making. He is a true pioneer of frame- by-frame film-making. He made films using a very wide variety of techniques such as scratching, painting, ink, drawing, pixellation, and cut-outs. He even drew the sound directly on to the 35mm filmstrip! I think he is a genius and a film-maker who is worth talking about and seeing his films is a must for any lover of the seventh art. My personal favourites are Neighbours (an Oscar winner Norman McLaren is a pioneer in 1953), Blinkity Blank (Palme d’or in experimental animated film, developing and International Film Festival winner for Best exploring many unusual Short Film in 1955), Pas de Deux and techniques. He still remains profoundly influential in the contemporary era.

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Begone Dull Care. I wanted to make my Saint-Pierre contextualises film as homage to him. I also think he is not McLaren’s achievement as known to the general public as he should by referring to his Oscar for the anti-war be. The quality and scope of his work are parable, Neighbours. truly exceptional. ‘This film was made over several years. I started painting the backgrounds in 2001, so I guess it evolved with me and my film-making style. They were made with the 16mm film negative that was left from the first-struck print of my first film Natural Selection. After the final cut, I had so much film negative left and I could not stand having it go to waste. I started cutting the 16mm film negative with scissors in different shapes and sizes, and then I dyed it inside old, plastic soft-drink bottles. I then randomly painted and stained the Saint-Pierre uses one of film by letting the celluloid soak in these McLaren’s personal metaphors kaleidoscopic colour mixtures. After drying and motifs – the chicken – which appears in a number of them, I then mounted the 16mm coloured his films. It is a symbol of filmstrips on transparent 35mm film, and the purely intuitive and the these were scanned at a high resolution. intrinsically ‘animal’. It also conveys the sense of Frames were then chosen to compose the ‘the other’ that informs background of the film. I wish I had more McLaren’s instinctive income as an independent artist so I could investment in his formalist interrogations. print some of the negative strips on giant light boxes. They would look amazing!’ Saint-Pierre’s self-evident willingness to experiment and her approach to multiple techniques echo the formal experiments and diverse practices of Norman McLaren.

Jazz was a major influence on McLaren’s abstract style. In high school, he claimed to interpret music through the visualisation of shapes, colours, lines and forms.

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MULTIPLE TECHNIQUES Many aspects of life are often forgotten _ and these reinventions or re-imaginings ‘There are many techniques in McLaren’s of people, lives, relationships, spaces, Negatives. There are traditional hand-drawn environments and experiences are effectively animations that were made by Brigitte acts of remembering – new records of Archambault. These hand-drawn animations significant knowledge and practice, which are very dynamic and alive. There is also an are threatened with effacement by time. important amount of rotoscope animation – Animated virtual histories resist this process. a technique that consists of filming the Saint-Pierre, even by working with film, action with a model, and then having the insists upon an act of preservation – film is animator retrace the contour of the figure. treated as a physical material, handled like a These rotoscopic animations were then sculptor’s stone, or a furniture maker’s piece treated by the special effects artist, Kara of wood. McLaren’s Negatives introduces a Blake. She prepared mattes to create new generation to Norman McLaren and to McLaren’s dark silhouette. Other items the idea of traditional film-making, itself in the film include: treated and animated rapidly receding in the post-photographic era photographs; hand-painted and drawn backgrounds, as well as McLaren’s film clips.’ Saint-Pierre effectively collapses McLaren’s techniques into one process, making the subjective interrogation of McLaren’s art a model of understanding about how a contemporary artist has absorbed and reflected his influence. Her main intention, however, was not to essentially document McLaren, but to preserve and extend the notion of memory.

McLaren always drew a parallel with the practices of the fine artist and his own approach as a film-maker.

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McLaren stressed that the thinking and decision-making process in the creation of images is more important than what was actually on the frame itself.

Saint-Pierre’s work draws on another documentary, Creative Process, where McLaren tries to describe the thoughts that unfold in his mind while creating animation. Saint-Pierre celebrates McLaren’s work and his sense of humility.

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RECLAIMING ANIMATION HISTORY II

In Eric Dyer’s Copenhagen Cycles, a cyclist TRADITION AND MODERNITY travels through a fantastical, collaged _ reconstruction of Denmark’s capital city. The Dyer’s working imperatives challenge the combination of the pre-cinema zoetrope with viewer to evaluate how the images are fast-shutter technology explores created. By operating as an installation, the kinetics of Copenhagen life and plays out the work provides a visual parallel between an important relationship between proto- traditional and new forms of animation – animation and post-photographic animation. one creating and reflecting upon the other. It suggests that the hand-crafted processes ‘The Copenhagen Cycles of the pre-cinema era are directly echoed in installation is really an exposé of the process the craft techniques of the contemporary used to create the film of the same name. animator using digital technologies. Dyer I find that audiences are very interested in spent eight months in Copenhagen on a how the film was created. Many think that Fulbright Fellowship. He rode around on a the images are computer-generated and bicycle to collect source footage of the effected – when I tell them the film is city’s moving elements, printed and cut composed of raw, unprocessed footage of the sequences, and then built around 25 the spinning cinetropes, they are amazed cinetropes (zoetrope-like sculptures). and become very curious about the process. Copenhagen Cycles is It should not really matter to an audience composed entirely of unprocessed shots of how the film was made – it should stand on the spinning sculptures. Dyer describes its own, regardless of process, but it seems working on the project: ‘I wanted to work we have already acquired a kind of quiet away from the computer screen, get back to disinterest or disbelief in computer-generated physical processes, and also move animation work – it seems like it is only a trick – away from flatness and into real space. soulless. The reaction to Copenhagen I began by creating zoetrope-like sculptures Cycles made me really want to show the registered with strobe lights, but was process, show the objects I created to make unhappy with the flickering effect of the the film, and to show those objects in action, strobe. I realised that using a fast shutter live. In the layout of the installation I made speed on a progressive scan DV camera could sure audiences encountered the live video also register the sequence parts. This feed of the spinning cinetropes (the discovery was especially thrilling to me, animation) before revealing the process – because I’m a film-maker at heart and an attempt to get the audience/viewer to using this process means I could create question the process before understanding it.’ installation art and make films.’

Eric Dyer creates cinetropes of images of Copenhagen, cutting out innumerable shots to mount on a three-dimensional zoetrope-style system.

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Like Saint-Pierre, this kind of Dyer’s judicious use of work recognises a lost aspect – not merely of contemporary animation in reclaiming the animation and animation as an art, but of the older pioneering grammar of moving image very experience of engaging with animation practice enables the viewer to embrace the as a form. Dyer adds: ‘It is interesting to experience of ‘seeing again’ while ‘seeing look at animation history and see how afresh’. In foregrounding technique alongside technologies heavily influenced the aesthetic content, Dyer reveals Copenhagen in a Dyer shoots his revolving cinetropes on a DV camera, of the works created. Today, one can sit in the completely different way than any travelogue creating a record of spinning cinema or in front of the TV and say, “that or documentary could. Dyer’s work bestrides loops and action cycles. was created in Maya” or “that was created cinema and gallery, time and technology, in After Effects”, for example. Each piece of animation and animus, and effectively software and each tool system forms its re-imagines animation through its long, own grammar through which we express lost past. ourselves. I am interested in creating with tool systems of my own design, to create new expressive frameworks. ‘When motion picture film was invented, animation moved to the screen. Quickly forgotten were the , phenakistascopes and praxinoscopes. That sort of animation was a tool system with its own grammar, one of loops and spirals and tactility. With the creation of Copenhagen Cycles, I have dug up that old grammar and re-explored its expressive potential. Thanks to the latest DV technology, I have also been able to bring it to the screen. Because of real- time, hand-held DV is used to ‘see’ the moving elements on the cinetropes; intuition and spontaneity also become part of the process, itself unusual for animation.’

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Spinning cinetropes suggest models of motion in a gallery environment.

Dyer’s cinetropes simultaneously operate as abstract forms and specific types of documentary record, both of the environment itself and the process of what might be termed ‘archaic’ technology.

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RE-THINKING ARTISTS

In an era of ‘expanded cinema’ or the ‘manipulated moving image’, animating remains a traditional art in a progressive context. Artists re-engage with history in an attempt to liberate themselves from the sometimes oppressive vocabularies of the styles and contexts that inform dominant practice. In the process, they have to rethink their art through its formalist roots and language. Where Dyer reclaimed the language of pre-cinema, other artists are revisiting the constituent tools of expression in moving image forms to express their vision.

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RE-THIN ARTISTS

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KEYWORDS IN THIS SECTION In an era of ‘expanded c Installation ‘manipulated moving ima In recent years more and more animation remains a traditional art has found itself in gallery settings, often context. Artists re-engag informing and facilitating multimedia installations of artefacts and moving image an attempt to liberate th artworks. This has provoked debates about sometimes oppressive vo the status and definition of the work, as styles and contexts that there remains a resistance to naming these aspects of moving image practice explicitly practice. In the process, as animation. Installation work often their art through its form affords the possibility of foregrounding language. Where Dyer re the procedural construction of animated images and some of the material aspects language of pre-cinema, that inform it. are revisiting the constit Cinematic apparatus expression in moving ima Within film study, the cinematic apparatus express their vision. has been understood as the viewing principles, physical infrastructures and delivery technologies, which facilitate the execution of film exhibition and its reception. This has necessarily had to take into account the material aspects of creating cinema, and the psychological, emotional and physical experience of the viewer spectator. With the digital shift, both the subject and object of film study is under threat, and the cinematic apparatus, though still extant is necessarily re-thought and re-defined.

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ANIMATING LIGHT

Joost Rekveld’s #11, Marey <-> Moiré project into bits by having a rotating shutter in front directly engages with the work of French of the lens. I was already familiar with some scientist and pioneer chronophotographer, of these pictures, but when I started to Étienne-Jules Marey. Rekveld explains: ‘Film- investigate more I was overawed by the maker Gerard Holthuis, who had some inventiveness of the man. He invented many experience with producing semi-commercial capturing devices and ways of taking films, wanted to try and break open the pictures; he made mechanical models of Dutch funding system for more experimental organisms all of which are stunningly films. He liked my work and wondered what beautiful. His casual invention of the film would happen if I were able to work on a camera and the film projector were bigger scale. We applied for the project and completely beside the point for him; he we actually managed to get a considerable was only interested in the science and Joost Rekveld works in his grant. This enabled me to invest a lot of time the adequacy of his methods, which is studio using the apparatus he in research and acquiring the technical skills probably why his results are so aesthetically constructed for his animated I needed for making the film. pleasing as well.’ light project. Rekveld is preoccupied by CHRONOPHOTOGRAPHY an intellectual interrogation of moving image _ practice, which engages with philosophical #11, Marey <-> Moiré was informed by imperatives. ‘I was reading the works of earlier films I had made. At the time, I was Henri Bergson, a French philosopher who influenced by early abstract painters, such wrote a lot about time and duration. At some as Malevitch and Kandinsky and also by point, he writes that only through art and composers such as Stockhausen and Xenakis. intuition do we have access to the one, In earlier films such as #3 and #5, I used the continuous evolution of the world, and that principle of having a moving light source draw in the concept of our practical “mind time”, images during long exposures. In this way it is necessarily discontinuous in order to get the movement of the light source generates things done. In this context, for me, Marey both the images as well as the movement of represented this fundamental discontinuity in those images by controlling the interference our methods to deal with anything practical. between the movement and the of We can only solve a problem by chopping it the camera. Technically, #11 was a next step into pieces and solving the bits. This is by adding a shutter to this set-up. The images something fundamental to any technology. produced were the result of the interactions Marey represented the beauty of this between the movement in front of the principle and with my film I tried to remain camera, the exposure time and the shutter as close to it as I could. Central to animation frequency. At some point, I realised that in my view is the notion of building up a the technique I was planning to use for complex world of movement out of tiny #11 was exactly what Marey did with his building blocks. This is both the technique chronophotographs – cutting a long exposure and subject matter of #11. What I admire

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in all kinds of animation is how the world that the screen into regions, the colour relations is created is both completely artificial and of which do not resemble the behaviour of very human, concepts that are often seen as familiar objects.’ incompatible. The craft of animation has to Rekveld’s use of formal do with exactly this: how to “humanise” parameters and his engagement with line mechanical shapes by giving them motion forms are crucial, but his recognition of the qualities we can relate to.’ temporal significance of layering – ironically, To make the film, Rekveld one of the key aspects in the reconfiguration sought to disengage with the terms and of animation in the digital era – is equally conditions of contemporary apparatus and important. Once more, an old-fashioned create a device that would enable him to technique is revealed within the toolbox of record his aesthetic intentions. He notes: contemporary work, one which effectively ‘Before I built the machine I used to make re-codes animation in a way that moves it #11, Marey <-> Moiré, I made a lot of beyond a frame-by-frame dynamic, into a sketches to help me imagine the kinds of deep frame-within-a-frame model. images and movements it would generate. Ultimately, this informs the The idea was to make a film in-between the conceptual interrogation of moving image extremes given by the set-up I was using, for practice, per se. Rekveld comments: ‘In example, going from the minimum possible the end I am most interested by how our number of lines per frame to the maximum. perception of the world is shaped by the Another pair of extremes concerned the concepts we have, concepts which can be location of the centre of rotation, going from verbal or non-verbal. The philosopher Nelson as far away as was practically feasible to the Goodman wrote that art does not imitate centre of the frame. I used these extremes nature, but “nature is a product of art and of all such parameters as the starting point discourse”. I am interested in the history of of my composition. science and in the history of art because I ‘The second set of see them as the history of this discourse, the parameters were those of the optical printing concepts of which are very often embodied process I used to combine the line patterns in machines and methods of work. I came to produced and add colour. I was using positive film from a background in electronic music and negative versions of these patterns, and computer composition. and by combinations of bi-packing and ‘A big influence on my work superimposition, I could achieve many was the Dutch composer and media theorist, different kinds of layering. Some of these Dick Raaijmakers, who I was lucky enough to types of layering mimic what happens when have as one of my teachers. He has a special objects pass in front of other objects, some way of thinking about media by reducing simulate some kind of transparency and them to their most basic model or set-up, some are completely mathematical, dividing and his way of thinking and the radicalism of his work were a big inspiration for me.

Rekveld is immersed in the mixture of traditional and new technologies required to facilitate an old technique for fresh aesthetic purposes. These redefine animation as the capture of moving light forms.

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Three of the extraordinary abstract images created by Rekveld that play out tensions between lines, light forms and colour transitions.

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‘When I became interested in experimental ‘The most interesting thing, According to Nelson film the biggest discoveries for me were the I find, is the idea that in these systems, Goodman ‘nature is a films of James Whitney. certain principles are embodied that can product of art and The Five Abstract Film Exercises he made, generate certain kinds of images, perhaps discourse’. I am together with , were very close in interaction with other such systems. The interested in the to the kind of thinking about composition I most extreme example of where this might history of science and was familiar with in contemporary music. go is perhaps the International Society of in the history of art His films Yantra and Lapis are astonishing Artificial Life community, where scientists because I see them works: I show them whenever I can and are making very articulate computer models as the history of this after seeing them hundreds of times, they of living organisms or ecological systems, discourse, the concepts still amaze me.’ and where the idea is that one day there of which are very often might be no reason anymore to not say that embodied in machines _EXPERIMENTAL TRADITION these simulations are themselves forms of and methods of work. life. I’m very much interested in these ideas Joost Rekveld Through working out of this experimental and their possible application to art.’ tradition, Rekveld readily sees that by re- Animation, in its most primal engaging with technologies and established definition, means ‘to breath life into’, and in grammars of expression, there are always this progressive ambition is to become, then, provocative ideas that can be readdressed the embodied essence of life itself. through new technologies and grammars of expression, which can then emerge from cross-disciplinary practices. ‘The developments I’m most interested in are those that seem to go toward systems in which images can somehow be “active”. A lot of this work manifests itself in the current generation of laptop artists who often develop their own software to be able to “perform” their computer animations in real time. Artists such as Golan Levin also make image generators for others to interact with, either members of the public or other kinds of performers such as musicians or voice artists.

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ANIMATING SOUND

Rekveld’s approach looks back at the way in In many senses, the crucial which the cinematic apparatus itself could relationship between animation and sound be understood as a generator of light and, remains relatively unexplored, under- consequently, of self-consciously constructed assessed, and in some ways, undervalued. motion forms – the very stuff of animation. This is at the heart of some of Evans’s An often neglected aspect of the animation preoccupations: ‘To understand how vocabulary, and an equally important tool, important the relationship between sound is sound. Carl Stalling and Scott Bradley and image is, I recommend the silent works defined the fragmentary soundtrack of of Stan Brakhage. As a composer, the the popular American animated cartoon, correlation of image and sound is one of employing phrases and sequences from a the things I am most interested in. I think variety of musical and sound idioms; Matyas there are degrees of tension and resolution Seiber and Francis Chagrin at the Halas & that can be explored in abstract music and Batchelor Studio in England were two animation – in the images, the sound and composers who extended the nature of the in the relationship between the two. musical score for cartoons; while Pixar ‘My work is computational, Animation think very carefully about the I work with numerical models, which are use of dialogue and sound effects in their visualised and sonicated. I use all the tools stories. Every animator must think about available for algorithmic composition and the nature of sound in relation to the timing generative art. I create visual scores (I of the action. call them time slices) from my abstract animations, which I then map into sound. THE ABSTRACT MATERIALS OF SOUND The sonic becomes a metaphor for the visual _ and vice versa. My pieces build on a century- Composer Brian Evans works in a more old tradition of . I start with experimental tradition: ‘Calidri is one of a keyframes and then render in-betweens, series of short animations that I think of as composite and colour. I then add sound, simple, visual music compositions. Music is which may sometimes find itself composited the structuring of time using the abstract back into a remapped layer of the animation. materials of sound. I am looking for ways It’s an odd self-reflexivity. Image becomes to structure visual time in a musical way. sound and sound becomes image. These I start with abstract visual materials and days I find myself drawn to the idea of try to develop movements through visual metaphor – mapping from one conceptual consonance and dissonance, which can map domain to another.’ to concepts of harmonic motion in Western instrumental music.’

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_LISTEN WITH YOUR EYES Like other artists in this discussion, Evans points to the intrinsically metaphoric nature of animation and the way it can embody the kinds of relationship between past, present and future, as suggested in the previous examples. Through metaphors, we connect what we experience to what we know. We create knowledge by connecting the new (the present) to what we know (the past), and so maybe predict what happens next (the future). Evans adds: ‘I make maps. The maps loop in time and in the moment. There is synchrony in the sensory horizontal and the temporal vertical. Image and audio derive from the same numeric source. Each maps the other in the moment and through time. It’s visual music in a synaesthetic counterpoint. Musical narrative developed over centuries, moving the listener through time with the Pythagorean struggle of harmonic conflict, dissonance seeking consonance. My little loops engage that struggle at various levels. Colour shifts. Composition flows. Image and sound agree, complement, disagree and resolve.’ Even in trying to describe such a process, though, Evans makes an important recommendation: ‘Perhaps it’s abstract expressionism, true to its digital materials, founded in musical traditions and modernist formalism. But it’s loosened a bit. It’s meant to be fun. It’s jazz in colour, shape, sound and computation. Relax. Hear the colours. Listen with your eyes.’

Evans’s musical transitions accompany the various abstract metamorphoses of shape, colour and form in an ever-evolving image shift.

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ANIMATING SPACE

Although sound and image constitute speak to the idea of creative ancestry. An animation’s core language, it has increasingly acknowledgement that individual genius is a sought another dimension in its presence myth and that, consciously or unconsciously, through space. Rose Bond, an experienced we ride on a river of work that flows from scholar and practitioner, has been eager to the past. explore this sense of space, rejecting the ‘Intra Muros means “within gallery and preferring urban contexts to the walls”. Quite literally, the animation is deliver her images. Intra Muros was one of rear-projected on multiple windows from the animated installations at the inaugural within the walls. It is viewed from the street. Platform Animation Festival in Portland in This public aspect – the whole idea of a 2007. It took the extended platform for mobile public, stopping, starting, looking, animation in all its forms as its key theme. talking, texting and capturing is important. For me, the work stands apart from the ENVISIONING SPACE traditional movie house; the no-cell zones of _ the multiplex; the self-containment of home Bond notes: ‘Intra Muros is a departure from video; and being apart from the hushed white my earlier, historic, site-based installation space of galleries. It seems like public work. With an autobiographical slant and spectacle with the twist that it is also themes that explored the creative process, intimate. The voyeuristic aspect is evident it is less tied to a specific space, and could be from the start – the door opening to reveal staged in another building. The idea for the a backlit silhouette entering, the personal piece came during a personally difficult time. rituals, and the distinctive gestures all My original concept was entitled In Situ and glimpsed in unshuttered windows.’ it dealt with frustrations, loss of control and Bond has carefully noted the the overuse of organisational compulsions reception of the piece: ‘I have noticed that as coping devices. The physical metaphors people tend to view the work several times. evolved as I was animating. I believe the The loop is eight minutes. Speculating on this final piece finds resonance with many phenomenon, I believe this difference in creatives – the empty mailbox, the call that viewing may be brought about by the scale, Rose Bond’s initial doesn’t come, the inspiration that eludes you. but even more so by the breaking up of the site-specific installation In making this piece I was aware that it conventional screen. Not only is the action featuring animated would premiere at the inaugural Platform stretched over a longer viewing surface, well silhouettes in framing devices on buildings was Festival and its first animated installation beyond peripheral vision, it is also broken or entitled Illuminations, competition. I wanted to make a piece that obscured by the mullions and walls. The and sought to shed light was accessible to the public yet held viewer assumes what is happening behind metaphorically on the building and its inhabitants. particular meaning for animators. The the walls – possibly makes predictions – yet allusions to experimental animators – is periodically surprised. Animation provides who cut an edge in their own time – endless opportunities to envision space.

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– – – – Chapter 03 Re-animating history Animating space 122/123 Re-defining practice Re-thinking artists

Intra Muros creates and collapses space extent Daniel Greaves’s Manipulation. Intra and time – from the minimally furnished Muros finds kinship with media/creative realism of the studio/apartment to the process-referenced works with its in-joke graphic abstractions lifted from frames of a visual samplings – the chicken from hand-drawn film leader, which twist again McLaren’s Hen Hop and the bands of with a bursting forth of abstract movement dancing colour from Lye’s A Colour Box.’ and a presumption of psychological space. This notion of the self- Finally, the linear layout of the windows reflexive and self-figurative in animation is presents several opportunities for present throughout the history of animation interpretation. It is reminiscent of a from its earliest forms, an insistent four-panel newspaper comic strip – only characteristic that Bond believes will these panels are animated. Just as Scott underpin the nature of future work in the McCloud posits the power of the comic as form: ‘Animation as popular entertainment lying between the gutter, also this piece will continue to reap box office rewards and appears to use the “gutter” of the walls to cable options. The change I see coming is encourage a viewer to suture meaning from this: digital tools are all too available to what is missing.’ artists of every medium. In academia, the walls between the disciplines are dissolving. REFLEXIVE ANIMATION Art students are moving between platforms _ and the call of the sequenced image is Bond’s engagement with animation history, compelling. I believe animation, or frame-by- prompted a particular aesthetic approach: frame thinking, will be increasingly prevalent ‘Aesthetically, I was going for two looks. in intermedia works that combine sculpture, The first being the long, moody set-up, in a performance and projection. monochromatic and dimly lit studio space. ‘I’m drawn to animation that Here, the figure is three shades of grey and lives outside the movie house; work that is drawn with iconic facial simplicity – two consciously modulating the perception or dots for eyes. I imagined the second shorter experience of time to achieve its cognitive section to be a visual sampling that and emotive ends; work that implicates the Bond’s execution of the piece referenced the experimental film-makers viewer in a larger context; work that is enabled the public to engage Len Lye and Norman McLaren. Animators thoughtfully articulated within a space – that with experimental film generally have a self-awareness of their articulation being essential to its experience.’ practice in an accessible public space. It allowed the process. The sheer labour-intensity of it viewer to enjoy the aesthetic has been the subject matter of a number of elements of the work for its films – Karen Aqua’s Vis-à-Vis and to some own sake and become aware of the references to other animation artists including Norman McLaren and Len Lye.

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ON INED

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– – – 01 Teaching moving image culture 124/125 02 The politics of practice 03 Animation re-imagined 04 ‘Object React’ 05 From ideas to idioms ‘OBJECT REACT’ ‘OBJ

126 RE-ANIMATING PEDAGOGY 126 RE-A 140 PROCESS 140 PROC 148 PRACTICE 148 PRAC

04 04

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RE-ANIMATING PEDAGOGY

As previously suggested throughout this the significance of ‘the idea’. Some make discussion, there are significant issues in claims for the value of generic and relation to the ways in which animation may transferable skills, others, more highly be taught. A range of viewpoints has been specific abilities. Ultimately, the ones implicitly and explicitly offered, which being educated need to have innate talent effectively note three core models. and vision. First, a quasi-training model, The next section presents dedicated to preparing practitioners to be a project undertaken by Johnny Hardstaff members of collaborative teams, using and Darryl Clifton, in collaboration with industry-level software and technique on the Victoria & Albert Museum, Onedotzero, major studio projects. Second, a more the Institute of Contemporary Arts and auteurist, independent model, encouraging Loughborough University – Object the creation of individual works, which signal React. A number of established student the intention to be an autonomous artist. practitioners were invited to partake in Third, an often uneasy combined model, the project. The project was predicated offering a comprehensive education in which upon developing a moving image response knowledge and skills are developed through to an artefact from the Victoria & Albert individual and collaborative projects, which Museum. It interrogated the process by engage with a variety of theoretical and which creative practice in animation might practice idioms, and which encourage be in some way ‘taught’, and what participants to find their own level and particularly underpinned this approach. outlook. Some educators prioritise the technical process, while others emphasise

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RE-ANIM PEDAGOG

– – – – –

KEYWORDS IN THIS SECTION As previously suggested Education discussion, there are sign Animation is an intrinsically metaphorical, relation to the ways in w and sometimes metaphysical, language of be taught. A range of vie expression. Further, it is a direct and accessible form even when using simple iconic implicitly and explicitly o images to express complex ideas. It has effectively note three co always been used in educational contexts as First, a q an important aid to teaching and learning. Crucially, in the contemporary era, the dedicated to preparing p personal statements and approaches in members of collaborativ animation, especially when grounded in industry-level software core historical knowledge and experience, all serve to educate in different ways, major studio projects. Se reflecting the convergence, divergence auteurist, independent m and challenges of different disciplines the creation of individual and cultural outlooks. the intention to be an aut Pedagogy Methods and approaches to teaching a Third, an often uneasy co discipline that must be modified as offering a comprehensive disciplines change and develop, or knowledge and skills are tailored in accordance with different methods of delivery. individual and collaborat engage with a variety of practice idioms, and whic participants to find their outlook. Some educators technical process, while

04

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SETTING THE BRIEF

Brief

Contemporary media is engaged in an Produce a communicative visual response to Poignantly, we are asking incessant search for ‘the new’, ‘the modern’ one of the artefacts/exhibits that has been you to play ‘Dorian Gray’ with these objects. and ‘the progressive’. curated specifically for this project. Research Discover your exhibit’s true representation. Rarely does one hear the your chosen exhibit. Understand its history, We know what it physically looks like within words ‘antiquity’, ‘heritage’ and ‘museum’ its original purpose and the nature of its its display case, but what does it really used in reference to the inspiration manufacture. Unearth its tears, its blood and represent? What is its true image? Is a and cultivation of new, original and emotional state. Unearth both its past and coveted treasure in some sense conceited, progressive work. its future potential, and communicate your all too aware of its value? Is a religious, This is somewhat ironic, evaluation in a revelatory and communicative devotional icon theologically pure, or perhaps considering that there can be few paths to manner that goes far beyond not just the pious and political? Are the spoils of war deeply original and exciting work as direct accepted and familiar language of museums, unaffected by the human horrors committed as the simple merging of one’s own rich but that also directly challenges the in their acquisition? heritage, with contemporary thought and contemporary expectations/dialogues/ What of your chosen object’s the medium of new technologies. aesthetics of contemporary work. current environment? We understand the The careful selection of function of museum collections... don’t we? these exhibits has ensured that each has Why do we value antiquity? Indeed, why its own story and that each has had its has your object been selected (and above so own impact. many others) for public exhibition at all, and Many of these exhibits have what does that say about us? What do we a great cultural significance. Many have been project upon these exhibits? What is it that deeply fetishised at some point in their we want from these cultural artefacts and existence. There are both examples of what can they deliver from within their glass monastic craft and of mass production. exhibition cases? Several of these exhibits are the sole Discover your exhibit’s survivors of their craft, but overall, all resonance, both literally and metaphorically. are in some way mute. Ultimately, find its frequency and make it speak again.

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– – – – Chapter 04 Re-animating pedagogy Setting the brief 128/129 Process The student/mentor exchange Practice

THE STUDENT/ MENTOR EXCHANGE

The following set of extracts and images feature the work of stop-motion animator and animation archivist, Kerry Drumm. Her statements are retrospective accounts of her experience; the comments from Johnny Hardstaff and Darryl Clifton were made as the project was progressing. The ‘teaching points’ are those drawn out of the responses as ways of thinking about teaching and learning within creative, moving image practice. This is a particularly interesting case, as the project saw Drumm move from Drumm’s initial sketches her discipline as an animator to that of a for her film, Beneath, live-action director. consider the technical, Drumm: When we were aesthetic and conceptual elements of the piece. first handed the brief for the Object React project, I was initially drawn to the fashion section. It’s always been the first place I visit when I walk into the V&A, and mainly the costumes. I took photos of the dress and crinoline chosen for the project and bought a book to research the artefact. I was first interested in the crinoline, which is a framed petticoat worn under the dress to create the fullness of the skirt. I then began thinking about the secrecy of the crinoline, hidden under the mass of fabric. The idea of ‘privacy’ and women getting dressed and undressed behind screens were some of the first images I considered. I began thinking of Simon Pummell’s film The Secret Joy of Fallen Angels and how Simon filmed behind a Two of Drumm’s mood boards screen. I was also preparing myself to make set the tone, atmosphere and the film as a stop-motion animation film. culture of her approach to the aesthetic premise of the piece.

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Teaching Points Teaching Points

– – The creative and provocative nature of Resonant art normally grows out of an the brief in itself should be inspiring and engagement with the historical, political challenging. It should immediately incite and social parameters that inform the an investment in the work and prompt an context in which the work is made. immediate engagement with relevant – research, the development of conceptual Finding a level of personal empathy with ideas and an affiliation with other works the ideas and concepts formed underpins that might enable, influence, or provide highly motivated work and results in the pertinent stimulus. desire to say something through aesthetic – practice. This does not necessarily have – to be an overtly political statement, but – should be about the formal engagement Drumm: It was important for me to try and of what the work is about, what it is for, explain or represent the freedom that the and who it is for. crinoline petticoat gave to the women of that – period. Previously, to create the fullness of – the dress, women wore many layers of – petticoats. The fashion was a corseted waist Drumm: With the crinoline, I wanted to and a very full dress. The results were often represent the idea of lightness, but I also women fainting due to the heat caused by the wanted to represent the weight women layers of material. What the crinoline offered experienced when wearing the many layers was the removal of the petticoats and the of petticoats. This kept me awake at night. wearing of one frame. In today’s society I Then I thought of water and how fabric imagine many would view the crinoline as a becomes heavy when soaked with water. All cage, almost representing kept creatures, sorts of ideas crept into my head – ‘I know, but the thing I was keen to express was let’s have a woman in a full skirt walk into that the invention of the crinoline was a sea and film it’. Not a bad idea, but how could vast improvement in women’s fashion! I film it? A friend of mine who works for the RSPCA mentioned a dog hydrotherapy pool, which seemed ideal. The owner was happy to help. I explained what I wanted to do with the water – film my friend in the dress to represent heaviness. Then for the second part, still film stop-motion the frames behind a screen, but removing the secrecy – I wanted to try and let the crinoline frames dance, almost in a waltz-like state.

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Teaching Points

– Invention should always be allied with Secondly, yes, you can buy In today’s society, pragmatism and often the best practice (or hire) transparent bags and cases for I imagine many comes out of the most creative use of taking cameras underwater, certainly for the would view the limited resources. In many educational kind of depths you’re talking about. They’re crinoline as a cage, contexts it often has to! inexpensive and effective. The camera isn’t almost representing – an issue, the operation of the camera is. kept creatures, but the If an idea has some resonance and If you want this to be hand-held (and the thing I was keen to quality, there is almost always a way in wonder of water is that it gives you a natural express was that the which it can be ‘tested’ in its execution. and cheap steadicam) then you’re fine. But invention of the Thinking ahead in pre-production can you might well want your shots to be locked crinoline was a vast save time, energy and resources. off, and if so, you need to get hold of a improvement in – tripod or build some kind of simple brace women’s fashion! – mechanism so that the camera stays in its Kerry Drumm – bag and is fine. Actually, we think some of Hardstaff/Clifton: Fantastic. What a great these bags have tripod mounts. call, shooting it underwater. In doing so you Thirdly, how you light this both convey the original sense of liberation is an issue. We would overcompensate with that you feel the cage to have brought lighting sources and have as much as you women, but still emphasise the female can in terms of variety and nature. Why not bondage side of things through the weight look into doing some experiments with a stills of sodden layers of fabric in water that you camera, the bath and odd lighting choices quite rightly identify as tangible. (UV, for example)? It really depends what Three technical points for you want to convey. Do you need to get you: when shooting fabric in water, you will lights underwater? If so, and we can see find that whilst the fabric moves slowly, you why this would be good, look at custom still might want to be able to shoot at a underwater lights. higher frame rate (around 50 frames per Lastly, think carefully about second) and have the option of frame cutting the pool that you select to shoot in. What later. The balletic quality you will be able colour is the pool, not just on camera but also to get from it we think you will ultimately behind camera? If it is not what you desire, find very seductive, so you may wish to either find another pool or just find the plan ahead on this. The technical staff appropriate tonal qualities in plastic sheeting has a three-chip camera that shoots in an and dress it. approximation of frames, rather than fields Also, and this is just for and it shoots at different frame rates. We our own conscience if nothing else, please believe it will also record wonderfully at remember that this might be very dangerous. low light (underwater).

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Teaching Points Teaching Points

– – Once a core concept or idea has Sometimes a practitioner needs and Privately, you may been accepted and work gone into its requires radical challenge; on some know you’re right. potential execution, it is crucial that occasions, practical advice and on That’s the nature of technical matters are addressed, not others, comfort, consolation and support. film-making. merely in relation to the management Remaining sensitive to the artistic, Sometimes you just of equipment itself, but also to the conceptual and practical needs of a have to do it, and pertinence of its use for aesthetic piece of work should prompt empathic then see what your and conceptual outcomes. and accurate mentor support. audience feels. The – – only way to learn is to Technical knowledge is important and in – risk making both good some senses objective, but it should also – and bad mistakes. be used in a subjective sense in order Hardstaff/Clifton: We’re very sorry to hear Johnny Hardstaff to suggest ideas to the practitioner. that what we had suggested has in any way In this sense, the student/mentor bond thrown you, if indeed it has. is collaborative at one level, as the The last thing we want to more experienced mentor must offer do is confuse you or in any way deflate or perspectives that will enable the best unnerve you. Please excuse us if we are a outcome for the work, which the little direct. We just find it more expedient. practitioner may not have considered. However, the apologies do – need to end there, because we do want to Health and safety is absolutely paramount constructively test your ideas, and we do in securing professionally engaging want to help you question what it is you outcomes. Health and safety advice are doing, and how you are doing it. normally helps in the organisational and It strikes us very strongly procedural aspects of developing work that your underwater filming is the strongest effectively in all creative environments. aspect of your proposed film. You must be – careful in throwing different media together – in the subsequent sections. You’re going to – undo all the good work with unrelated Drumm: It was put to me at the brief that sequences that follow. I shoot the whole film underwater. But It is vital that at every what about animating? I animate! At first juncture when making films, you test, I wouldn’t even think about it – but then on question and sound out your plans and ideas. the train home I began to think how it could All we fear is that you are be done. I have no idea how I came to the overcomplicating things and therefore will idea, except through a conversation about dilute what it is you are saying. a large fish tank being for sale, which also kept me awake for a number of nights!

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Teaching Points

– We think this is nothing Couched in the right terms, the mentor to have a sleepless night over. It is can always be a provocateur, enabling effortlessly redeemable by simply dropping the practitioner to test assumptions and the unnecessary. evolving ideas, being a sounding board, It is also very important devil’s advocate and critical friend. The that, as a director, you follow your vision, and only object is to help the practitioner at times, be very bloody minded about it. You secure the best outcome for the work, live and die by what it is you make. If you and this means that the practitioner must know better, then follow your gut instinct. engage carefully with their own decision- After all, this is about your voice. However, if making process in order to be absolutely any of this raises doubts, then you may want secure about attaining their desired goal. to listen to these doubts, as they may well – have some weight. Seeking the right balance of material in We think that directing a moving-image piece is important. There requires strength of vision more than is often the tendency to do too much or anything else. Privately, you may know include material that is not absolutely you’re right. That’s the nature of film-making. required. Knowing what to edit and excise Sometimes you just have to do it and then is as much of a key skill as knowing what see what your audience feels. The only way to include. to learn is to risk making both good and – bad mistakes. Finding stimuli, whether admired or Once again, the testing despised, is helpful in continuing to process never stops until the edit is over. discover the motives and imperatives of But you should really be sleeping more the work as it proceeds, and encourages, soundly after a discussion like that, because clear decision-making. it may well have stopped you making a – mistake, or made you more confident of your Taking risks, making mistakes and ideas and how individualistic and visionary learning from experience is an absolute your approach is. requirement for any developmental creative process.

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Drumm: At this point I had included a my family’s DV camera, but I didn’t quite few folk to help make the film. Talented trust it. However, we kept shooting and composers, Jode Steel and David Wainwright had over an hour of material; the majority from Verbal Vigilante Music, were brought in of the best clips were when Katie was for the soundtrack. It was really important trying to flatten the dress ready for a shot, to have the music mirror what I was trying so quite accidental. to say. We met a number of times to discuss The next part was to shoot my ideas and the brief I had been given. the crinolines in the fish tank. I spent a They were excited about the film being shot couple of weeks making the crinolines. underwater as it gave them a strong artistic I suppose my years of making and direction to follow and enabled them to set sets contributed to my being able to do this. some of their own parameters regarding I had been able to source a camera arm from the instrumentation and feel of the piece. Loughborough, which enabled me to attach Cellos and basses were used to mirror the my DV camera to a chair. The plan was for movement of the dress underwater. Dynamic the chair to move slowly along the tank while swells were used to highlight the unusual the crinolines swayed back and forth creating and restricted flow. My friend Aaron Wood a free-floating feeling. This worked really was also keen to edit the film – he was well, and I was happy with how it looked. learning After Effects and wanted to put When it came to editing, we the training into practice. had problems with the dress changing colour I discovered that the dog in the hydrotherapy pool and there were clips hydrotherapy pool had an underwater that we simply could not use and this was camera so we all headed to the Wirral for frustrating. We had no control as to how a day’s shooting. My friend, Katie Steed, everything moved while filming in water. This agreed to model the old bridesmaid’s dress. was so different to what I was used to. With I purchased shoes and a jacket and my mum animation, you know exactly where A to B is made bloomers. I was so nervous. I had no and you have a storyboard to follow. With the idea how this was going to look – we were footage I had, it was so frustrating trying to shooting blind. The underwater camera at the link clips and create a sequence. These images show the pool wasn’t high quality and frustratingly the complexities of shooting dress kept changing colour. I had purchased the dress underwater. an underwater camera bag that would fit

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The above images show the fish tank where the crinolines were floated and shot. Practical and domestic sacrifices are often part of the creative process.

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Hardstaff/Clifton: So, we Part 1 have seen it. Really interesting. Part 1 has 01: Is there an odd filter/ lovely movements and qualities, and Part 2 blur/high-contrast effect applied to it? is truly quite beautiful and magical, ethereal If so, we would be very tempted to remove even. Together they are enigmatic and quietly it. The neat footage would look very nice just provocative. Great stuff. that, 'neat'. There are, however, a few 02: The background that you things holding the film back from being much have inserted, we personally think, is not so better still. Darryl and I have sat down convincing. The hue is almost OK, so perhaps together and watched your film many times, all it needs is a lovely pale or duck egg blue and the following points, if addressed, we colour of some kind, rather than the textured feel would improve things greatly. version you have inserted. There seems to be Ideally, we would like you a conflict of texture. Maybe let the fabric to think about this, and if possible, address speak for itself without this visual confusion them. Of course, this is your call, and these between the back- and foreground. are just our opinions: 03: The pace of the edit is very much off. Frankly, this is a very poor edit indeed. The first cut is harsh, awkward and ill-timed. Then it jumps to dissolves. Where is the logic and rationale to this edit? Every edit must have a logical system that it adheres to. Also, the edit is out of time with the music. When the hand brushes down the fabric, the dramatic cello lunge happens a good second after. 04: Seeing the model’s feet kills abstract, otherworldly sensations. It somewhat kills the illusion. The more screen that is filled with the billowing fabric, the better, perhaps?

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Part 2 01: A touch too long. Also, 17 seconds of credits is utterly unnecessary. Our guideline on duration was only ever a suggestion. It is more about what the film needs. 02: Do you think titles and credits kill your film a little? We do. It is a very conventional way of saying here is a contrived cinematic experience. They are unnecessary. Does the whole world need to know who edited it for instance? On such a short film, it is very heavy-handed. The solitary word ‘Beneath’ would surely suffice. All these names and credits scream two words: ‘artifice’ and ‘mundane’. 03: The type/calligraphy is historically inaccurate and a little twee. It does not feel like convincing script, let alone script of the period; there is way too much text. Somehow, it cheapens the film and makes it feel a little amateur. As do the immortal words 'A film by...'. We are only writing this The shot captures the weight and lyricism of because we would very much like to see this the floating dress. film included in the showcase. The second part is gorgeous. If you act on this, we genuinely believe this will help the film enormously and guarantee exhibition at the ICA, inclusion on the Onedotzero touring programme, and the V&A Web profile.

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Teaching Points

– It is important to identify the strengths Drumm: If I remove the colour correction of any one piece first, before its and the filters the film will revert to the red shortfalls and suggestions for of the dress. I was afraid to use this as I improvement are identified. wasn’t sure if it would work with the second – part of the film. I would have to remove the Criticism can come in many forms, but opening section of the moving hand across must always be depersonalised and the dress – this was filmed quite brown as constructive. Evaluating creative work the camera was refocusing at the time and it problematises this process because was an accidental shot. Unless I can change matters of taste can undermine a more the colour of the dress, of course. I love the objective position. Alternative points of idea of duck egg, but not sure this will work view about aesthetics can only be offered if I revert to red. What do you think? in a spirit of ‘please consider this as a I have just spoken to the possible improvement to your work’. guys who did the music. The music for the – first part was already composed, and they At times, there are occasions that composed to the footage I had in Part Two. require an emphatic point due to clear We all think it’s better if I re-edit the first inadequacies that undermine the material. bit and the composition for it. The work must always be judged on its Credits are gone! Do I need best terms and conditions, and at least to put my name at the end of the film? I given the opportunity for the fairest, and suppose I was not confident enough to trust hopefully, most positive evaluation. my instincts with the footage. I wanted to – slow down the dress more, but was afraid of Crucial to all production processes is the not using enough of the other shots. Do you best use of time in the facilitation of key think this will work, slowing some of the goals. The pre-production process is dress movement? absolutely fundamental in determining how a schedule should be created, managed, and adhered to. – Best advice should encourage practitioners to avoid cliché and to make sure that all the elements of the work result in a coherent statement and outcome. Best practice should recognise the importance of the process in achieving planned and notable ends.

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Teaching Points

– It is important to sustain an open and honest dialogue throughout the course of a project and consider questions and ideas right until completion. – Encouraging personal appraisal is crucial, particularly in identifying the strengths of a project, as well as its possible shortfalls. – Enabling practitioners to consider their recommendations for improvement on the next occasion is one of the most significant parts of the process. – – – Drumm: I am happy with the end result of the film. It took a couple of goes editing the film, and the soundtrack is stunning. And as always, I wish I could make the film again. As for making the film all live action – I quite enjoyed it. It was different to anything I had done before.

The crinolines float away sublimely in the water, symbolising the ways in which women were liberated from the very weight of their garments; it also reflects their rapidly changing identity.

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PROCESS

It is sometimes useful to think of a project purely in terms of its intellectual challenge and the ways in which its core themes are discussed and developed. This can sometimes be contentious within an arts context, directly pitting form and aesthetics against social and cultural inference, and placing the political dimension of the work into clear relief. Process, for all its material concerns, needs to be understood as a model of learning that moves from an initial conception into a period of research and development. This adds and consolidates ideas. Consequently, the work will start to gain conceptual focus and thematic clarity. It is crucial to maintain this intellectual understanding as the work is executed. Remaining conscious about what can be achieved during its execution moves the work beyond technical application, and maximises the creative potential accordingly.

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PROCESS

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KEYWORDS IN THIS SECTION It is sometimes useful t Visualisation project purely in terms o Traditional scripts for film and television challenge and the ways are predicated on the construction of themes are discussed an narrative through descriptors and dialogue. They must necessarily embrace story, plot, can sometimes be conte style, genre, etc. This approach may also context, directly pitting f be pertinent to making animated films and against social and cultur television programmes, but it is more often the case that animation is developed placing the political dime through processes of visualisation. This into clear relief. includes development sketches, model Process sheets, storyboarding and layout material. It could also take on an informal and concerns, needs to be un improvised guise, depending on the of learning that moves f materials and techniques chosen. conception into a period Re-historicisation development. This adds In an era that is preoccupied with the present, a process of ‘re-historicisation’ ideas. Consequently, the is increasingly important. This is gain conceptual focus an essentially a re-engagement with history It is crucial to maintain to prevent the past becoming a set of heritage-based stereotypes and soundbite understanding as the wo conclusions. Re-historicisation also seeks Remaining conscious abo to reclaim lost and marginalised aspects achieved during its execu of the past. work beyond technical a maximises the creative p

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CHOICE, CHANGE AND CHALLENGE

Lydia Hawkins embraced the Object React currency. The contact was able to tell me a project through exemplary research and bit more about the production, which is white exercised considerable thought in relation jasper with a black jasper relief. Wedgwood to her political and aesthetic position in came up with the right formulae for jasper interpreting her chosen object. This resulted after thousands of experiments to get it just in an extended and complex debate with the right, which he did only a few years before tutors – Hardstaff and Clifton – which offers the slave medallion was created. Obviously an interesting example of the ‘call and this would have been a very exciting and response’ that can heighten and problematise productive time for him and his involvement artistic practice. in the abolition society would mark a huge point of change in lots of ways. All his other FEBRUARY 24TH 2006 correspondence show his commitment _ to the cause. Hawkins: I am pretty much decided now In the society in which he that I plan to do something with the was operating, he would have had to mix in Wedgwood Cameo, so if she could put higher class circles to advance his business; me in touch with someone from that it seems pretty likely these individuals would department that would be great. have been wearing the medallions in a similar Hardstaff/Clifton: Good luck. way that Bono and Madonna support Think about contacting Wedgwood directly. charities today. You can probably get information that not I am now going to continue only talks about the historical-contextual researching into some visual ideas that have implications of the object, but also its manner come out of this research. of production, relative cost, and who it was sold to, for example. _MARCH 7TH 2006 MARCH 6TH 2006 Hardstaff/Clifton: Thank you for sending _ your document/treatment over. Hawkins: I have spoken to the Wedgwood Please excuse us if this email In the face of considerable museum and unfortunately they do not is in any way provocative or confrontational. challenge to the conceptual have records from this period; the person We think that is our job on this project: interpretation of her chosen I spoke to was unable to give further to prompt. object, Lydia Hawkins used her research and her own information about who it was distributed As you know, we are, of preoccupations to determine to, etc. However, I know from previous course, very excited about the specific object her work. The dialogue research that it is estimated up to 15,000 that you have chosen, as we discussed. shows the complexity of creating work, and serves were made (but this is only an estimate) and We understand the parallel as a critical discourse they were distributed to supporters to wear. that you have chosen with the modern day on the issues, which Wedgwood bore the cost of these, and again, and the trade in white female sex slaves. can be addressed as a consequence of resonant it is estimated that they sold for three Absolutely, this seems a most natural moving-image practice. pounds and three shillings each – a selling parallel to draw. price of approximately £198 in today’s

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Written treatment for onedotzero/V&A Object React project –

Object: Wedgwood Cameo for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, 1787 – – – – A tiny, delicate, relatively expensive item to produce, highly crafted and using the latest technologies of the day, the cameo’s appearance in terms of material is deceptive. As the words on the cameo say, the piece is actually shouting about the horrors it represents. I have researched how much impact it really had and whether a black person would have ever seen these cameos. Who wore them? It would have been ‘high’ society members of the day (and it probably would have been very fashionable in certain circles to wear one), in a similar way to stars wearing white bands now in terms of making a current statement, although the design of the compared items is hugely different. It appears the cameos did have an impact and as they were made when the Society for the Abolition for the Slave Trade was founded in 1787, marked a great time of change and a real chance for the Slave Trade to stop. The visual language of that time is equally as deceptive in terms of its seduction; the ornate handwriting that logged the names and details of the slaves, the items acquired that were a direct result of either profit from the trade or goods used for products from the trade, like a silver sugar vase, and the lavish excess of the wealth that was created from the slave trade shown in fabrics and ceramics from the time, which marked the start of the export and import trade. The language of the image of the slave on the cameo, his pose, kneeling down pleading is European of that time in its depiction of a black person, similar to other illustrations of the period, slightly caricatured and generic. Wedgwood wrote that it would gain people’s pity and as a means to an end to try to gain support from people who would understand this language it worked. After researching the actual object and Wedgwood’s involvement in the movement, and possible suggestions that Wedgwood’s motivation for creating it were in part to gain credibility and help his business – though through research this seems unlikely now – I have broadened my area for what’s to be included in the sequence. There is some speculation that Wedgwood’s prior business was with people who quite possibly could have been slave traders; in 1775 he accepted a commission to make a ‘nest of baths’ for an African King (please see Mary Guyatt’s essay The Wedgwood Slave Medallion, Values in Eighteenth-century design). I liked the very graphic feel of the cameo, starkly black on white. Along with my research into the Atlantic slave trade in the 17th and 18th century, I looked at the current slave trade, which includes sex trafficking of white woman all over the world. Also Sierra Leone kept coming up in my research, which was once a former British colony. In the same year the cameo was created, a settlement for freed slaves was established, which was then attacked by one of the neighbouring chiefs in 1789. Thomas Clarkson wrote to Wedgwood about this. Today children work as slaves in the diamond mines near Koidu Town, the capital of the Kono district of the Republic of Sierra Leone. The visual language of the diamond and sex trade is also seductive in the same way as the material wealth created from the slave trade. It has even been argued that members of popular culture actually fuel and glamorise the sex trade. The international trafficking of women for the sex trade is one of the slave trades that still exists now, which includes women and girls of all races. I will contrast the image of the black man with that of a white woman today. And will quote both the original printed phrase on the cameo: ‘Am I not a man and a brother?’ and the contemporary version ‘Am I not a woman and a sister?’. I will draw on the elements of human greed, the slave trade then and now, Sierra Leone and the thread between them being the diamonds, which are perceived as displaying wealth, money and power, an indication of human greed then and now, which is also what the sex trafficking is for, to satisfy a greed. The sequence will start with the cameo and tell the story of how it came to be made, a little about what came before and compare it with the sex slave trade now, contrasting graphically between white and black, possibly with silhouetted figures using a very limited palette of black, white and silver. Ending with a new ‘cameo’ design inverted of a white woman, perhaps amongst some calling cards, echoing the mass-produced black-and-white pamphlets/ photocopies that would have been produced for the abolition movement in the 1780s.

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However, in brief, we need MARCH 9TH 2006 to ask you this: Is slavery over for the _ black race? Hawkins: When I initially researched the In our minds it is not over at object, I was taken aback by it and then all. If you look at the USA, not to mention the thought it was about hope, then I came UK or any underpaid service industry, and you across all the information about Wedgwood’s will see that its employment (by modern, involvement and motivations, which I rich, white industrial masters) is very heavily mention in the treatment. Of course, abolition black. This is, in the West, a near universal did not achieve equality and so I looked at story. Black prospects are economically the actual ‘slave’ trades that still exist, but limited; racism is rife; this is endless. are hardly discussed in the media or day to Why get away from the point day. I was approaching it from this angle, and of the object, if the point, made over 200 almost using the ideas within the cameo to years ago, is still an issue? Why is the address what that means today. professional side to the City of London This issue of poverty and almost exclusively white, but the restaurant slavery, as you say, is huge, global and still workers, cleaners, traffic wardens almost very much alive all over the world. Extreme universally black? Is lowly paid employment poverty and starvation as a result of a debt, not slavery? On the plantations slaves were corrupt governments and not being able to fed. Then is that not payment? trade are just some of the reasons the We are not trying to make problems continue. This still happens while this complicated for you and we are not people enjoy extreme wealth and carry small trying to upset your plans. We think that dogs in designer bags with diamond- everything you have done so far could be encrusted dog collars on the other side applied to many causes, but this is about your of the world. object. This object has an incredible purpose For my presentation I was and overall, has been ineffective. Can you not aiming to interpret a current-day take on a further its cause? Can you not begin to literal interpretation of slavery today – that redress this imbalance? Can you not find the although the ‘slaves’ have changed in terms modern comparison in black/white race of what they do, it’s still a universal problem. relations today? However, I welcome your comments about We think you are ducking this project and will look further into it in the issue in some ways. You are dealing with these terms. monochromatic imagery, in this instance, . It is literal for a purpose. There is a glorious single-mindedness about Wedgwood. What do you think? Where do you stand on the treatment of black people in modern society or the separatism that exists?

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Other issues I was aware of/related to my MARCH 11TH 2006 ideas on the object: _ _ Hardstaff: Thank you for writing. Ultimately, 1. Other inequalities in this country I do feel you should stick to your guns, and including class. do it your way. However, my last thought for _ you is this: 2. Inequality in race in Europe and areas Having worked outside of the in the Middle East and Asia. white middle class enclave that is education, _ let alone the ultra liberalism that is ‘art 3. Inequality within one race in countries school’, and having worked at Billingsgate like India where there is a caste system. fish market, New Covent Garden market, hospitals and mortuaries, and having I do take your comments on board, but as travelled widely and having mixed race there is only a limited timescale on this children, I would say that the vast majority project, I have to have a cut-off point to of this country are card carryingly racist to my research. their core. ‘Does still go on?’ is an enormous There are many ways the understatement. It is the absolute norm – object can be interpreted: from the period it the problem is still there. You must do what was created and what was happening then; it is you want to do, but personally (and this the inequalities between races then – should have no bearing on what you do) I specifically slavery; and what that object really do feel you are completely ducking the means now in this country, the West and issue. The issue is there in black and white the USA. I was interested in what the for you. object’s future might be and I was focusing Hawkins: I am very grateful on inequalities directly linked to modern day for your input on this. I may be wrong but the slavery in the most literal way. reason I went down the point of view I did The written treatment previously was because I felt that the was my idea for the project and not by any following points were significant to the means set in stone. I feel that this object object and the project I had researched, and opens up many questions rather than I wanted to take a wider view on the topic answering any, and therefore would aim and to show it is happening (modern day to do this with my piece, looking at the slavery) in areas that people may not assume issues I’ve mentioned previously. straight away. I did not and do not feel I was intentionally ducking issues to do with the object, but decided to take this point of view. I had not finalised my storyboard as I was still in contact with you over the project.

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CRITICAL EXAMPLES

The following imagery is drawn from two The fluidity of changing projects undertaken in the Object React subjective material, initiative, each one a particular address physical and emotional states is caught in the of the practice of visualisation and the metamorphoses of distortion re-imagining of animation on personal terms and malleability in the and conditions. Both focus on developing a objective environment. core concept their aesthetic practice seeks to illustrate, and each uses the dynamic palette of the animated form to reinvent physical environments, and promote different ways of seeing.

Kristina Hoffman’s simple but highly evocative Glassviews takes as its starting point that ‘life isn’t about perfect moments, but about seeing the imperfections in a perfect way’. Influenced by the work of Carl Nordbruch, Hoffman seeks to find the perfection in imperfection by capturing moments of anticipation – the seconds before revelation and fulfilment. This is achieved through a lyrical series of distortions of everyday incidents as they might be seen through the curvation of blown glass.

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The Object React initiative Ulrika Axen and Tobias proved to be pivotal in enabling the Rudquist built a 3D re-historicisation of objects through tensegrity structure that they could interact with and developing aesthetic applications. By using animate upon. In a persuasive animation as a tool to re-imagine these mix of 2D and 3D elements, objects, their histories, their impact, and their the film plays with compositional conventions symbolic and associative import, some and a variety of performance important political and ideological principles idioms. The artist and the were rediscovered. All these had pertinence camera intervene with the implied visual dynamics of to a contemporary world that insists upon the frame. The film plays the particular and specific focus of the out a metaphor concerning present at the expense of what has gone the natural success of the living organism the before. The project enabled practitioners to tensegrity structure theorise their approach through practice, represents, and the failure and practice through their theoretically of destructive man-made industrial structures determined outlooks, each project recovering and processes. history as a model of progressive activity, both in the development of contemporary moving image practice and as a model of socio-cultural learning and advancement.

Axen and Rudquist plan the nature of their intersecting elements where tension and integrity are the two components creating balance in a symbiotic relation of push and pull. The objective on this project was to communicate how the tensegrity structure tries to find the most energy- efficient solution and how external forces applied within the system are dissipated throughout so that the weak link is protected.

Axen and Rudquist plan their steady-cam shooting activity. Both artists were attached to the structure as two struts symbolising both human interference and the effects on balance. An important part was to show the shock- absorbing function of the tensegrity principle.

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PRACTICE

Ultimately, outside the hierarchical studio In this the animator can consider the core project, or the established production conditions of animation itself: pipeline, which have very clearly designated _ roles and functions, animation remains a the use of metamorphosis; highly specific model of expression, _ profoundly determined by the practice the condensation of suggesting the maximum defined by the animator or artist. While effect in the minimum of imagery; traditional models of live-action production _ development are often predicated on the the fabrication of alternative environments; determining aspects of a conventional _ script – descriptive text and dialogue, the use of symbol and metaphor, as well as influenced by narrative demands, plot, associative idioms; theme, genre, etc – animation is predicated _ on the choice of its technique, the particular the penetrative illustration and interpretation material resources associated with that of interior states, whether organic, technique, its production process, and most mechanistic, or psychosomatic; importantly, its model of visualisation. _ the anthropomorphic imposition of human traits and tropes, and _ the resonant impact of sound.

The animator is defined by practice; practice is defined by the animator. Each practice is a re-imagining of the last, and the first of a particular level of engagement and desire.

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PRACTIC

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KEYWORDS IN THIS SECTION Ultimately, outside the h The animated language project, or the establishe This discussion argues that animation is pipeline, which have very a distinctive language, informed by the roles and functions, anim characteristics outlined here, but also by the qualities of re-historicisation, and the highly specific model of e capacity to interrogate all the assumptions profoundly determined b embedded in photorealistic practices. Most defined by the animator importantly, animation is informed by the stance of the creator and the way that the traditional models of live practice reflects intrinsic concerns, which development are often p could not be expressed in another form. determining aspects of a Creativity script – descriptive text Creativity is a largely taken-for-granted aspect of the process when talking about influenced by narrative d artistic activity. It is essentially a given theme, genre, etc – anim element informing any arts-based practice. on the choice of its techn It is worth stressing that creativity in the development of the animated form operates at material resources assoc any level; it is not merely an imaginative technique, its production process, but one that involves problem- importantly, its model of solving, technical choices and applications, and the ability to extrapolate concepts into a model of visualisation, which must necessarily move, change, and advance. The language of animation and its cross- disciplinary and multidisciplinary versatility readily facilitate this.

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Jill Kennedy's Neuro-Economy graphics. This is juxtaposed is an engaging exploration with images of physical and of contemporary themes ‘animal' life – underlying concerning surveillance, forces that are safely paranoia, the tensions managed and sanitised by between nature, suburbia, contemporary suburbia. The and psychological torment, receiver of the call remains and ultimately, art, absent, but a connection with culture and science. the caller is implied, and an An anonymous phone caller uneasy correspondence informs details his plans for a the unfolding narrative. The quantum computer emulator to images themselves become the someone he has known years ‘neuro-economy' of the piece, previously. His message illustrating animation's becomes the voiceover to a inherent capacity to show visual exploration of his psychological and emotional paranoid science - the ‘interiors' and to foreground invention of the ‘neuro- the explicit language detailed economy' largely expressed on the previous page. through 1950s and 1960s info-

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EACT’

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– – – 01 Teaching moving image culture 152/153 02 The politics of practice 03 Animation re-imagined 04 ‘Object React’ 05 From ideas to idioms FROM IDEAS FROM TO IDIOMS TO ID

154 OBJECTS OF DESIRE 154 OBJE 164 IMPOSSIBLY REAL 164 IMPO 170 THEMES AND DREAMS 170 THEM

05 05

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OBJECTS OF DESIRE

In any artistic practice, the process by which Animation has always been an idea can be developed, enhanced and intrinsically bound up with other art forms executed in a creative form is complex and and disciplines. Any one animated film can demanding. The desire to express something embrace a number of approaches: it can has to be translated into a particular idiom either reflect the expertise of the artist and, as is clear from the work already in a particular idiom; form a particular presented in this discussion, this can be disciplinary background; or demonstrate how achieved in a variety of ways. The task painting, sculpture, dance, drawing, making of deliberating upon the best method and and using 3D materials, literature, etc can be technique by which an idea can be expressed used and revealed through animation. Many is at the heart of the animation process, individual artists, in attempting to achieve simply because the animated form is the ‘object of desire’ – the final artefact of so versatile and it can accommodate their practice – are constantly investigating any approach that can be imagined the properties of their medium. They use and facilitated. animation as an interrogative tool; a tool of Although some critics continuity in translating one form to another; maintain that keeping animation as a or to adapt ideas to the visual praxis chosen separate category from other kinds of as the mediator of creative expression cinema is unproductive, especially in an and experience. era in which film-makers and animators The above will become are essentially using the same digital tools evident in the following examples, wherein and adopting many of the same processes animation is used to complement and extend in the creation of moving images, it is still works of art, such as poetry and film. the case that animation possesses its own Such works remain experimental and resist distinctive vocabulary. Its applications still closure in the sense that the approach to represent the most direct sense of the animation in this context is one that aims artist’s intention and work as a hard copy to take established materials and idioms record of psychological, emotional and and re-engage with them aesthetically, somatic memory. technically, and procedurally to advance and enhance the meanings of original texts. This also foregrounds the particular interests and outlooks of the artist using the material.

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OBJECTS OF DESI

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KEYWORDS IN THIS SECTION In any artistic practice, t Memory an idea can be developed Animation represents a particular executed in a creative fo opportunity to both record the act of demanding. The desire to creative practice and to represent the act of creative practice. The execution has to be translated into of animation in any technique essentially and, as is clear from the mediates the technical memory embedded presented in this discuss in the creative consciousness and the body itself. The content of the work may also achieved in a variety of w act as a direct expression of memory, by of deliberating upon the operating as a representation of fantasy, technique by which an id feeling, recollection, preoccupation, etc. Animation can capture inner states of is at the heart of the anim consciousness and the physical ways in simply because the anim which they are expressed. so versatile and it can ac Adaptation any approach that can be Animation operates as a particularly effective tool in the translation and and facilitated. adaptation of other art forms and idioms. Althoug It extracts the essential meanings and maintain that keeping an effects of other disciplines and advances them through motion-driven visualisation. separate category from Animation helps to self-consciously reveal cinema is unproductive, e the movement in static forms; the purpose era in which film-makers and function of movement in motion forms; and the emotive and philosophical are essentially using the underpinning in text-based arts. and adopting many of the in the creation of moving the case that animation distinctive vocabulary. It represent the most direc artist’s intention and wo record of psychological, somatic memory.

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RE-INVENTING FILM

Peter Tscherkassky is an experimental film- If I have to think of a good reason for maker who may not immediately be viewed working with found footage, I would say that as an animator, or indeed, working out of I love the limitations of the given material: a fine art tradition. Much of his work is in instead of constantly making choices of what effect a form of animation, particularly in the to film, what not to film, how long to let the frame-by-frame construction of particular camera roll, etc, you have to explore a pre- narratives. Most importantly, animation is existing structure, and you have to discover also apparent in the re-invention of his films what is already there.’ as a model by which meaning and effect is Tscherkassky’s ‘kidnap’ of directly experienced. material and his engagement with the re- imagining of the footage before him enables RE-ANIMATION him to re-animate not merely the film itself, _ but the potential implications of its content, He notes: ‘I’m not sure I’m really interested both formally and narratively. in the question of genres and sub-genres, In Happy End‚ he re-creates but I do indeed utilise a frame-by-frame a couple’s life, epitomised through their home technique, which could be seen in the movies. Tscherkassky relates the story of the tradition of pixellation; I use pre-existing film film: ‘Austrian film-maker Lisl Ponger frames as material, which in themselves are discovered these films at a flea market still pictures. In this sense, you might think and gave me the material. They were home of my films as animated still frames and as movies in which a couple filmed themselves such, as animation films’. while celebrating events such as Christmas It is in this particular use of and birthdays. There were hours of footage found footage that Tscherkassky’s work as with them on vacation, with friends or a re-animator is especially evident: ‘I think travelling on their own. the first time I used found footage as part of ‘My film shows a couple my own film-making process was in Freeze having big fun and enjoying life in a very Frame. I had a cheesy little Super 8 version particular, very Austrian kind of way. of an old, silent, Hollywood film called I wanted to give them a kind of resurrection. Kreuzritter im fremden Land, which means You might summarise my message to the “crusaders in a foreign country”. It depicts a audience as “enjoy your life in an ecstatic crusade and “liberation” of Jerusalem. I way, and don’t forget that it will end”.’ lifted a sequence in which a young, beautiful, There is a great deal of blonde Christian woman is being sold at a pathos in the way that the couple have been slave market. I immediately loved the idea of given life by the omnipotence of the film- doing something parallel by “kidnapping” maker – he re-constructs the couple’s foreign pictures and using them for my own celebrations as evidence of life-led, only purpose, like the barbarian who kidnaps the for the main characters to literally fade beautiful woman, but I never intended to away at the film’s conclusion. become a “pure” found-footage film-maker. Peter Tscherkassky re-animates found footage in a spirit of challenging classical Hollywood narrative and visual composition. Outer Space uses film itself to intervene with Hollywood conventions of storytelling and visual representation.

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These three images were drawn from the amateur of an unknown Austrian couple, who record their passing years through images of celebration. Tscherkassky re-animates not merely the frames of the found footage, but also the couple’s lives as abstract individuals symbolising the common experience of an existence which relentlessly moves through rituals such as birthdays, weddings, public holidays and ultimately, death itself.

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_THE REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN This tour de force of re- There will be film animation effectively anthropomorphises the material, there will be Another of Tscherkassky’s found footage film material itself as the brutalising sexual film labs where you re-animations is Outer Space, a complex and social force, which misrepresents women can print your films, re-working of the B-movie horror, The Entity. and female identity. The heroine’s victory but the only place It challenges both the generic conventions over the cinematic apparatus itself is also where projectors of Hollywood films, and the complacency of a triumph for the freedoms of animation in will survive is the contemporary film in its depiction of sexual re-configuring conventional film form. cinemathéques. violence. Tscherkassky explains: ‘Outer These will be the Space was the third film I made in the _ANALOGUE CINEMA last remaining places darkroom; my second film utilising multiple where you can show layers of found source material; and the first Tscherkassky’s career has embraced changes analogue films in film where I used a laser pointer to create in film technology and demonstrates a the way they should these layerings. The leading idea was to profound investment in the materiality be seen. create a film in which the filmic material of film itself. He notes that: ‘If you are Peter Tscherkassky itself is the main player acting in an entirely interested in moving images as an art form, new narrative. The invisible ghost character the materiality of the medium becomes from The Entity is replaced by the filmic extremely important. Modern art in general material itself (in the form of sprocket holes, is concerned with reflections upon its optical soundtrack, torn film strips, materials. You can construe the birth of scratches, dirt, etc). The victim defends modern art at the end of the nineteenth herself and strikes back, ultimately victorious century as being the result of a kind of in destroying the homogeneous, perspectively material self-reflection, and the discovery organised picture which captured her: at the of very specific possibilities and limitations very end she is the one who looks straight inherent to the materials of the different art back into the eyes of the audience, no longer forms. In this sense, analog film and digital an object of the voyeuristic gaze, but a video have nothing to do with each other. So, subject in her own right.’ basically, what I am trying to do is to create films that could only be done with film, not with the computer or a regular video camera, to show the unique possibilities of analogue cinema, which cannot be replaced by the computer. It’s a swan song for classical cinema, since analogue cinema will be gone in the very near future.’

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In Outer Space, Tscherkassky uses the re-animation of B-Movie Hollywood footage to interrogate the representation of women. Here, he uses close-ups on fragmentary parts of the female body in conventional classical cinema, with multiple images of the heroine (Barbara Hershey), which suggest her psychological state as she seeks to defy and resist an invisible force.

The heroine fights with an invisible entity, but Tscherkassky substitutes the material of film itself as her ‘rapist’, critiquing mainstream cinema’s use of women as sexual objects.

The material of is animated as the subject of the piece, violently ripping and tearing its way through notions of narrative; it becomes an all-encompassing abstract force of representation and intervention.

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RE-IMAGINING POETRY

Forgetfulness By Billy Collins

The name of the author is the first to go followed obediently by the title, the plot, the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of, A number of animators have identified a link as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor between the poem and the animated form. decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain, In general, animation and poetry can share to a little fishing village where there are no phones. some similar and pertinent characteristics. Long ago you kissed the names of the nine muses goodbye Often, both occur in short form and use and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag, language to either condense or suggest and even now as you memorize the order of the planets, meaning. Both forms are also informed by something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps, the self-reflexive presence of the author. the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay. Animation and poetry also deliberately play with established codes and conventions of Whatever it is you are struggling to remember, it is not poised on the tip of your tongue expression and visualisation. Both maintain or even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen. an openness to interpretation through the various layers of meaning embedded in the It has floated away down a dark mythological river whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall literal execution of the message and material expressed. The following is an example of a on your own way to oblivion where you will join those poem expressed and re-invented using the who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle. animation medium. No wonder you rise in the middle of the night to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war. No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

Billy Collins, ‘Forgetfulness’ from Questions About Angels. Copyright 1999 by Billy Collins. Reprinted with the permission of University of Pittsburgh Press.

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Julian Grey of Head Gear Animation has The animated film embraced the special relationship between Forgetfulness was commissioned by the poetry and animation in his interpretation advertising agency J Walter Thompson in of ex-USA Poet Laureate, Billy Collins’s New York on behalf of the Sundance Channel work ‘Forgetfulness’. for its Action Poetry Series. Grey decided to It is a wistful look at the make three titles for the series, with each seemingly ever-reducing capacity for chosen poem suggesting different animation particular kinds of factual, and ultimately styles and approaches. The aesthetic look of emotional, memory to fade with the aging Super 8 scratchy film was crucial to the process. Grey cleverly uses animation’s project. It was a key metaphor for memory capacity for erasure to interpret Collins’s in Forgetfulness and in Grey’s view a huge work, stripping novels of their spines and reservoir of personal memory as home inner pages therefore rendering them as both movies from the 1960s and 1970s. white spaces and evidence of absence – In approaching the subject modernist idioms of unrecognised or ignored matter of the poem, Grey was particularly latent potential. As the implied figure in the responsive to Collins’s delivery of his own poem moves away from the bookshop, lost work: ‘Collins's wry wit and dry delivery are memories are depicted as fading and qualities I readily respond to. His approach, migrating birds, while the more literally though contemplative, is matter-of-fact and visualised aspects of our recollection unadorned. I attempted to represent his and experience are deconstructed and words visually in the same manner, with disappear. The pictorial and the graphic – imagery that was at once mundane, beautiful photographs, maps, handmade objects – and whimsical’. flicker intermittently as signifiers of recall, Grey wanted to let the poem but they also fade or float away. The speak for itself, but sought to visually audience is faced with the inevitability represent what he imagined as he heard of acknowledging lost motor skills and Collins read the poem and hoped that this intuitive practices; the desperate attempt at resonated with others who knew it or are verification of experience; and the ultimate hearing it for the first time. Crucially, he acceptance of lost love and possibility. wanted to pique the interest of otherwise disinterested viewers and listeners by using a visual medium to engage them with the art.

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Grey is encouraged by the ways in which animation can now reach a variety of audiences, but also by the fact that almost anyone can create moving-image work: ‘Today animation crosses boundaries of art and commerce, analogue and digital, slickness and roughness. As well, more and more people are incorporating animated elements within otherwise non-animated pieces. I am very much informed by the work of my industry peers. With the advent of YouTube and websites delivering hi-res quicktimes of the latest spots and videos, it is easy to be exposed to the best and boldest, commercial and not, which can only have the effect of advancing the medium into new territory.’

At school, we are often taught core concepts and ideas through graphic idioms such as charts and maps, and our memory of the ideas and concepts is often prompted by the ways that they have been visualised. Grey depicts Collins’s attempt to memorise the order of the planets in the solar system in this way.

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With the advent of websites delivering hi-res quicktimes, it is easy to be exposed to the best and boldest, which can only have the effect of advancing the medium into new territory. Julian Grey

Grey uses an erasure technique to show our fading memories of childhood and our loss of motor skills. These are evident in his depictions of the act of swimming and the slow alienation from our bodies and emotions. Collins’s lyricism and Grey’s clever sensitivity to the wistful acceptance of these realities both offer up a pertinent insight into the power and effect of memories, and animation acts as an adaptable and adaptive tool of expression.

Grey depicts our memories as imaginary sailing ships in a way in which we might actually make and conceive of them as paper boats.

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IMPOSSIBLY REAL

Contemporary animation in all its guises Ironically, Gollum, WETA ironically follows the same trajectory of Digital’s highly persuasive computer- many former developments in the form generated character, is as real as their by aping photorealism and the relentless equally fabricated, but partially referential, drive to reproduce reality, and facilitating King Kong. Both characters in turn function fantastical figures, landscapes and forms – on the same plane as Robert de Niro or Meryl the art of the impossible. What seems clear, Streep, the last great purveyors of method though, is that the pictorial realms of the acting, wherein the model of performance is imagination, the parameters of surreal based on the greatest degree of physical and fantasy, and the visual signifiers of psychological empathy and immersion. spontaneity, are increasingly controlled, For every assumption of cinematic truth, measured and authenticated as if they were there is the acknowledgement of animated real. Essentially, all accepted knowledge artifice; for the apparently real, there is little about something is challenged by using reality apparent. The extended degree of animation. All supposed objective knowledge constructedness in the real, and the ways is made subjective and shown in a different that this has been used to authenticate even light. However something may have been the most extreme of fantasy narratives, has perceived or received can be subject left a challenge for animators to reinvent and to change. re-imagine spectacle.

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IMPOSSI REAL

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KEYWORDS IN THIS SECTION Contemporary animation Realism ironically follows the sam There remains great irony in the fact that many former developme animation, surely the natural language of by aping photorealism an imaginative and fantastical expression, is often seen at its most persuasive and drive to reproduce reality effective when aspiring to imitate the fantastical figures, lands photorealistic. Creating a fully plausible, the art of the impossible realistically rendered human being remains a holy grail for animators and visual effects though, is that the pictor artists, while dinosaurs, mythical creatures imagination, the paramet and ogres – the very stuff of fantasy – are fantasy, and the visual si seen to be animated in as realistic a way as can be achieved. Such is the sophistication spontaneity, are increasi of the contemporary viewer; the real measured and authentica challenge for many artists is to achieve real. Essentially, all acce the ‘impossibly real’ to ensure the suspension of disbelief. about something is chall Spectacle animation. All supposed There is further irony that special effects is made subjective and s are really no longer special. As there are light. However somethin so many animated effects in Hollywood cinema, there is a strong argument that traditional perceived or received can live action may be understood as a model of to change. animation. Spectacle is a taken-for-granted aspect of many narratives, but its meaning and effect are at best visceral, at worst, numbing and without impact. While animation may be an effective tool in its achievement, many questions might be asked of its purpose and the politics it supports or obscures.

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Andy Huang’s extraordinary short, Doll Face, explores the fate of a machine as it seeks to create its own identity. With nods to Metropolis and Ghost in the Shell, Huang creates a part- The machine operates as a human, part-machine figure, parody of the constructed which emerges out of a metal nature of physical, material box seeking to copy TV images and psychological identity in of a beautiful woman with a the contemporary era, as it made-up face. The machine seeks to create an illusional assumes that the image on the and delusional beauty through television is both real and make-up. the ideal – an inspiring icon it should ape and aspire to.

The machine figure precariously reaches out of its box to reach an even greater closeness and empathy with the TV set; it is desperate to understand and embrace its sense of the ‘impossibly real’.

The idyllic qualities captured in the imagery of advertising create a false consciousness in those who aspire to copy it. In essence, commercial culture ultimately creates The machine over-reaches in unattainable fantasy worlds. its desire to touch the TV image and is ultimately destroyed. The face falls and breaks apart, revealing the hollowness of the image. This symbolises the meaningless aspiration in securing contemporary notions of identity.

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RE-IMAGINING SPECTACLE I

The Fallon Agency’s colourful Play-Doh advertisement for Sony Bravia television, returns to the traditional form of 3D stop- Numerous 3D stop-motion The leaping animated rabbits motion animation using clay-animated animated rabbits populate at once signify their a city environment, all artifice as stop-motion sculptures of rabbits, whales and cubic forms invoking nature, suggesting figures, while suggesting to re-invent a city landscape, which draws the child’s playroom and a real, tangible presence attention to the scale of the animation. The engaging with the kitsch as an object. juxtapositions of late promotion of the ad sought to stress its craft pop art. elements and the distinctly hands-on approach of its 40 animators working with 40 tonnes of clay in a sweltering environment to create 100,000 single images, The juxtaposition between which were later animated in a traditional humankind and the artificial frame-by-frame method. Here, a small-scale rabbits suggests estrangement technique is being played out on a literally between humankind and animals; it is in some ways re-invoked unimaginable scale even to those consistently through the symbolic nature working in the 3D stop-motion form. of the imagery. Sony’s previous TV ads feature millions of coloured balls bouncing down the road, and a paint explosion throughout an abandoned block of flats. Animation director, Darren Walsh, stresses the material and the tactile, and ironically, implies a mistrust of the plastic illusionism The Play-Doh ad seeks to imply the investment in of the dominant aesthetics of the computer- the craft element of the generated image. The return to a physical preparation of the material, material is seemingly a return to the real, and the sense of tactility and presence of the objects, even if it is subject to the same manipulation. particularly through their unusual scale.

The Play-Doh cubes make The sense of scale is reference to abstract also conveyed through the conceptions of animated iconic use of billboards and choreography and show the the city skyline. Big, in building-block aspect of the this sense, is inevitably city by alluding to the more beautiful, because frame-by-frame building block ironically it relates to construction of the piece. the notion of small.

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RE-IMAGINING SPECTACLE II

Emerging as a major talent in animation PES’s skills in seeing the through the popularity of his films online, associations between objects is at its PES has already received major recognition keenest in his film KaBoom! – an implicitly for his re-imagining of everyday objects. His anti-war tract that makes comment upon the films are mini-masterpieces of condensation perversity of America’s war in Iraq. The film and symbolic association. PES’s extraordinary features the bombing of a quasi-Iraqi, retro- eye for seeing a resonant resemblance or futuristic city, but the appeal is in the detail PES shoots some of his first action in an object enables him to and the symbolic resonance of the stop-motion sequences of ‘chair-on-chair’ sexual successfully re-invent genre, and most associative images. activity, relying on days importantly, re-imagine the material space The film began as a with clear blue skies of his narratives in an entirely original way. consequence of an electrical fire in PES’s in order to evoke the brightly lit, cubist His two most notable films, Roof Sex and apartment, which caused a power surge that clarities of traditional KaBoom!, demonstrate the very opposite of destroyed many of his household appliances. American comic books. the Play-Doh ads by making the viewer Removing the circuit boards from his consider the minutiae of objects as they computers, he noticed that they resembled resonate with narrative, contextual and cities when viewed from above. He then conceptual associations. proceeded to create the city with old objects Roof Sex features two such as razors and drill bits. Glass, plastic chairs having sex on a New York roof. and metal all ape modernist conceptions of It plays with the surreal and amusing past architectures. The guns that defend the parameters of ‘furniture porn’, linking the city are old skeleton keys with wide barrels. often gendered nature of furniture, with its Popcorn plays the part of anti-aircraft fire; anthropomorphised legs, arms and backs, to a vintage-blue toy bomber, augmented with the assumption that such furniture might matchstick missiles with cotton wool, have sex. PES researched material using smoke-stream bombs the city; while the furniture porn sites, featuring a variety of bomb is played by a peanut. chairs in provocative positions. He taught PES notes: ‘Apparently the himself to animate chairs by practising with atomic bomb has a peanut structure with doll-house furniture. two compartments. I always found it ironic Having fully storyboarded that while bombing was occurring, a few the sequence, he animated Roof Sex by hundred miles away would be the dropping featuring a gold and a red chair. Both chairs of care packages to those that had just been adopt a variety of sexual positions and bombed, and it would always include peanut vigorously squeal and shout until orgasm. butter because it was so rich in protein. The Later in the film, an old granny discovers the peanut seems like the closest thing to a PES choreographs two chairs inevitably damaged chairs in her living room Christmas gift, too. It has outside packaging, having sex on a roof. In spite of the obvious comic and hits the cat with a broom, believing it and a tissue-like inner layer; it’s a pretty artifice involved, and the had caused the rips and tears on the chairs. ironic gift in the film though’. Yellow gift surreal parody of performance bows double as explosions ballooning out in pornographic material, viewers have still reported upon impact, while 1950s Christmas baubles arousal and guilt as they watched the film on their office computers!

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PES’s vintage-blue toy bomber, with its matchstick missiles, bombs a city-like circuit board torn from a computer. In such images, the politics of war are readily evoked. War is feature in the final destruction of the city paralleled to a child’s game; suggesting not only an atomic blast, but also the childishness is implied in the ease with which the effects of chemical and germ warfare. conflict is engaged and the These objects, while having a literal distance politicians have association, are also inevitably ironic – their from the consequences of their decisions. very commonness subverts the scale of the subject matter being dealt with. The act of PES’s retro-futuristic city made of household items, is war is made ridiculous by the trivial and an invocation of modernist celebratory artefacts that represent it. architecture and a reference The final associations to the cliché of the minaretted skylines that emerge from the film’s title. KaBoom! is allude to the Middle East. named after a 1970s breakfast cereal featuring sugar clown-heads, and an Atari with a character called ‘the mad bomber’, whose only function was to drop bombs. The George Bush analogy need not be overstated.

PES uses household objects and familiar materials to create his own version of the PacMan and Space Invaders games. This playfulness with objects draws attention to their taken-for-granted functions and meanings and challenges them.

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THEMES AND DREAMS

A true revolution within animation is of the desire to move away from preset impending, and like all revolutions in directorial narrative in preference of an animation, it will be technological. Even immersive and interactive animated the briefest survey of motion technologies experience. This can be seen in a simpler suggests that animation will be reconfigured form within Apple’s iPhone or Microsoft’s in all manner of new contexts and Surface. Han’s animated ‘swimming portal’ environments. For example, a software enables the user to figuratively swim within application called Seadragon enables users any scene and explore it. However, it is clear to seamlessly and instantly view and access that the re-imagining of animation will get high resolution data as effortlessly as one particularly interesting when software such might view thumbnails on the Internet. The as Seadragon is used in conjunction with intention is to enable the user to browse vast multi-user touch-screen technology, and amounts of data smoothly. This software will the newly developed Photosynth (Microsoft revolutionise the way we use screens, and Live Labs) program. therefore, the way content is developed and Photosynth builds visual delivered for screen use. environments from materials posted online Seadragon and other similar and maps social data three-dimensionally via developments look set to reinvent screen- meta tags. This then creates a full 3D social based media, facilitating a further dimension experience – Metaverse – a global cross- of depth to animation, and a resultant level of modal/cross-user social experience built on interactivity. Users will be able to scour and hyperlinks. The implications for animation inspect animated media, much as one might are potentially vast. Photography is used marvel at a mediaeval miniature. to construct malleable global models of The screen, of course, is virtually everything photographed and already being reinvented. Jeff Han’s touch- posted online, and via Seadragon, there is based, pressure-sensitive multi-user the possibility to explore to a seamlessly scaleable touch interface is a prime example indefinite depth.

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THEMES DREAMS

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KEYWORDS IN THIS SECTION A true revolution within Interactivity impending, and like all re For a long time, the ‘convergence’ of animation, it will be tech disciplines and technologies has promised the briefest survey of mo various kinds of interactive, immersive experience, in which the act of animation suggests that animation becomes one and the same as the consequence in all manner of new con of the action executed. Interactivity enables environments. For examp the user to animate, as much as the animator has enabled the tools to be animated. The application called Seadra user becomes the author. to seamlessly and instan Human performance high resolution data as e At the centre of the re-animation of the might view thumbnails o form, will be the ways in which technology empowers humankind not merely to use the intention is to enable the tools in playing out the functions of amounts of data smooth expression, but in the ways that the revolutionise the way we body itself will play a singular part in performing the act of animation within therefore, the way conte an immersive space. This in itself will delivered for screen use. re-invoke ‘nature’, and potentially change Seadrag its conditions. developments look set to based media, facilitating of depth to animation, an interactivity. Users will b inspect animated media, marvel at a mediaeval m The scre already being reinvented based, pressure-sensitive scaleable touch interface

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Essentially, it is a global movements to dictate the pace of the ad, social diorama, a semantic network, that as the direction that the animation runs in, an experience will render the one-way traffic and ultimately, to engage with its message. of animated cinematic narrative an archaic, Photography is no longer the index of the impotent and, ultimately, joyless experience. real – our gestures and performances, as in the Wii, are much more an index of the real. REVOLUTIONISING ANIMATION Humankind learns gestural icons through _ the performance of the real. Whilst it is a Research started within the Massachusetts simulatory culture, we are in it, and we are Institute of Technology, and is now performing within it. Look at how children progressing rapidly and widely. It looks set interact with the Wii. They don’t need the to dramatically reinvent and revolutionise reality that adults seek. animation, through the removal of the screen As photography cannot and the director’s emphatic voice in the render a malleable three-dimensionality, delivery of real time physical interaction. the visual language of moving image The death of the screen would inevitably communication will be 3D CGI animation re-imagine animation. The use of Wii and the physical and material technologies, technology in the generation of social which become the signifiers of the animation experiences is already occurring. personalised animation of change. The This potential shift away 2D screen, the frame, the one-way from not only the screen, but also the communication, the depth (interestingly, browser, creates a space between the real resolution will no longer be fixed but and the virtual that animation looks set to rather explorable deep space) the fill, delivering shared, communal, animated emphatic narrative – all will be rendered experiences. Already the individual, or more archaic. Doubtless, this too, will be often the consumer, is becoming accustomed re-imagined in response. Animation to directing and controlling animation that is simply begets animation. aimed at them. Adobe has already been using interactive advertising hoarding technology to promote its software packages in New York; the target audiences use their own body

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In his films, Robert Seidel is interested in pushing the boundaries of organic beauty and emotions with technology. He is inspired by the complexity of nature, a childhood fascination for Eastern European animation, the endless digital possibilities and the subtlety of fine art. His movies grow out of initial and sketches. These get animated with visual and scientific software to create ‘living paintings’, which connect with the viewer on an unconscious level. His movie, Grau, is a personal reflection on the memories that come up during a car accident. Real events from the past are visualised by merging, fusing and eroding ‘biographical sculptures’– partly based on three- dimensional scans, data and x-rays. These artefacts create a very intimate snapshot of a whole life within its last split seconds.

In Seidel’s installation- based works, here represented by Dive Painting, he extends his canvas to large screens and architectural projections. By putting the façade of a natural history museum in motion, he frees animation to explore a new relationship of size, scale and texture – layering them to a unique expressive experience.

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RE-IMAGINING NATURE

Karolina Sobecka’s Wildlife project is a images would be projected from the moving We’re seated, not part challenging engagement with the overlooked object itself. I decided to link the movement of the space we’re aspects of urban orthodoxy and the of the car through space to the movement looking out on. increasing absence of the animal from through time in a film. I considered using We are also in a kind human cultures. She explains: ‘I want to a GPS module, but eventually settled on of transitory space, wake people’s sense of wonder, make them monitoring the car’s speed, which allowed literally in-between two look at the world anew, become children for greater responsiveness. At the same time, places, and also half again and see a world in which anything I was also thinking about the content for in our internal world, can still happen. This work is a constructed this interface, one that would both resonate usually lost in our (both literally and metaphorically) with the urban environment and with the thoughts, while still environment, which results in a distorted delivery method.’ in physical reality. and confused concept of our relationship Sobecka chose to situate Karolina Sobecka with nature. I was developing the idea of the work in this way, in order to redefine movement through space, which becomes urban elements as proto-animation, and a movement through a film, and through demonstrate everyday kinesis captured in a narrative and cinematic space. more formal animated forms: ‘The idea of ‘My first approach was to the movement of the car animating through position actual frames (physical signs) sequences of images seemed particularly along the road. This, of course, was not very fitting since the car is already almost a feasible, both for practical reasons and cinematic device by itself. It is like an because of the fact that this method internal capsule separated from reality. wouldn’t really create continuous cinematic When we’re sitting in the car looking out the space. While doing my research, I discovered window, what we experience is very much Bill Brand’s Masstransiscope – a mural in a like what we experience in a movie theatre. New York subway system that works like a The window forms a screen, physically zoetrope, and is animated by the movement limited on all sides. We’re seated and not of passing trains. Brand actually installed part of the space we’re looking out on. a series of vertical slits in an abandoned We are also in a kind of transitory space, subway station through which people would literally in-between two places, and also glimpse the paintings on the wall of the half in our internal world, usually lost in our station. This work provided an inspiration for thoughts, while still in physical reality. This creating a mechanism that would provide a corresponds to my interest in “augmented similar effect, but would be self-contained – reality” – blends of the virtual and physical.

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The fact that Wildlife existed out in the city, in people’s everyday reality, is also very important to me. I wanted it to exist as a layer interjected into reality and experienced by anybody going about their regular day. It only gains its meaning outside of the context of a gallery space or a movie theatre. The urban context is an active element in the work and in a large part forms the meaning of the piece. It contributes to the metaphor as a “constructed” environment that forms the support for our conceptual projections.’ Interestingly, though Sobecka sought to animate and augment, she found that the urban space had already been colonised by animated augmentations.

In Karolina Sobecka’s Wildlife installation, a moving image of a tiger in the urban landscape is prompted by a car sensor. It seeks to re-awaken what she views as ‘the ability to see things’ in the overloaded sensory and social spaces of contemporary city life.

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AUGMENTED REALITY in the wild. The owners often see themselves _ as the ‘saviours’ of the animals; some are just ‘I didn't anticipate how much people have giving in to the age-old fascination with them. already adapted to a certain kind of One of the responses I got from someone augmented reality – to images and light who saw Wildlife is an example of a start of movement on the streets, due to the spread a dialogue that I would like to catalyse: “How of advertising. Some people would simply not fitting that an illusion from a car is all we notice the tiger. The most magical spaces will probably ever know about the wildlife we were created in areas with the absence of are killing with our fossil fuels, oil wars, and advertising, such as the mostly abandoned, rampant overuse of the earth’s resources.” industrial downtown Los Angeles. Dark and ‘It is sad that the grandeur nostalgic buildings were perfect support for of large dangerous animals is lost and the projection; the disillusioned and the compromised when we see them caged homeless the ideal audience. Groups of and on the verge of extinction due to our youths on cruiser bikes also welcomed the conquest of nature. The issue of our fantastic creature. I’m interested in the relationship with nature deserves a lot of relationship between humankind, technology attention and perhaps Wildlife can serve and nature. It is very difficult to understand as another voice pointing to it.’ our place in it. ‘Cities still shelter us from nature, although it is perhaps nature that now needs to be protected from the encroachment of culture. Most creatures that once threatened our survival are endangered now, victims of the spell they still hold over us. It is estimated that there are now more privately owned tigers than

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The epic scale of the tiger becomes an ironic artificial imposition of lost nature in an urban landscape; it points out humankind’s loss of its primal bonds with animals.

The tiger sometimes shocked and surprised passers-by. On other occasions, it was merely understood as part of a possible advertising system, evoking no reaction or appreciation for the art of animation.

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In 2006, HypoSurface Corp was approached albeit in prototypical form, was the birth of by Margaret Core, Director of Sales and a new medium – the display surface itself Marketing, Conventions and Conferences subject to high-speed physical movement, for the Biotechnology Industry Organization like waves on a lake. Only this lake, this (BIO). Her desire was to find a way to prototypical HypoSurface, was a vertical animate the front foyer space of the metallic sheet that was being controlled BIO conference at the Boston Convention powerfully and precisely to display text, Centre – to engage the erudite audience logos, patterns, and waves, via a digital of scientists who gather for this quiet interface. Information-become-form! and academic event. Professor Mark This animated surface Goulthorpe showed her a small prototype revolutionises models of signage, of HypoSurface 2.0 at MIT’s Media Lab, foregrounding its materiality and tactility which gave a small hint of the capability of as an appealing aesthetic as well as the new medium to provide an immersive, communications form. Goulthorpe notes, fully interactive event space. The first though: ‘What was crucial was the group commercial prototype (HypoSurface 1.0) recognition that the potential lay in was installed as frontispiece of the IMTS HypoSurface’s broad interactive range, (International Manufacturers Technology where multimedia channels link into its Show) in the foyer of McCormick Place, as dramatic movement capacity: not as a simple a highly innovative and emotive display visual display, but as a fully social “theatre”. technology to stimulate discussion amongst What emerged was a sense that a more the 100,000 engineers who visited IMTS. effective strategy would be one of intrigue, It became the talking point of the show – where HypoSurface would be used to engage a ‘live’ MIT development project for the and stimulate, but not “inform” its audience – exhibitors to witness, as it evolved daily. to leave them puzzled, but thrilled – left with Professor Goulthorpe a motivated question mark! Implicitly, this explains: ‘At IMTS, HypoSurface was announced a perceived shift in desire and effectively a demonstration piece that expectation of the audience itself – that a evidenced the potency of information-bus digitally connected, scientifically savvy technologies at what is the foremost audience required new forms of engagement showcase of digital manufacturing globally. that might tease at its collective erudition. 560 actuators were deployed at high speed in ‘We therefore set about response to direct user input – the sound and devising a thematically targeted movement of the visiting public. The sheer sound/movement matrix that would offer speed of digital signalling allowed highly an endlessly diverse event that continually articulate movement of the actuators, which invited input from the BIO audience, in turn deformed a rubber/metal display constantly demanding interpretation. surface some 2ft, deploying waves at up to The HypoSurface was installed as a free- 60mph! What was already apparent at IMTS, standing 33ft x 12ft metallic voxel surface.

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Max Hattler is interested in and mundane into something Original samples are the space between abstraction poetic and mysterious in exploded into a multitude and figuration, where order to create distance from of tiny elements before being storytelling is freed closeness, and reflection reconstructed into a tight from the constraints of from immersion. arrangement based on the traditional narrative. His The music for Drift was Fibonacci series. Visually, work contemplates microcosms, composed by Mark Bowden. the hair floats through moments and atmospheres. Drift considers the body as the landscape and creates While his films tend to landscape through close-up an oblique narrative, be without dialogue, they images of skin. The music, while three layers of explore the relationship likewise, takes a close-up sound unfold concurrently, between sound, music and view of a series of harp creating an evolving wave the moving image. Drift sees chords and viola harmonics. of harp and viola sounds the body as a metaphorical By using real photography interspersed with granulated landscape. Eerie and in extreme close-up, a electronic frequencies. In sometimes too close for foreign yet familiar world a different way, Hatter’s comfort, the film aims is created. This tension outlook reflects Goulthorpe’s to transform the familiar is mirrored in the music. work with HypoSurface in seeking to recall biological life to animation enterprise.

A member of the public tests the living technology, HypoSurface, both activating and responding to its ‘vertical liquid’ animated properties.

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Adjacent to HypoSurface was a giant BIO sound sets (such as ‘horse’), digitally Multiple-input globe offering information to the attendees processed from ‘dry’ sounds to highly continually created as projections. LED screens, mice and processed ‘wet’ sounds (from ‘normal’ horse a densely layered scrolling menus were also available. The to ‘crazy’ horse). Crucial was their basic sonic but bewitching difference in communication logics (not coherence – that they could all be combined ‘digital/natural’ just technologies) could not have been non-discordantly in endless combinations – soundscape – utterly more striking. The brilliant success of as sounds in nature. We provided three beguiling but HypoSurface relative to these more microphones in front of the HypoSurface, simultaneously normative communications techniques input coming from the passing audience. hilarious – a highly was expressed strikingly by the globe’s Any input voice or whisper would be digitally sophisticated digital emptiness, it being used as seating to watch processed and played back. ‘sea’ of sound. the evolving drama of the HypoSurface and From the same input, but at Mark Goulthorpe its public! Information and understanding a louder level, individual sounds from another were realigned, quite literally, to the of the sound sets were triggered. The more participatory multimedia theatre of insistent the input, the more processed the HypoSurface.’ output, such that a simple whisper became a crazy shout (with increased volume and RE-INVENTING METAMORPHOSIS feeling). Input from the three microphones _ continually created a densely layered, but Goulthorpe devised HypoSpace using the core bewitching digital/natural soundscape, principles of the emergence and reproduction sometimes with 30 or 40 layered sound files, of biological life; an echo of the essential all utterly beguiling but simultaneously animus in animation, and a prompt for hilarious. The sound system at the event metamorphosis as the condition of the grabbed people immediately and held their surface evolution. attention – they often participated for quite A crucial aspect in implying long periods of time.’ narrative and context in relation to the The varied dynamics of the surface shifts was the use of sound. sound inputs animated the HypoSurface in a Goulthorpe notes: ‘Our digital composer, Paul genuine form of interactivity: ‘As input comes Steenhuisen, created 700 sound clips that in (from a microphone or camera), so it is were drawn from nature: raindrops, wood analysed for content (such as volume, tone, growth and destruction, breathing, frogs, speed), and a sound triggered from the sound roosters, dogs, cows, horses, gutteral words, sets that suits the input. The choreographic etc. These sound clips were arranged as interface takes any selected movement type

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and picks a correspondingly distorted math INFORMATION WATERFALL file. Quite quickly, people realised that sound _ input affects movement output, not just ‘What seemed the most intangible yet most quantitatively, but qualitatively.’ powerful aspect of HypoSurface’s success The audience quickly was that technology and public fused. learned to exercise the range of vocal input Indeed, it was only through the engagement to test the range of the movement output, of the audience in its interactive systems thrilled by the power of their vocality. In so that HypoSurface became expressive. The doing, the system began to get more active. soundscapes and the various textual and Further, the surface accommodated complex mathematic movement sequences were engagements with creating text, almost released only through the audience and their suggesting a sense of moving concrete communal engagement with HypoSurface. poetry and experimental motion graphics. The more engaged the audience became The HypoSurface, a shimmering and with the HypoSurface systems, the more iridescent flowing form, becomes the sophisticated the response; and the greater embodiment of animated ‘vertical liquid’ the degree of teamwork between the performance, provoking a visceral experience. players, the greater the range of sounds Goulthorpe speculates: ‘The effects deployed. sustained barrage of stimulation prompted ‘The very act of participation, intrigue: What is the sound and what is the the “joy” of the HypoSurface’s powerful movement? And why this text? At that point responsiveness to a whisper, worked to of total engagement there was extraordinary bind a community. Such participatory focus, attained through a quite sophisticated theatre, enticing erudite interaction with deployment of interactive media, but most a thrilling digital potency (an information certainly brought to a head by the simple fact “waterfall”), and teasing at the interpretive of movement that seems to hypnotise even intellect of a now-digital audience, erudite audiences.’ engendered identification of the audience with themselves; it worked by structuring identity through participation. HypoSurface seemed, in its powerfully physical presence, to condense the two great forces of our time – innovation and communication – into identity. Further, humanity itself is re-imagined as animation.’

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– – – Appendix Conclusion 182/183 Bibliography Further resources and webography Index Acknowledgements and picture credits APPENDIX APPE

184 CONCLUSION 184 CONC 185 BIBLIOGRAPHY 185 BIBL 188 FURTHER RESOURCES AND WEBOGRAPHY 188 FURT 189 INDEX 189 INDE 192 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND PICTURE CREDITS 192 ACKN

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CONCLUSION

According to composer Barry Evans: narrowly understood format, this fact proves ‘From the layered images of Reynaud’s how much potential animation has as a Praxinoscope Theatre in the nineteenth means of expression. I think the term century to today’s digital compositing, the “animation” is still understood as relating circle is complete. The integration of live to the craft rather than to the form of art. action and “drawn” images has become I also think concept is seen as a secondary commonplace. It has always been possible concern in a work that calls itself animation.’ through optical printing, but now it is as This discussion has sought simple as a mouse click. It has been much to remedy this outlook – suggesting that quoted by many that all cinema is animation. animation should be seen as an art and Each individual frame is editable (and usually a craft across multiple platforms and edited), whether it is simple levels and colour disciplines, and the tool by which art, science, correction (keyframed and then rendered culture and the human condition has been frame-by-frame), composited 3D computer imagined and re-imagined. As animation graphics with motion and camera tracking, bleeds into other areas such as machinema, or a complete virtual world running in real games technology, interactive holograms in time on your computer or rendered frame-by- real time and Digital Light Processing (DLP), frame in high resolution for eventual digital it is clear that the term, the process, the video projection.’ achievement and the outlook defining However, this sense of animation has been re-thought, revised and ‘full circle’ in cinematic terms has only re-invented. It is likely to merely be the necessitated a bigger breach in the ways beginning, for in re-imagining themselves, animation can configure itself. As Karolina artists, animators, practitioners, creators Sobecka notes: ‘Digital technologies are and moving-image manipulators, will dissolving the borders between disciplinary inevitably re-imagine their tools of forms. Animation techniques have been expression and re-engage, refresh widely adopted by other cultural production and renew the world once more. areas from art to science. Even though these works are not called animations, because this term, sadly, still connotes a very

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_ANIMATION HISTORY _ART AND ANIMATION _ANIMATION STUDIES Adams, TR (1991) Frierson, M (1994) Allan, R (1999) Bell, E et al (eds) (1995) Tom and Jerry: Fifty Years Clay Animation: American Walt Disney and Europe From Mouse to Mermaid: of Cat and Mouse Highlights 1908–Present (London: John Libbey) The Politics of Film, (New York: Crescent Books) (New York: Twayne) – Gender and Culture – – Faber, L & Walters, H (2004) (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Adamson, J (1975) Holliss, R & Sibley, B (1988) Animation Unlimited: Indiana University Press) Tex Avery: King of Cartoons The Disney Studio Story Innovative Short Films – (New York: Da Capo) (New York: Crown) Since 1940 Brophy, P (ed) (1994) – – (London: Laurence King Kaboom!: Explosive Animation Barrier, M (1999) Kenner, H (1994) Publishing) from America and Japan Hollywood Cartoons: American Chuck Jones: A Flurry – (Sydney: Museum of Animation in its Golden Age of Drawings, Portraits Finch, C (1988) Contemporary Art) (New York & Oxford: OUP) of American Genius The Art of Walt Disney: – – (Berkeley: University From Mickey Mouse to Bryman, A (1995) Beck, J (1994) of California Press) Magic Kingdoms Disney and His Worlds The 50 Greatest Cartoons – (New York: Portland House) (London & New York: (Atlanta: Turner Lawson, T & Persons, A (2004) – Routledge) Publishing Co) The Magic Behind the Voices Gravett, P (2004) – – (Jackson: University of Manga: Sixty Years of Buchan, S (ed) (2006) Beck, J (2004) Mississippi) Japanese Comics Animated ‘Worlds’ Animation Art – (London: Laurence King (Eastleigh: John Libbey) (London: Harper Collins Maltin, L (1987) Publishing) – Design) Of Mice and Magic: A History – Byrne, E & McQuillan, M of American Animated Cartoons Jones, C (1990) (1999) – (New York: Plume) Chuck Amuck Deconstructing Disney Bendazzi, G (1994) – (London: Simon & Schuster) (London & Sterling: Cartoons: One Hundred Years Manvell, R (1980) – Pluto Press) of Cartoon Animation Art and Animation: The Story Jones, C (1996) – (London: John Libbey) of Halas and Batchelor Chuck Reducks Canemaker, J (ed) (1988) – Animation Studio 1940–1980 (New York: Time Warner) Storytelling in Animation Brion, P (1990) (Keynsham: Clive Farrow) – (London: Samuel French) Tom and Jerry: The Definitive – McCarthy, H (2002) – Guide to their Animated Merritt, R & Kaufman, JB Hayao Miyazaki: Master Cook, B & Thomas, G (2006) Adventures (1993) of Japanese Animation The Animate! Book: Rethinking (New York: Harmony) Walt in Wonderland: The (Berkeley, California: Animation – Silent Films of Walt Disney Stone Bridge Press) (London: Lux) Bruce Holman, L (1975) (Baltimore & Maryland: John – – Puppet Animation in the Hopkins University Press) Pointon, M (ed) (1995) Cholodenko, A (Ed) (1991) Cinema: History and Technique – Art History The Illusion of Life (New York: AS Barnes) Sandler, K (ed) (1998) [Cartoon: Caricature: (Sydney: Power/AFC) – Reading the Rabbit: Animation], Vol 18 No 1, – Cabarga, L (1988) Explorations in Warner March 1995 Cholodenko, A (Ed) (2006) The Fleischer Story Bros. Animation – The Illusion of Life II (New York: Da Capo) (New Brunswick: Rutgers Russett, R & Starr, C (1988) (Sydney: Power/AFC) – University Press) Experimental Animation: – Crafton, D (1993) – Origins of a New Art Cohen, K (1997) Before Mickey: The Sigall, M (2005) (New York: Da Capo) Forbidden Animation Animated Film, 1898–1928 Living Life Inside the Lines – (Jefferson, North Carolina (Chicago: University of (Jackson: University of Wells, P (1997) (ed) & London: McFarland & Co) Chicago Press) Mississippi Press) Art and Animation – – (London: Academy Group/ Furniss, M (1998) Eliot, M (1994) John Wiley) Art in Motion: Walt Disney: Hollywood’s – Animation Aesthetics Dark Prince Wiedemann, J (ed) (2005) (London & Montrouge: (London: Harper Collins Animation Now! John Libbey) Design) (London & Los Angeles: – Taschen) Gehman, C & Reinke, S (eds) – The Sharpest Point: Animation Withrow, S (2003) at the End of Cinema Toon Art: The Graphic Art (Ottawa: YYZ Books) Of Digital Cartooning (Lewes: Ilex)

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Giroux, H (1999) Leyda, J (ed) (1988) Stabile, C & Harrison, M Corsaro, S & Parrott, CJ The Mouse that Roared: Disney Eisenstein on Disney (eds) (2003) (2004) and the End of Innocence (London: Methuen) Prime Time Animation Hollywood 2D Digital (Lanham & Boulder: Rowman & – (London & New York: Animation Littlefield Publishers Inc) Midhat, A (2004) Routledge) (New York: Thomson – Animation and Realism – Delmar Learning) Goldmark, D (2005) (Zagreb: Croatian Film Wasko, J (2001) – Tunes for Toons: Music Club Assoc) Understanding Disney Culhane, S (1988) and the Hollywood Cartoon – (Cambridge & Malden: Animation: From Script (Berkeley & Los Angeles: Napier, S (2001) Polity Press) to Screen University of California Anime: From Akira to – (London: Saint Martin’s Press) Princess Mononoke Watts, S (1997) Press) – (New York: Palgrave) The Magic Kingdom: – Hames, P (ed) (1995) – Walt Disney and the Demers, O (2001) Dark Alchemy: Films of Patten, F (2004) American Way of Life Digital Texturing Jan Svankmajer Watching Anime, Reading Manga (New York: Houghton Mifflin) and Painting (Oxford: Greenwood Press) (Berkeley, California: – (Berkeley, Ca: – Stone Bridge Press) Wells, P (1996) New Riders Press) Hendershot, H (ed) (2004) – Around the World in Animation – Nickelodeon Nation Peary, G & Peary, D (eds) (London: BFI/MOMI Education) Gardner, G (2001) (New York & London: New (1980) – Gardner’s Storyboard York University Press) The American Animated Cartoon Wells, P (1998) Sketchbook – (New York: Plume) Understanding Animation (Washington, New York & Kanfer, S (1997) – (London & New York: London: GGC Publishing) Serious Business: The Art Pilling, J (ed) (1984) Routledge) – and Commerce of Animation That’s Not All Folks: A – Gardner, G (2002) in America from Betty Boop Primer in Cartoonal Knowledge Wells, P (2001) Computer Graphics and to Toy Story (London: BFI) ‘Art of the Impossible’ Animation: History, Careers, (New York: Scribner) – from G. Andrew (ed), Expert Advice – Pilling, J (ed) (1992) Film: The Critics’ Choice (Washington, New York & Klein, N (1993) Women and Animation: (Lewes: Ivy Press) London: GGC Publishing) Seven Minutes: The Life and A Compendium pp 308–339 – Death of the American Cartoon (London: BFI) – Hart, C (1997) (New York: Verso) – Wells, P (2002) How to Draw Animation – Pilling, J (ed) (1997) Animation and America, (New York: Watson-Guptill Lehmann, C (2006) A Reader In Animation Studies (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Publications) American Animated Cartoons (London: John Libbey) University Press) – of the Vietnam Era – – Hooks, E (2000) (Jefferson, North Carolina Robinson, C (2005) Wells, P (2002) Acting for Animators: and London: McFarland & Unsung Heroes of Animation Animation: Genre A Complete Guide to Company Inc. Publishers) (Eastleigh: John Libbey) and Authorship Performance Animation – – (London: Wallflower Press) (Oxford: Greenwood Press) Lent, J (ed) (2001) Sobchak, V (2000) – Animation in Asia and Meta-morphing: Visual Horton, A (1998) the Pacific Transformation and the ANIMATION PRACTICE Laughing Out Loud: Writing (Bloomington: Indiana Culture of Quick Change _ the Comedy-Centered University Press) (Minneapolis & London: Blair, P (1995) Screenplay – University of Minneapolis Cartoon Animation (Los Angeles: University Leslie, E (2002) Press) (Laguna Hills, Ca: Walter of California Press) Hollywood Flatlands: – Foster Publishing) – Animation, Critical Theory Smoodin, E (1993) – Johnson, O & Thomas, F and the Avant-Garde Animating Culture: Hollywood Beckerman, H (2004) (1981) (London & New York: Verso) Cartoons from the Sound Era Animation: The Whole Story The Illusion of Life – (New Jersey: Rutgers (New York: Allworth Press) (New York: Abbeville Press) Levi, A (1996) University Press) – – Samurai from Outer Space: – Birn, J (2000) Kerlow, IV (2003) Understanding Japanese Smoodin, E (ed) (1994) Digital Lighting The Art of 3D: Computer Animation Disney Discourse: Producing and Rendering Animation and Effects (Chicago & La Salle: the Magic Kingdom (Berkeley, Ca: (New York: John Wiley & Sons) Open Court/Carus) (London & New York: New Riders Press) Routledge/AFI)

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_ANIMATION REFERENCE Kuperberg, M (2001) Ratner, P (2003) Tumminello, W (2003) Clements, J & McCarthy, H A Guide to Computer Animation 3D Human Modelling Exploring Storyboarding (2001) (Boston & Oxford: and Animation (Boston & Oxford: The Anime Encyclopaedia: Focal Press) (New York: John Focal Press) A Guide to Japanese – Wiley & Sons) – Animation Since 1917 Laybourne, K (1998) – Webber, M (2000) (Berkeley, California: The Animation Book Ratner, P (2004) Gardner’s Guide to Animation Stone Bridge Press) (Vancouver: Crown Mastering 3D Animation Scriptwriting – Publications) (New York: Watson-Guptill) (Washington, New York & Edera, B (1977) – – London: GGC Publishing) Full Length Animated Lord, P & Sibley, B (1999) Roberts, S (2004) – Feature Films Cracking Animation: The Character Animation in 3D Webber, M (2002) (London & New York: Aardman Book of 3D Animation (Boston & Oxford: Gardner’s Guide to Feature Focal Press) (London: Thames & Hudson) Focal Press) Animation Writing – – – (Washington, New York & Grant, J (2001) McKee, R (1999) Scott, J (2003) London: GGC Publishing) Masters of Animation Story: Substance, Structure, How to Write for Animation – (New York: Watson-Guptill) Style and the Principles of (Woodstock & New York: Wells, P (2007) – Screenwriting Overlook Press) Basics Animation: Halas, J (1987) (London: Methuen) – Scriptwriting Masters of Animation – Segar, L (1990) (Lausanne & Worthing: (London: BBC Books) Meglin, N (2001) Creating Unforgettable AVA Publishing) – Humourous Illustration Characters – Hoffer, T (1981) (New York: Watson-Guptill (New York: Henry Holt & Co) Whitaker, H & Halas, J Animation: A Reference Guide Publications) – (1981) (Westport: Greenwood) – Shaw, S (2003) Timing for Animation – Milic, L & McConville, Y Stop Motion: Craft Skills (Boston & Oxford: McCarthy, H (1993) (2006) for Focal Press) Anime!: A Beginner’s Guide The Animation Producer’s (Boston & Oxford: – to Japanese Animation Handbook Focal Press) White, T (1999) (London: Titan) (Maidenhead: OUP/McGraw Hill) – The Animator’s Workbook – – Simon, M (2000) (New York: Watson-Guptill McCarthy, H (1996) Missal, S (2004) : Motion in Art Publications) The Anime Movie Guide Exploring Drawing For (Boston & Oxford: Focal – (London: Titan) Animation Press) Williams, R (2001) – (New York: Thomson – The Animator’s Survival Kit McCarthy, H & Clements, J Delmar Learning) Simon, M (2003) (London & Boston: Faber (1998) – Producing Independent 2D & Faber) The Erotic Anime Movie Guide Neuwirth, A (2003) Character Animation – (London: Titan) Makin’ Toons: Inside the (Boston & Oxford: Winder, C & Dowlatabadi, Z – Most Popular Animated TV Focal Press) (2001) – Shows & Movies – Producing Animation – (New York: Allworth Press) Subotnick, S (2003) (Boston & Oxford: Students can also consult the – Animation in the Home Focal Press) Animation Journal, Animation, Patmore, C (2003) Digital Studio American , The Complete Animation Course (Boston & Oxford: Sight & Sound and Screen and (London: Thames & Hudson) Running PR) Film History for relevant – – articles. There are also Pilling, J (2001) Taylor, R (1996) other titles purely dedicated 2D and Beyond Encyclopaedia of to feature films and studio (Hove & Crans-Pres-Celigny: Animation Techniques output, which may also prove RotoVision) (Boston & Oxford: useful. Don’t forget that Focal Press) books on comedy often have some information on cartoons as well. Similarly readers of essays about television often have animation-related discussions.

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FURTHER RESOURCES AND WEBOGRAPHY

RECOMMENDED PERSONAL WEBSITES OF OTHER SITES OF _WEBSITES _FEATURED ARTISTS _INTEREST www.awn.com www.lumen.nu/rekveld/wp www.salier.info www.hoogerbrugge.com Animation World Network /index.php www.strikebackfilms.com Han Hoogerbrugge – Joost Rekveld Edouard Salier – www.toonhub.com – – www.sandanimation.com Animation Resources www.myrectumisnotagrave.com www.thyes.com Ferenc Cako – Steve Reinke Myriam Thyes – http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ – – www.faultyoptic.co.uk oahtml/oahome.html www.bitterfilms.com www.gravitytrap.com Faulty Optic Origins of Don Hertzfeldt www.flightphase.com – – – Karolina Sobecka www.onedotzero.com www.nfb.ca www.guitarshredshow.com – Onedotzero National Film Board Mika Tyyskä www.rosebond.net – of Canada – Rose Bond www.labs.live.com – www.brianevans.net – Seadragon www.toonarific.com Brian Evans www.mjstpfilms.com – US Animated Cartoons – Marie-Josée Saint-Pierre www.nitmesh.typepad.com Reference www.EatPES.com – Photosynthing – PES www.yhchang.com – www.toonhound.com – Young-Hae Chang Heavy www.technologicalreview.com UK Animated Cartoons www.portapak.be Industries Multi-user interfaces Reference Anouk de Clerq – – – – www.littleairplane.com www.leemcewan.com http://forum.bcdb.com/ www.pierrehebert.com Jennifer Oxley Animated social interaction Cartoon News and Discussion Pierre Hébert – – – – www.mutanthouse.com www.awn.com – www.easystreet.com/~joanna Youngwoong Jang Animation World Network – www.primopix.com/goody.swf – Many of the suggested Joanna Priestley www.kerrydrumm.com websites also have lists – Kerry Drumm of links for all aspects www.ericdyer.com – of animation from practice Eric Dyer www.johnnyhardstaff.com tutorials to festivals – Johnny Hardstaff to archives to research www.tscherkassky.at – and study. Peter Tscherkassky www.aslemeur.free.fr – Anne-Sarah Le Meur www.beeworld.net.au Alex and Dave Beasley – www.gregorybarsamian.com Gregory Barsamian

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– – – – Appendix Conclusion 188/189 Bibliography Further resources and webography Index Acknowledgements and picture credits INDEX

Numbers in [brackets] refer Barsamian, Greg 86–8, [87] commerce 21, 47–60, 62, disciplines to illustrations. Barthes, Roland 82, 83 70, [166] animation as 60 Beasley, Alex and Dave communication 21, 128, 181 definition 18 9/11 disaster 97–9 [74–7], 75–8 comparative models 24–9 shifting 14–21 #11, Marey <-> Moiré behavioural training 48–9 computer-generated (CG) Disney Studios 23, 24–5, 30 (Rekveld) 116–17 Beneath (Drumm) [129] animation 19, 23, 30–1, display 90, 106 Bergson, Henri 116 49–50, 52, 78 distribution 35–6 Aardman studios 32 ‘bigger picture’ 18, 38–43 confrontational animation Dive Painting (Seidel) [173] abstract animation Biotechnology Industry 97–8 documentary styles 59, 91, [113], [118], Organization (BIO) consciousness 87 69, 70–8, 100–1 119–21, [179] 178, 180 conspiracy theories 97–8 Doll Face (Huang) [166] actuality animation Blake, Kara 109 constructing history 100–1 dominant aesthetics 30–1 70, 79–81, 101 Bond, Rose 122–3, [122–3] context of animation 18, 86 dreams 170–81 adaptation 155, [163] bottom-up models 36 Copenhagen Cycles (Dyer) Drift (Hattler) [179] advertising Bradley, Scott 120 111–13, [111] Drumm, Kerry 129–39, [129] 49–50, 62, [166], 167, 176 Brand, Bill 174 Core, Margaret 178 dumbing down 15, 18–19, 43 AL + AL [25] brief-setting 128, 130 corporatism duration of films 137 Allen, Scott 26–8, [26–7] broadcast context 48–51, 56, 61–3, 78 Dyer, Eric Almodóvar, Pedro 67 32–3, 48–9, 62 counter-cultures 51, 52 111–13, [111–13], 114 Aloni, Naor 26–8, [28–9] Buddhism 52–3 crafts 184 alternative worlds creative practice editing 136 86–91, 94, 96, 148 Calidri (Evans) 120 8, 15, 19–20, 149 educational context ambient animation 43 ‘call and response’ practice see also practice 20, 22, 35–7, 127, 131 American culture 97–9 142 Creative Process commerce 56–60 analogue cinema 158 cameras 61, 131, 134 (Saint-Pierre) [110] culture 47 Animal Crossing (Nintendo) 48 car animations 174 credits 137, 138 documentary styles 74–5 animated language cartoons 16, 21, 25, 46, crinoline project see also teaching see language of animation 68, 85, 91 129–30, 134, [135], [139] animation Animating Art History CG see computer-generated critiques 61–3, 138, 146–7 elitism 19, 84 (Rutgers) 102 animation culture 15, 38–43, 47, 68 empathy 130 animation definitions challenges 142–5 Cunnilingus in North Korea Empire (Salier) 97 6–7, 119, 184 Chang, Young-Hae [16–17] (Chang and Voge) [16–17] erasure techniques [163] approaches to animation 22–37 change 142–5 ethics 68–83, 97–9 archive footage 100–1 Chen, Agi [6] De Clercq, Anouk Evans, B. 120–1, [121], 184 see also found footage Chernobyl disaster 105, 106 105, [105], 106 Everything Will Be art/arts culture children’s animation delivery 35–6 OK (Hertzfeldt) 38, 47–60, 79–81, 184 32–4, 48–9, 68 democratisation of software 61, [62–3], 63 art history 102, 103 China [64], 66 52 evidential contexts 70 artificiality 117, 164, [167] choice 142–5 Deren, Maya 67 experimental film artist animation choreography 36 design 51, 94 15, 107, 119 84–91, 114–23 chronophotography 116–19 see also graphic design cartoon relationship Ask the Insects (Reinke) 79 cinema 60 Deutschland, Deutschland über 16, 21, 25, 46 attitudes 68–83 see also film-making; Alles (Ulbrich) [57], 58 conspiracy theories 98 audiences 42, 48–9, 162, live-action cinema developmental shifts 24–6 learning institutions 22 176, 178, 181 see also cinematic apparatus 115 digital technologies objects of desire 154 public engagement cinetropes 111, [112–13] 6, 14–20, 50, 184 play 88, 90 augmented reality 174–6 classical period of animation actuality animation 79, 81 reflexivity 123 authorship 27, 40, 46–67 23–5, 30 developmental shifts 24 exploitation 65–6 avant-garde 94 Clifton, Darryl 126–51 hardware 61 Extended Play (Priestley) Axen, Ulrika [147] collaborations politicisation 83 88–90 64–7, 103, 106, 126, 132 video art 111–12 Eye-Ocean (Le Meur) [8–9] Banick, Jerry 104 Collins, Billy 160–3 see also computer- Banksy 70 colour 76, 79, 138 generated animation baroque stage of animation comedy 63 directing film 133 24–5, 26

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Fallon Agency 167 Hébert, Pierre Jang, Youngwoong mentor/student exchange fantasy 164–5, [166] 70–1, [72–3], 74, 78 18, [19], [30–1] 129–39 film-making Henson, Jim 32 Japan 26–7 metamorphoses 66, 148, 180–1 6–7, 60–1, 107, 154, 156–9 Hertzfeldt, Don 61–3, [61–3] jittering technique 79 metaphors 31, 57, 59, 120–2, film studies 60 high/low culture debate 38 Johnson, Daniel Phillip 89 [147], 148 filters 136, 138 historiography 95 JWT Now magazine 51 Midnight Reader (Peacock) Finnegan, John 102, 104 history 94–103, 106–13, 128, 82–3, [82–3] Fischinger, Oskar 25 141, 147, 149 KaBoom! (PES) 168–9, [169] Mirage (Jang) 19, [30–1] Five Abstract Film Exercises Hodgson, Jonathan 25, 28 Kennedy, Jill [150–1] modernism 39, 43, 111–12, 158 (Whitney) 119 Hoffman, Kristina [146] Kernwasser Wunderland (De monologues 79 flag images 64–7 Holthuis, Gerard 116 Clercq) 105, [105], 106 mood boards [129] Flag Metamorphoses (Thyes) Hopper, Edward 102, 104–6 Kharamukha Samvara (Steward) motion graphics 40–2, 51 64–5, [64] Huang, Andy [166] [50–5], [52–3] Moving Picture Company [16–17], 66 human figure animation knowledge 20, 132 100–1, [101] Flesh (Salier) 91, [167] Mozambique 65–6 97–9, [97], [99] human performance language of animation Mr Fastfinger (Tyyskä) Focillon, Henri 24–5, 28 see performance 8, 74, 81, 149, 151 35–6, [36–7] ‘Forgetfulness’ (Collins) humanisation techniques layering 117 multi-user touch-screens 170 160–1 117, 148 Le Meur, Anne-Sarah [8–9] multiple techniques 109 Forgetfulness (Grey) HypoSurface Corp 178–81 learning institutions 22, 56 museum collections 161–3, [162–3] see also educational 26, 126, 128 formalist approaches 67, 80 ideas 153–81 context; teaching music 120–1, 134, 138, 179 found footage 156, [157], 158 identity 64–6, 68, 181 animation see also sound/ see also archive footage ideology 147 Lebanon 71, 74 The Music Lesson (Vermeer) Freeze Frame (Tscherkassky) idioms 153–81 Levin, Golan 119 102 156 Illuminations (Bond) [122] light/lighting French colonialism 66–7 image generator systems 119 [19], 116–20, 131 narrative IMTS see International Linny The Guinea Pig (Selis) 40–2, 53, [54–5], 148 gallery spaces 106 Manufacturers Technology 32 national identity 64–6 gaming 48–9, 71, [169] Show literacy 95 nature Gehman, Chris 83 Incarnation (Allen) [26–7] live-action cinema [167], 171, [173], 174–7 generative art works [8–9] industry realities 18–20, 56 6, 85, 129, 139, 148 negative strips 108 Germany [57], 58 information ‘waterfall’ 181 Living Cinema projects 70–1 Neighbours (McLaren) Gilliam, Terry 59 Innes, Rona 65–6, [65] low/high culture debate 38 107, [108] Glassviews (Hoffman) [146] innovation 22, 24, 56, 181 Lye, Len 71, 123 Neuro-Economy (Kennedy) Goodman, Nelson 117, 119 installations 111–12, 115, [150–1] Goulthorpe, Mark 178, 180–1 122–3, [173], [175] McCay, Winsor [24], 81 new traditionalism 23, 30 graphic design/art intellectual understanding machine figures [166] Nighthawks (Hopper) 38, 40–3, 50–6 140 McLaren, Norman 25, 107–8, 102, 104–6 graphic novels 40–2, [40–1] interactivity 171, 178, 180–1 [107], [109], 123 Nintendo games 48–9 Grau (Seidel) 173 interior states 87, 148, 151 McLaren’s Negatives (Saint- No, Never Alone (Barsamian) Grey, Julian 161–3, [162–3] International Manufacturers Pierre) 107–10, [108–10] 86–7 Grierson, John 101 Technology Show (IMTS) 178 McLean, Shiloh 30, 31 ‘nothingness’ 43 Guitar Shred Show (Tyyskä) Internet animation Malawi 65–6 nurture 178–81 35–6 [16–17], 64 manipulated moving images see also websites 79–81, 85 Object React: Vacuum Cleaner Han, Jeff 170 Intra Muros (Bond) 122–3 Manovich, Lev 6, 8 (Aloni) 26, [28–9] hand-drawn animation invention/pragmatism alliance maps 121 Object React (Hardstaff and 76, 78, 109 131 Marey, Étienne-Jules 116 Clifton) 126–51 Happy End (Tscherkassky) 156 Iran 40–1 mass media 42, 59 objects of desire 154–63 Hardstaff, Johnny 49, 126–51 Iraq War 168 Masstransiscope (Brand) 174 Outer Space (Tscherkassky) hardware 61–3 irony 65–6, 94, 164–5 materiality 133, 158, 167 [156], 158, [159] Hattler, Max [179] Israel 71, [72–3] media impact 42, 59 outlooks on animation Hawkins, Lydia 142–5, [142] memory 154–5, 161, [162–3] 22–37, 184 health and safety issues 132 Oxley, Jennifer 32–3

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– – – – Appendix Conclusion 190/191 Bibliography Further resources and webography Index Acknowledgements and picture credits

Peacock, Jan 82–3, [82–3] reconfigured animation 70 slavery 142–5 Tscherkassky, Peter pedagogy 12–43, 78, 126–39 Red and Yellow (Roshto) Sobecka, Karolina 156–9, [156–7], [159] performance 70–1, 74, 171–2 66, [66–7] 174–7, [175], 184 Tucholsky, Kurt 58–9 Persepolis (Satrapi) reflexive animation 70, 123 social values 60 typeface decisions 137 40–2, [40–1] see also self-reflexivity software 52, 170 Tyyskä, Mika 35–6, [35–7], 38 personal visions 40–2, Reinke, Steve Sony Bravia 167 61–3, 82–3, 133, 146–7 79–81, [80], [83] sound/soundtracks Ulbrich, Thorsten [57], 58–9 PES 168–9, [168–9] Rejected (Hertzfeldt) 120–2, 134, 138, 148 underwater filming photo-puppetry 32–3 [61], 62 children’s animation 32 131–2, 134, [135], [139] photography 116–19, 172 Rekveld, Joost metamorphoses 180–1 United Productions of America photorealism 101, 164 116–19, [116–18], 120 play 89 (UPA) [24], 25 Photosynth software 170 representations of women space 106, 122–3 urban contexts 174–7 Pixar Animation Studio 158, [159] Special Forces (Hébert) 25, 30, 120 research 23, 28, 128, 70, 74 van Triest, Aart Jan 51 pixellation 156 142–3, 145, 172 spectacle 164–5, 167–9 Vermeer, Johannes 102 Platform Festivals resistance 68, 78 Stalling, Carl 120 Victoria & Albert Museum 89, 91, 122 resonant art 130–1 Steward, Selina 50–3, [50–5] 26, 126 play 88–90, [169] revolutionary animation stop-motion animation 129 video art 82–3, 105, 111 Play-Doh advertisements 170, 172–3 Streetcar Named Perspire Vietnam 66, [67] 167, [167] Revolving Door (Beasley and (Priestley) 89 Viola, Bill 83 Pocoyo (Zinkia) 33–4 Beasley) [74–7], 75–8 student/mentor exchange virtual contexts 70, 96–9 poetry 154, 160–3 rhetorical devices 79, 81 129–39 Virtual History: The Secret politics/politicisation Rimminen, Marjut [74] subconsciousness 86–7 Plot to Kill Hitler 39–42, 44–91, 97–9, Roof Sex (PES) 168, [168] subject, definition 18 100–1, [101] 147, 169 Roshto, Barry 66, [66–7] subversion 51–2, 59, 60, 78 visions see personal visions popular culture 47 rotoscope animation 78, 109 Super 8 film 161 visual culture see culture pornography 97–9, 168 Rudquist, Tobias [147] Svankmajer, Jan 83 visual effects 6, 26 postmodernism 39, 43, 56 Rutgers University 102 symbolism visual literacy 95 practice 20, 24–9, 44–91, [51–3], 64–6, 108, 148 visualisation 102–13, 148–51 safety issues 132 141, 146–7, 148–9 see also creative practice Saint-Pierre, Marie-Josée Tartakovsky, Genndy 36 Voge, Marc [16–17] pragmatism 21, 131 107–10, [108–10], 112 teaching animation pre-production process 138 Salier, Edouard 12–43, 78, 126–39 Walsh, Darren 167 Priestley, Joanna 97–9, [97], [99], 100 technical knowledge 132 Walt Disney see Disney Studio 88–91, [88], [90], 94 Samurai Jack (Tartakovsky) 36 technology/technique war politics 169 problem-solving 21 Samvara project (Steward) relationship 26 Warner Bros Studio 24–5, 30 process 140–7, 184 [50–5], 52–3 see also digital water, filming in production processes Sartre, Jean-Paul 82 technologies 131–2, 134, [135], [139] 7–8, 20, 138 Satrapi, Marjane 40–2, [40–1] television 32–3, 49, 68, 167 websites 35, 76 prostitution 74–6 scale [167] tensegrity structures [147] see also Internet public engagement Schatz, Thomas 24–5 testimonies 70 animation 122–3, 178–9 scratched animation themes 170–81 Wedgwood cameo project 142–5 see also audiences 71, [80], 161 theory/practice divide 20 Wells, Paul 20, 60 Pummell, Simon 129 scripts 148 three-dimensionality ‘what if?’ scenarios 100 purpose of animators 64–7 sculpture 86–7, 111 102, 104, 172 Whitney, James 119 Seadragon software 170 Thyes, Myriam Wii 172 Raaijmakers, Dick 117 Second Life 96 64–5, [64], 66–7 Wildlife (Sobecka) 174–7, racism 145 Second World War 58–9 Tibet 52–3 [175] radical perspective 69, 70 Seidel, Robert [173] ‘tieback’ stories 33 women 27, 158, [159] re-animation 156–9 self-reflexivity titles 137 Wonder Pets! (Selis) [32–3] re-contextual documentaries 24–5, 81, 120, 123, 160 Tomato company 43 ‘world’ creation 69, 70, 75–8 see also reflexive top-down models 36, 52 84, 86–91, 94, 96, 148 re-historicisation animation touch-screens 170 141, 147, 149 Selis, Josh 32–3 Toy Story (Pixar) 25, 30 Zinkia’s Pocoyo 33–4 realism 74, 101, 164–9, 174–6 skill sets 20 zoetropes 111, 112

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND PICTURE CREDITS

I would like to thank Cover 61–63 120-121 Brian Morris, Renee Last, Courtesy of Naor Aloni Courtesy of Don Hertzfeldt Courtesy of Brian Evans Caroline Walmsley and Lucy Tipton at AVA Publishing for Imprint page 64, 66–67 122–123 keeping the show on the road Courtesy of the National Courtesy of Myriam Thyes Courtesy of Rose Bond in the face of all odds. Film Board of Canada Thank you to Emmi Salonen 65 129, 134–135, 137, 139 for the beautiful design 6 Courtesy of Rona Innes Courtesy of Kerry Drumm of the book. Courtesy of Agi Chen 66–67 142 Thanks too to colleagues 8–9 Courtesy of Barry Roshto Courtesy of Lydia Hawkins at the Animation Academy, Courtesy of Anne-Sarah Loughborough University Le Meur 72–73 146 School of Art and Design; Courtesy of Pierre Hébert Courtesy of Kristina Hoffman Rose Bond, for our Portland 16–17 Panel; Darryl Clifton, for Courtesy of Young-Hae 74–77 147 ‘Object React’; Jeff Chang Heavy Industries Courtesy of Alex and Courtesy of Ulrika Axen Hill/Persepolis; Gareth Dave Beasley and Tobias Rudquist Howell/LUSAD; Institute of 19, 30–31 Contemporary Arts; Magali Courtesy of Youngwoong Jang 80 150–151 Montet/Persepolis; Tamás Courtesy of Steve Reinke Courtesy of Jill Kennedy Mundrucz/SandAnimation; 25 Onedotzero; Jan Peacock; Courtesy of AL + AL 82–83 156–159 Mette Peters/Netherlands Courtesy of Jan Peacock Courtesy of Peter Institute for Animation Film; 26–27 Tscherkassky Sarah Phelps/PES Films; Courtesy of Scott Allen 87 Kathryn Rawson/Head Gear Courtesy of Greg Barsamian 162–163 Animation; Carina 28–29 Courtesy of Julian Grey Sayles/Sayles & Winnikoff Courtesy of Naor Aloni 88–90 Communications; Josh Courtesy of Joannna Priestley 166 Selig/Little Airplane 32–33 Courtesy of Andy Huang Productions; Scott Surdez; Wonder Pets! © 2007 Viacom 97–99 Eric van Drunen; Shane International Inc. All rights Courtesy of Edouard Salier 167 Walters; Heather reserved. Nick Jr, Wonder Courtesy of The Fallon Agency Tilert/Little Airplane Pets! and related titles, 101 Productions; Sue Tongue/ logos and characters are Courtesy of The Moving 168–169 Faulty Optic; Victoria & trademarks of Viacom Picture Company Courtesy of PES Albert Museum; Bruce Wands. International Inc 104 173 And a final huge thank you, 34 Courtesy of John Finnegan Courtesy of Robert Seidel of course, to all the artists Pocoyo TM © Zinkia represented in this book. Entertainment 105–106 175, 177 Courtesy of Anouk de Clercq Courtesy of Karolina Sobecka 35–37 Courtesy of Mika Tyyskä 107 179 Courtesy of the National Courtesy of Max Hattler 40–41 Film Board of Canada Courtesy of Jonathan Cape / 179 Random House 108–110 Courtesy of HypoSurface Corp Courtesy of Marie-Josée – 43 Saint-Piérre – Courtesy of Tomato – 111–113 All reasonable attempts 50–55 Courtesy of Eric Dyer have been made to trace, Courtesy of Selina Steward clear and credit the 116–118 copyright holders of the 57 Courtesy of Joost Rekveld images reproduced in this Courtesy of Thorsten Ulbrich book. However, if any credits have been inadvertently omitted, the publisher will endeavour to incorporate amendments in future editions.

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– – – – – – Chapter 05 Chapter 04 Chapter 03 Chapter 02 Chapter 01 The disciplinary shift Approaches and outlooks The bigger picture Paul Wells / Johnny Hardstaff Re-imagining Animation RE-IMAGINING RE-IMAGINING ANIMATION ANIMATION – The Changing Face of the Moving Image

Professor Paul Wells is Director of the Re-imagining Animation is a vivid, insightful Re-imagining Animation Other titles of interest in AVA's Animation Academy at Loughborough and challenging interrogation of the animated addresses animation’s role at the heart THE CHANGING THEAcademia CHANG range include: University, UK, and has published widely film as it becomes central to moving image of moving-image practice through an in the field of animation, including practices in the contemporary era. engagement with a range of moving-image Visible Signs: The Fundamentals of Animation and Animation was once works – looking at the context in which FACE OF THE FACEAn introduction OF to semiotics THE Basics Animation: Scriptwriting. constructed frame-by-frame, one image they were produced; the approach to their following another in the process of preparation and construction; the process of Visual Research: Johnny Hardstaff is an internationally constructing imagined phases of motion, their making; the critical agenda related to MOVING IMAGE MOVINGAn introduction to research IM established, award-winning designer, film- but now the creation and manipulation the research; developmental and applied methodologies in graphic design maker and artist. He is the creator of The of the moving image has changed. aspects of the work; the moving-image History of Gaming and The Future of With the digital revolution outcomes; and the status of the work within Visual Communication: Gaming, and innovative popular music videos, invading every creative enterprise and form contemporary art and design practices. From theory to practice 01 TEACHING MOVING IMAGE CULTURE: 01 TEACHING MOVING IMAGE CULTURE: including Radiohead’s long format ‘Pulk/Pull of expression, pencils have become pixels, PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS Revolving Doors’ and ‘Like Spinning Plates’. He dreams have become data, and animation – 02 THE POLITICS OF PRACTICE 02 THE POLITICS TheOF PRACTICE Illustration Book was also one of the co-initiators of the once merely an adjunct of film – has become 03 ANIMATION RE-IMAGINED 03 ANIMATION RE-IMAGINED 04 ‘OBJECT REACT’ 04 OBJECT REACT ‘Object React’ project with Onedotzero and central to the whole cinematic enterprise. 05 FROM IDEAS TO IDIOMS 05 FROM IDEAS TOLeft IDIOMS to Right: Darryl Clifton. The cultural shift from words to pictures

Verbalising the Visual: Translating art and design into words

ava publishing sa [email protected] www.avabooks.ch

AVA Academia | Context | Theory

PAUL WELLS PAUL WELLS JOHNNY HARDSTAFF JOHNNY HARDSTAFF

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