The Animation Sculpture from Ancient Ceramic Art to Projection Mapping

The animation sculpture From ancient ceramic art to projection mapping

Diplomarbeit

Ausgeführt zum Zweck der Erlangung des akademischen Grades Dipl.-Ing. für technisch-wissenschaftliche Berufe

am Masterstudiengang Digitale Medientechnologien an der Fachhochschule St. Pölten, Masterklasse Experimentelle Medien

von: Ing. Ani Antonova Hristova dm171528

Betreuer/in und Erstbegutachter/in: Mag. Mag. Dr. Franziska Bruckner Zweitbegutachter/in: FH-Prof. Mag. Markus Wintersberger

St. Pölten, 18.05.2020

Abstract

The master thesis investigates various artistic practices combining animation with three-dimensional physical objects. It suggests the term “animation sculpture” and discusses its importance as a distinctive art form in the context of visual art and new media. It starts with research on its rich history from the various predecessors in the ceramic and pottery painting. Then goes through the “pre-cinematic” devices to the contemporary video sculptures using screens and projection mapping, outlining some common sculptural, technical and narrative properties of this hybrid art-form. The theoretical research opens a dialogue with a praxis-based research whose goal is the creation of the animation sculpture prototype “Cornucopia”. The sculpture is inspired by the earliest sequential images and on formal and technical level explores the elements of rotation, circularity, repetition and brevity, characteristics bound to the first optical toys, in combination with projection mapping. Additionally, to the practical experiments, four quality interviews with experts, coming from different fields of studies: Prof. Dr. Svetoslav Ovtcharov, Dr. Paulo Viveiros, Dr. Birgitta Hosea and Stefan Stratil, were conducted. They were asked to share their expert evaluation on the practical work and to outline their personal experiences or contacts with the hybrid medium animation sculpture.

III

Kurzfassung

Die Masterarbeit untersucht verschiedene künstlerische Praktiken, die Animationen mit dreidimensionalen physischen Objekten kombinieren. Dafür wird der Begriff „Animationsskulptur“ vorgeschlagen und seine Bedeutung als eigene Kunstform im Kontext von visueller Kunst und neuen Medien diskutiert.

Die Arbeit untersucht die Geschichte der Animationsskulptur, beginnend bei Vorläufern in Keramik- und Keramikmalerei. Anschließend werden „vorkinematische“ Geräte beschrieben und schließlich zeitgenössische Videoskulpturen, die mit Bildschirmen und Projektionsmapping arbeiten, erforscht. In diesem Prozess werden gemeinsame skulpturale, technische und narrative Eigenschaften dieser hybriden Kunstform definiert.

Die theoretische Forschung tritt in Dialog mit einer praxisorientierten Forschung, deren Ziel die Schaffung eines Prototyps der Animationsskulptur mit dem Titel „Cornucopia“ ist. Die Skulptur ist von Motiven aus den Anfängen der Animation inspiriert und untersucht auf formaler und technischer Ebene die Elemente Rotation, Zirkularität, Wiederholung und Kürze, Eigenschaften, die für die ersten optischen Spielzeuge bedeutsam sind, in Kombination mit Projektionsmapping.

Zusätzlich zu den praktischen Experimenten wurden vier Qualitätsinterviews mit ExpertInnen aus verschiedenen Studienbereichen durchgeführt: Prof. Dr. Svetoslav Ovtcharov, Dr. Paulo Viveiros, Dr. Birgitta Hosea und Stefan Stratil. Sie wurden gebeten, zur praktischen Arbeit Stellung zu beziehen und ihre persönlichen Erfahrungen mit dem hybriden Medium Animationsskulptur zu beschreiben.

IV Table of contents

Ehrenwörtliche Erklärung II Abstract III Kurzfassung IV Table of contents V 1. Animation sculpture. Research context. 1 1.1. Introduction 1 1.2. Research questions, aims and objectives 2 1.3. Methodology 3 1.4. What is animation? 5 1.5. What is sculpture? 9 1.6. Animation vs. sculpture 15 2. Pre-cinematic history 18 2.1. Early history 18 2.2. Thaumatrope 20 2.3. Phénakisticope and the stroboscopic disc 21 2.4 Zoetrope 23 2.5. Stereoscopic zoetrope 25 2.6. The photosculpture 26 2.7. The praxinoscope 27 2.8. The projection praxinoscope 28 2.9. Mutoscope 30 3. History of moving-image sculptures 31 3.1. Kinetic art. Kinetic sculptures. 31 3.2. Expanded cinema 33 3.3. The television set 35 3.4. Projection mapping 37 4. State of the art and case studies 40 4.1. Case study: William Kentridge 40 4.2. Case study: Mat Collishaw 43 4.3. Case study: Akinori Goto 46 4.4. Case study: Pedro Serrazina 48 4.5. Case study: Anna Vasof 49 4.6. Case study: Kumi Yamashita 50 4.7. Case study: Anthony McCall 51 4.8. Case study: LWZ 52

V 4.9. Case study: Bill Brand 53 5. Practical experiments 55 5.1. Previous projects and studies 55 5.1.1. Kopfkino 55 5.1.2 The Outlander (animation sculpture) 56 5.2. Cornucopia (animation sculpture) 57 5.2.1. The sculptural shape 59 5.2.2. Technological aspect of the work 64 5.2.3. Projection mapping 67 5.2.4. The animation process 70 5.2.5. Expert interviews. Evaluation 80 6. Results and conclusion 84 List of figures 90 Bibliography 94 Appendix I. Interviews with experts 99 Acknowledgments 110

VI The animation sculpture

1. Animation sculpture. Research context.

1.1. Introduction In her introduction to "pervasive media" Susanne Buchan defines animation as "inva- sive in the contemporary moving image culture" (Buchan, 2013). This pervasiveness manifests itself in the omnipresence of animation in our life. The creative industries reach to animation from advertising, web, music videos, gaming, VR, news and con- cert's visualizations. The animation is there when authors of television series try to show the spectators how geniuses, who are about to save the world think. Anima- tion has become so natural to us that we no longer take it as fabricated by someone. When the catching of Osama bin Laden was presented in the news as 3D Animation simulation, we as viewers did not doubt its truthfulness. Animation comes already as a natural way to represent real events when we do not have visual material from the actual situation. Hollywood films are becoming more and more hybrid forms of live-action and animation in the form of special effects. The boundaries between different art-forms no longer exist, and hybrid media and hybridization are what interests me in this research. Mainly, my interest lies in the connection between sculpture and animation and the "expanding" of the animation into the physical realm taking or merging with a three-dimensional form. The term "video sculpture" exists since the 1970s, and it reflects the fascination of many artists with the sculptural properties of video monitors and combining them with objects and materials in space. The thesis suggests the term "animation sculpture" and discusses its importance as a distinctive art form in the context of visual art and new media. The core of my research is not the nomenclature, I will use this term to focus on a specific group of artistic practices that combine technology, animation and sculpting of materials in space. I will investigate common aspects, materiality, and technological aspects. Furthermore, I will also examine the aspect of rotation and circularity in them. In the next chapters, I will present the research questions and aims, the methodology I will apply and some of the theoretical contexts, my research is based on: from the ontology of animation, expanded animation, para-cinema and different definitions of sculpture.

1 The animation sculpture

1.2. Research questions, aims and objectives This interest in the connection between sculpture and animation lies in the practical experiments throughout my studies of "Experimental media". The research questions I am going to discuss through the course of this thesis are: What is an "animation sculpture" and can it be important as a distinctive art form in the context of visual and participatory arts? What common aspects can be found between the artistic practices of contemporary artists working with animation sculpture? Is a certain technicity or technicality always present? How do technological developments and open-source platforms like VVVV enable artists to reach to this hybrid medium? We are used to be exposed to a cinematic experience. We know that the technique of "montage" has changed and our spectator's eye adapted from the early slow- paced editing to the one we are accustomed now. The technological advances have irrevocably expanded the boundaries of our visual perceptions. This phenomenon is what Walter Benjamin calls "the optical unconscious" (Benjamin, 2002).

And in this context, another question arises that is connected to the "montage": Does something in the "montage" of the moving images change, when we have animation cinema in a three-dimensional object? Are there any limitations of the narrative possibilities because of the physical form? I can recall a situation when I suddenly became excited and attracted by an object at the airport. In essence, it was a small glass pyramid, and inside there was this illusion of a hologram. An animated advertising video was playing in a loop in the pyramid. Even though I realized how this illusion works and that it functions on the old Pep- per's ghost principle, it was fascinating and hypnotizing. I have seen it before in video of a fashion show from Alexander McQueen where the ghost of Kate Moss is floating in a giant pyramid. However, it was different having this illusion in a tangible, small object in front of me. I watched the advertising clip around twenty times. In the article "Circularity and Repetition at the Heart of the Attraction" Nicolas Dulac and André Gaudreault question some of the relevant characteristics of the viewer's attraction in relation to the early pre-cinematic devices like the phenakistoscope, the Zoetrope and the praxinoscope. They argue that these are the rotation, circularity, repetition, brevity and the interactive element of manually rotating the disc or the cylinder. They continue: the temporality of optical toys is closer to that of the machine; it is more mechanical than anything else. The attraction of optical toys is a part, above all else, of that shapeless, a-narrative and even non-human temporality which, as Tom Gunning has remarked, is similar to a kind of 'irruption':

2 The animation sculpture

'[t]he temporality of the attraction itself […] is limited to the pure present tense of its appearance. (Dulac & Gaudreault, 2006, p. 228)

Although this article is not related to the animation sculpture, it inspired some additional questions: Are rotation, repetition and brevity also relevant vital aspects of the animation sculpture?

My research aims are to:  examine hybrid practice which has elements of both: animation and sculpture  collect and analyze common aspects of the artistic practices in the field of animation sculpture.

Through my practical research, I will test the following hypotheses:  The shape of the sculpture is bound to the narrative of the animation and vice-versa.  Small interactions with the sculpture and the animation contribute to the overall viewer's experience.  The cinematic "montage" has to change when we edit moving images for a physical shape.  The animation sculpture is a haptic and sensorial experience.

1.3. Methodology The first method that I will apply towards these questions is literature and online research. Gathering bibliographical material on the existing studies and projects in this area will help me provide an examination of the development of the animation sculpture in three phases: 1. The theoretical context and the existing current ideas in the field of animation studies will be revisited. 2. An overview of selected episodes of the history of animation and cinema that seem to be relevant for shaping the contemporary hybrid art form will be presented. 3. Case studies of different artistic practices, commonalities and differences between the diverse approaches will be collected. Analyzing the gathered bibliographical material and interpretation of the results will be applied. I agree with Birgitta Hosea that "theory and practice are not in binary opposition, but form one holistic search for knowledge" (Hosea, 2012, p. 3). And as a practitioner, I tend to examine and test theoretical questions through the process of animating. To add to my literature research, I will create a prototype of an animation sculpture with the name "Cornucopia" and test some of the hypotheses I presented before. In

3 The animation sculpture

many cases, in the act of artistic practice, some additional challenges and questions appear that one could not think of in forehand. Even errors and mistakes can lead to valuable knowledge if there is a reflection upon the process. But I tend to agree with Pamela Lomax that the practice-based research can be sub- jective and difficult to evaluate (Lomax & Parker, 1995, p. 301). For this reason, several experts from the field of animation studies and cinema: Prof. Dr. Svetoslav Ovtcharov, Dr. Paulo Viveiros, Dr. Birgitta Hosea and Stefan Stratil, will be invited to give their expertise on the proposed ideas and to evaluate my practical project "Cornucopia". Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the animation sculpture could not be exhibited as previously planned, as a result, the invited experts had to evaluate only videos of it. These qualitative expert interviews were carried our per e-mail.

4 The animation sculpture

1.4. What is animation? The word "animation" in the 1590s was associated with the meaning "action of impairing life" and had its origins in Latin "animationem" (nominative "animatio"). From the verb "animare" –"give breath to something", "to endow with a particular spirit, to give courage to, enliven". Comes from "anima" which means "life, breath" (from PIE root ane- "to breath") (Animation | Origin and meaning of animation by On- line Etymology Dictionary, n.d.). The animation is very often defined only in relation to cinema.1 But it is indeed inevitable to discuss film when we are talking about animation. Lilly Husbands and Caroline Ruddell argue that two main aspects set apart the animation from the live-action film and that are crucially important for its ontology: First, animation is produced frame-by-frame or in computer-animated increments, whereas live-action cinema is filmed in real time. Secondly, animation is entirely constructed, whereas live-action has a "profilmic world" that exists in front of the camera. (Husbands & Ruddell, 2018, p. 8). Simon Pummel questions this insisting of separating and defining of animation due to the growing and vastly used compositing techniques: The massive explosion in ‘composite cinema’, both in computer animation and the frame-by-frame manipulation of live-action material, creates a possible paradox: animation is eating classical cinema, and possibly at the same time creating conditions for its own ultimate extinction as a distinct category. (Pummell, 1996, p. 299) This is what Darley calls a "hybrid medium" (Darley, 2016, p. 69) and quotes Mark Langer that this is the "collapse of the boundary" between live-action and animation. What is bothering Langer is the loss of indexicality that is related to the live-action film and photographic imagery. The new hybrid media animation resulted as not indexical, and he was concerned with the moment when we are no longer able "to distinguish animation from live action" (Ibid, p. 69). Furthermore, we are now really entering in this chapter with the advance of machine learning. In 2019 The Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida took the words of Sal- vador Dalí: "If I die, I won't completely die", too literally and created with the help of artificial intelligence the interactive Salvador Dalí. Analyzing thousands of images and video footage of Dalí, they taught the system to reproduce and simulate Dali's likeness and generated a talking Dalí postmortem. The moving of the eyebrows and the mouth were edited and synchronized with new sentences. Even though, this interactive screen "Dali Lives" pretends to be indexical, it is not. Similar is the process of "compositing". It works on the single frame level, and it op- erates with the tools of the animator. In the film "Stuart Little" (1999) per example,

1 Many scholars start their articles first defending the right of the discipline animation studies to exist. However, considering the swift development of technology and the omnipresence of the animation in every visual media, I do not feel obligated to underline its importance again.

5 The animation sculpture

we are dealing with a "constructed" moving images, a mixture between animation and live-action film. As Philip Denslow puts it: "The reason we are examining this issue is that no matter what definition you choose, it faces challenges from new developments in the technology used to produce and distribute animation" (Denslow, 1998, p. 1). Therefore, he proposes that the definition of animation should be regularly adapted to the context of the current technological stand (ibid. p. 2). Brian Wells argues that one definition should be able to suffice and should be adopted by all the scholars working in the field of animation studies. He stresses that despite the diversity of all techniques (per example: scratch film, lightning sketches, stop motion, 2D, cel animation, 3D animation, motion capture, computer animation) we need to concentrate and unite around a single definition (B. Wells, 2011, p. 11). Indeed, he manages to reduce the vast animation characteristics to 10 assertions about what animation should be and to reformulate the definition of animation done by Dan McLaughlin to: "Movement, or change, of created image in recorded time" (ibid. p.28). The "movement" and the constructed aspect of the animation form are also crucial for the animation definition made by Paul Wells: "a film made by hand, frame-by- frame, providing an illusion of movement, which has not been directly recorded in the conventional photographic senses" (P. Wells, 1998, p. 10). Nichola Dobson suggests that nowadays a single definition is questionable due to the "fluid nature of the form" (Dobson, 2009, p.4), if we happen to agree on a single definition it would be probably a too broad one, that could no longer be of any use. Some scholars like Darley profoundly disagree with the theoretical approach of Alan Cholodenko and call him "appropriating animation-animated film -to illustrate grand theoretical positions" and using the animation as an "alibi for theorizing" (Darley, 2016, p.71). Still, Cholodenko is a crucial figure in the contemporary animation studies and I would like to mention his observation on the nature of animation: To answer these questions, we must posit what animation is, including offering its two major definitions: the endowing with life and the endowing with motion. The theorizing of animation cannot limit itself to that endowing with life and motion but must consider the full cycles of each, that is to say, their metamorphoses, their diminutions, and their terminations– death and nonmotion – as well as their inextricable commingling throughout their cycles. (Cholodenko, 2014, p. 101) "The illusion of life" is often mentioned as a unique and key-feature to animation, as Esther Leslie claims "animation is understood to be the inputting of life, or the inputting of the illusion of life, into that which is flat or inert or a model or an image" (Leslie, 2014, p. 28). Lilly Husbands and Caroline Ruddell discuss this as rather problematic. This is may- be true for cartoon animation where characters miraculously become alive, but when we come in the area of experimental or non-narrative animation forms, the

6 The animation sculpture

idea of the illusion of life is replaced by the illusion of movement. We do not think that a corporate logo that is scaled with a bouncy effect is becoming alive; we appre- ciate its movement. As Husbands and Ruddel underline: Animation's illusion of life comes in part from the creation of movement, because movement suggests life as opposed to the stillness of death. Movement is animation, because it is created frame-by-frame, is an illusion, unlike in live-action film where it is captured in /on camera. (Husbands & Ruddell, 2018, p. 8) Another feature of animation discussed by both scholars is the "metamorphosis". For Paul Wells, this is "the ability for an image to literally change into another completely different image, for example, through the evolution of the line, the shift in formations of clay, or the manipulation of objects or environments" (P. Wells, 1998, p. 69). The metamorphosis is a unique tool, animation can work with; it is part of its language. It raises the attention of the viewer to the "constructed" nature of the frame by frame movement. For example in "The Street" 1976 by Caroline Leaf, the fluidity of the scenes, the morphing of one situation and space into another is at the same time very challenging for the brain – to make this fast orientation and at the same time very engaging through the creative use of metamorphosis and the sound design. Nevertheless, metamorphosis is not an essential tool for animation; we do not necessarily need it in order for something to be animation. As Karen Beckman puts it, we do not necessarily need movement or motion. She clearly makes the difference between movement and visual change between the frames. As she discusses the work of Peter Kubelka and Norman McLaren, she for- mulates another definition for animation: "[...] animation – a frame-by-frame process of filmmaking – movement is never presumed as a desired outcome" (K. Beck- man, 2014, pp. 3–4). And speaking about Norman McLaren, he also shared his definition for animation, that became emblematic in the animation studies: Animation is not the art of drawings that move, but rather the art of movements that are drawn. What happens between each frame is more important than what happens on each frame. Animation is therefore the art of manipulating the invisible interstices that lie between the frames. (McLaren as cited in Sifianos, 1995, p. 62) He draws our attention to one important component of the animation, and that is the sensorial experience of it. The human perception of the consecutive frames and the ability to decrypt them as a movement is also a viable part of the process. The first animation devices, often called "optical toys" were experiments and explorations of the human vision. The scientists thought that the phenomenon "persistence of vision" was happening in the human eye. Now we know that experiencing animation is an entirely cortical process.

7 The animation sculpture

Oliver Sacks gives an example about a case of a woman who due to a stroke and damaged visual cortex, had stopped to see motion and had "freezed frames" of reality. He is convinced by the results from the experiments of Dale Purves and his colleagues on wagon-wheel illusions and shares their opinion: the visual system processes information ‘in sequential episodes’, at the rate of three to twenty such episodes per second. [...] In Purves's view, it is precisely this decomposition of what we see into a succession of moments that enables the brain to detect and compute motion, for all it has to do is to note the differing positions of objects between successive ‘frames’ and from these calculate the direction and the speed of motion. (Sacks, 2017, p. 170) This is, of course, related to every movement we are able to visually experience and not unique to animation. I would like to emphasize on the animation as sensorial experience, as this is what will be part of my further research. Apart from the mechanic-physiological aspect of experiencing moving images, there is another level of the meeting between animation and the viewer. Susanne Buchan argues that: The animation film is utterly unique in its representation of graphic and plastic universes and impossible spaces and in its ‘ability’ to transcend physical laws which govern our experience. It is therefore crucial to our understanding of animation spectatorship to develop and describe our understanding of this particular set of conditions, which in turn can assist an approach to individual films. (Buchan, 2006, p. 109) On the level of purposes and application, Birgitta Hosea differentiates between four types of animation: "1. Character animation [...] 2. Special effects [...] 3. Motion graphics [...] 4. Art animation may involve any combination of the above and typi- cally takes the form of a short film or installation" (Hosea, 2012, p. 22). In this research, I am going to focus my attention on the last category "art animation". As we see, the question of one definition of animation is very complex and can not be "solved" in a glance due to the wide varieties of techniques and styles of artistic practices. It also depends if we talk about animation as a genre or as a language with its syntax. Perhaps it is not possible to have one definition. Susanne Buchan proposes a possible way to approach this: to use pluralist and interdisciplinary methods [...] and, to develop approaches that take into account the differences between celluloid and digital film experience and the platform these technologies and techniques use. (Buchan, 2013, p. 2) In conclusion, within this context, for this master thesis, I will use animation as a medium with the following essential characteristics:  Frame-by-frame aspect / working on the level of the frame  Constructed nature of the image (hand-made or generated)  Movement or visual change

8 The animation sculpture

1.5. What is sculpture? For our purposes, we will need to take a closer look at the definition or definitions of the term "sculpture" as well. The industrial revolution in the 19th century and the development of industrial chemistry provoked a fast shift in the materials the society was using to produce all kind of objects. The development of plastics and new methods of forming also influenced the sculptural artistic practice. Previously, sculptures were made out of stone, clay, metals, they represented human figures, mythological gods and animals. In the second part of the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st century sculptors and artists embraced all kind of materials, forms, subjects and methods of sculpting. This expanded the way sculptures were produced. Encyclopedia Britannica proposes as current the following definition of "sculpture", formulated by their collaborator Leonard R. Rogers: Sculpture, an artistic form in which hard or plastic materials are worked into three-dimensional art objects. The designs may be embodied in freestanding objects, in reliefs on surfaces, or in environments ranging from tableaux to contexts that envelop the spectator. An enormous variety of media may be used, including clay, wax, stone, metal, fabric, glass, wood, plaster, rubber, and random "found" objects. Materials may be carved, modelled, moulded, cast, wrought, welded, sewn, assembled, or otherwise shaped and combined. (Rogers, 2019) According to TATE Modern, sculpture is "three-dimensional art made by one of the four basic processes: carving, modelling, casting, constructing". (Tate, London, 2020) The process of carving consists of shaping a form by scraping away or cutting from the raw material. The magnificent sculpture "Pietà" from Michelangelo Buonarroti was created through carving in the marble block (See Fig. 01). The slow discovering of the form in the material is the essence of the carving.

Fig. 01. Pietà. Michelangelo Buonarroti. Photo by Juan M. Romero In the process of casting, liquid materials (molten metal, plastic, rubber and fiber- glass) are being used to shape the sculpture. First, a mould or a matrix is being

9 The animation sculpture

created around a clay, wax or plaster model of the final form of the sculpture. For sculptures in relief, one-piece mould can be used, but for the sculptures in the round, it is necessary to use two or more pieces of mould. Then the liquid material is poured into the mould and when the material gets dry and hard, the cast is being taken out of the mould. Moulds can be cast many times; this gives the possibilities for artists to create multiple editions of their work. Another example from the high Renaissance for this process is the bronze sculpture "David" by Donatello, created around 1440 and considered the first sculpture in the round, cast in bronze (See Fig. 02). There are several full-size cast copies of David in different parts of the world.

Fig. 02. David. Donatello. Photo by Patrick A. Rodgers

The process of modelling includes the shaping and forming of soft, plastic materials like clay or wax. While modelling the artist have the option to use the additive technique, not like in carving where one takes away from the raw material. The sculptors use their hands with some metal and wooden tools. The form in the process of modelling can be changed and reworked. Modelling is the first phase of making a finished sculpture out of metal or stone. Constructing and assembling is a method that gains popularity after the cubist works of Pablo Picasso. And since the 20th century, it is very often employed. "Art- ists have used techniques including bending, folding, stitching, welding, bolting, ty- ing, weaving, and balancing to construct sculptures from a wide variety of materials and found objects" (Tate, London, 2020). An example of constructing and assembling is the work "Magic Soap Bubble Set" (See Fig. 03) by Joseph Cornell from 1940. In this sculpture in a box, different objects are carefully assembled; every object suggests its own story and reminds us of childhood treasure boxes. The sculpture creates an intimate act of communication with the audience that works not on the level of realistic representation but on the level of imaginative association.

10 The animation sculpture

Fig. 03. Joseph Cornell."Magic Soap Bubble Set". 1940 Even though these four techniques are still nowadays essential to the art of creating sculptures, in 1913, Marcel Duchamp revolutionized the art world with the concept of ready-mades. In this type of art, one does not use any of the above-mentioned ways of creating three-dimensional art. Instead, ordinary objects are found and combined, taken out of their context and exhibited in a gallery. The attention here is not on the masterful creation of the shape, born in a moment of inspiration, but rather on the inventiveness of the artists and on the choices they make. The first ready-made object was Duchamp's work "Bicycle Wheel" (See Fig. 04), made by a found bicycle wheel and a kitchen chair, exploring the potency of everyday objects. This act expanded the notion of sculpture and art in general, leading to a new concept: one thing is art when the artist decides to call it art. Duchamp opposed his ready-mades against what he called "retinal art" (Tomkins, 1998, p. 158), art made for the appreciation by the eye. He preferred to challenge the mind of the audience through his art.

Fig. 04. Marcel Duchamp with his ready-made "Bicycle Wheel" When we talk about the senses, engaged in the act of appreciating sculpture, Robert Hopkins opens another discussion. He claims that sculpture in being-three-dimensional "demands to be touched as well as looked at" (Hopkins, 2012, p. 279). Other scholars like Rhys Carpenter defend the strictly visual character of sculptures:

11 The animation sculpture

...sculpture is a visual and not a tactile art, because it is made for the eyes to contemplate and not for the fingers to feel. Moreover, just as it reaches us through the eyes and not through the finger tips, so it is created visually, no matter how the sculptor may use his hands to produce his work.... sculptured form cannot be apprehended tactiley or evaluated by its tactual fidelity. (Carpenter, 1960, p. 34) Susanne Langer is also convinced in the strictly visual character of sculpture. She argues that even though it is a visual medium, the sculpture can transport "tactual" sense visually: Here we have the primary illusion, virtual space, created in a mode quite different from that of painting, which is scene, the field of direct vision. Sculpture creates an equally visual space, but not a space of direct vision; for volume is really given originally to touch, both haptic touch and contact limiting bodily movement, and the business of sculpture is to translate its data into entirely visual terms, i.e. to make tactual space visible. (Langer, 1953, p. 89) However, here we find the Austrian sculptor Erwin Wurm who is prepared to oppose this conception with his artistic practice. In 1988 he decided that sculpture can be something else than a three-dimensional object; it can also be a human. With his series "One minute sculptures" (See Fig. 05) he invites his audience, curators and other artists to touch and to interact with different objects like items of clothing, balls, buckets, bicycles, forming a sculptural composition with the object and hold it for a minute. Erwin Wurm gives his instructions to the participant in the sculpture, and then these instructions are being followed and executed. The artist collects photographs of the sculptures to record their ephemeral essence.

Fig. 05. One Minute Sculptures. 1997. Courtesy of Erwin Wurm

Between performance and sculpture, this approach creates unexpected, absurdist formations of ordinary objects and bodies. The historian Stephen Berg elaborates on this relation: The more that is poked into its orifices, and the more food and clothing that is accumulated around it, the clearer it becomes that the body and the self are

12 The animation sculpture

no longer masters in their own house, and as a result achieve self-expression more through self-deformation. (Berg, 2009, p. 48) This performance-based artistic approach gives another perspective on the discussion of the sculpture as tactile art versus visual art. Here not only the audience is invited to touch the objects, to play with them, to have a haptic experience with them, but also there is no sculpture at all without the audience decision to touch the objects. Robert Hopkins defines sculpture as "the only art, if pottery does not count, at the heart of which lies the formation of distinctive three-dimensional shapes" (Hopkins, 2012, p. 279). And even here in this very generous and general statement, we could find oppo- nents to this idea as well: in particular of the part "if pottery does not count". In 2018 Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) organized an exhibition called "Things of Beauty Growing: British studio pottery". Additionally, they had a study day where the keynote speaker and deputy director of Research at YCBA, Martina Droth discusses the conventional distinction between sculpture and pottery or decorative arts. She claims that ceramics and pottery "are almost inherently or automatically associated with function, whereas sculpture is not." And in this classical distinction between fine art versus utility, art critics and curators had adopted a marginalizing view on the "vibrant practice of ceramic sculpture" (Droth, 2018). In this group exhibition, pots, vessels, vases were detached from their original domestic purpose as containers and instead their metaphorical, ceremonial and sym- bolic function was exposed. On the last floor, the pots and vessels extended their scale, the pots sometimes reached 3m high and entered in the area of monumental sculpture. In the long history of sculpture, objects of pottery and ceramics were never included in the term. They existed in a parallel field. With this exhibition, Martina Droth and the YCBA invite to rethink the notions of sculpture and challenge the dogmatic character of art history and art criticism that makes such clear difference between fine art sculpture and pottery and ceramics. When Joseph Beuys talks about his process of creating sculptures, he elaborates: That is why the nature of my sculpture is not fixed and finished. Processes continue in most of them: chemical reactions, fermentations, color changes, delays, drying up. Everything is in a state of change. (Beuys as cited in Thomson, 2011, p. 88) This can also be applied for the definition of sculpture. The sculpture has not a fixed and finished meaning. It is an art that evolves in constant change, adopting new kinds of objects and set of practices that correlate with the ever-changing world and society. Since the beginning of the 20th- century sculpture lost one of its most essential characteristics in the previous centuries- the representation (mostly of human and animal figures), now pottery, ordinary objects, non-representational ab-

13 The animation sculpture

stract sculptures can be seen in galleries. It results that the primary characteristic of sculpture, scholars agree upon, is its three-dimensionality. And here I will point two of the features of sculpture that seem relevant to the definition of the sculpture, which I will use in the following chapters:  Sculpture as being three-dimensional  Occupies real space  Everything is sculpture when the artist decides to call it sculpture

14 The animation sculpture

1.6. Animation vs. sculpture When we talk about animation and sculpture it is inevitable to mention the first contradiction: animation is associated with movement, with something that is changing and sculpture in the classical way of thinking is something static, a slice of a moment and a movement, kept freezed in a form with a material representation. In his notes on filmmaking Andrey Tarkovsky defines the work of the film director as "sculpting in time": Just as a sculptor takes a lump of marble, and, inwardly conscious of the features of his finished piece, removes everything that is not part of it – so the film-maker, from a ‘lump of time’ made up of an enormous, solid cluster of living facts, cuts off and discards whatever he does not need, leaving only what is to be an element of the finished film, what will prove to be integral to the cinematic image. (Tarkovsky, 1989, p. 63) The pioneer in digital art Joan Truckenbrod confesses about her working process that "the studio practice of video film sculpture uses light and time as sculpting materials in conjunction with physical materials" (Truckenbrod, 2013, p. 38). She uses this definition in relation to her own work, where she merges the "ephemeral and temporal" – the projected video with the "physical" – the sculpted body that is projected onto (Wilson, 2018, p. 158). Ewan Wilson notices another similarity: on a linguistic level, the vocabulary used in sculpture overlaps with the common terms in film: cutting, splicing, joining, and shaping into a final form (Wilson, 2018, p. 157). In his "Frame of reference: toward a definition of animation" Brian Wells argues that the possibility for an animation sculpture to be animation is very narrow, his main argument is that: because these devices are not recorded (if they were recorded in real-timeness they would be considered live action), because they exist in the same four dimensions in which we exist, and because they do not ‘feel’ alive, or provide the viewer with the illusion of aliveness. (B. Wells, 2011, p. 23) For Brian Wells, it is indispensable that the animation is pre-recorded or recorded in time and to be enclosed in a material medium. Nevertheless, Wells wrote this in 2011, and since then a lot of things has changed dramatically in the area of technology. Furthermore, now a new term is gaining popularity in the animation studies – "expanded animation". The term is frequently used to sum up all the art forms that use animation, that exceeds the classical cinematic experience. Ars Electronica Festival that takes place in Linz every year, started a series of con- ferences on the topic of expanded animation, inviting scholars and practitioners to share their views on the matter. In "Expanded Animation. Mapping an Unlimited Landscape" Birgitta Hosea introduces us to the history of "expanded animation". It has its roots in "expanded cinema", term coined by the experimental filmmaker and pioneer of computer anima-

15 The animation sculpture

tion, Stan VanDerBeek, in 1965. It was then further used by Gene Youngblood in his book "Expanded Cinema", published in 1970 (Hosea, 2019, p. 40). Hans Scheugel and Ernst Schmied define "expanded cinema" as follows: 'Erweitertes Kino' ist alles was über die kinoübliche Filmprojektion hinausgeht, reicht also von der Mehrfachprojektion bis zu Utopie von Pillenfilmen und Wolkenprojektionen... sowie von der Verbindung mit andere Medien ... bis zum filmischen Environment. Expanded Cinema ist der Versuch, die Grenzen der Filmleinwand zu sprengen... (Scheugl & Schmidt, 1974, p. 153) The term paracinema was also introduced. Jonathan Walley defines it as: Paracinema identifies an array of phenomena that are considered "cinematic" but that are not embodied in the materials of film as traditionally defined. That is, the film works I am addressing recognize cinematic properties outside the standard film apparatus, and therefore reject the medium-specific premise or most essentialist theory and practice that the art form of cinema is defined by the specific medium of film. Instead, paracinema ... locates cinema's essence elsewhere. (Walley, 2003, p. 13) Taking this definition into account, Birgitta Hosea introduces the "paraanimation". She underlines the difference between paraanimation and expanded animation. For her, expanded animation is an art of installation where the animation content is pre- recorded. And paraanimation moves in the area of the performance or live animation. Siegfried Zielinski uses the term in a more broad way, exploring the animation in the context and in relation to philosophy, theology, art and sciences (Zielinski, 2013, p.26). But this set of artistic practices not always employ a sculptural element. On the conference "Pervasive Animation" in 2007 the American experimental animator George Griffin proposes the term "concrete animation". He borrowed the term "concrete" from William Moritz that used it for defining abstract or absolute animation. "Concrete" was also previously used by artists like Emmet Williams, who created "concrete poetry": words, letters and other linguistic elements were carefully arranged in patterns to create a visual impression and more intuitive meaning. Griffin decided to give another understanding of the term going back to the material aspect of the word. The concrete used in the construction of buildings has something heavy and substantial. Griffin's emphasis lies on the materiality of the moving image production and the process. Analyzing his own artistic practices and interests and some tendencies in the animation art landscape, he defines concrete animation as: work that focuses primarily on materiality and process. It has a precedence in contemporary art practice; it has one foot in the distant, pre-cinema past, and one foot on a path leading to a future of digital and manual animation. (Griffin, 2007, p. 261)

16 The animation sculpture

He considers four main characteristics or types of works that are eligible as concrete animation:  Those works that are self-referential. Where the materiality of animation or the process involved is the primary subject.  The animation works that are to be seen in a non-theatrical place like a gallery or a museum, projected on architectural spaces or three-dimensional objects and animation as part of performances. "The end result of such display is that animated light becomes a creative agent in redefining space." (Griffin, 2007, p. 162)  "Object animation which displays physical moving objects arrested in synthetic time by strobe light or shuttering devices (both low and high tech)."(Griffin, 2007, p. 162)  "Flipbooks and other manual devices for rapid image display."(Griffin, 2007, p. 162) In this article, he also has a chapter called "Animation as sculpture" where he touches our subject. The animation sculpture is a type of concrete sculpture if we follow his definition. It is "experiential and pervasive; it may take many forms and exist in a wide range of sites" (Griffin, 2007, p. 162). The presentation finishes with a discussion of the importance of touching objects and giving back the control to the viewer through a kind of interactive element: per example the possibility to control the speed of the moving images. He emphasizes the importance of this tactile, tangible experience with the artwork. As he suggests "cinema devolves to the whims of the human wrist" (Griffin, 2007, p. 268).

17 The animation sculpture

2. Pre-cinematic history

If we direct our attention to the past and explore the historical backgrounds of the animation sculpture, we can observe that, at the beginning, the viewers did have this control over the speed of the moving images, that Griffin is discussing. In this chapter I will review some decisive moments in history, when animation and three-dimensional physical object met. 2.1. Early history Many examples of sequential images and sequential art exist from the earliest centuries. Probably the intention was not to see those images move, because now if we animate them, they have a very low frame rate and an apparatus that makes this early images move is still unknown or has not been found. Although Gianalberto Bendazzi considers in his book "Animation A World History Volume I" the sequential images found in the early history as "purely anecdotic and thus useless to our historical discourse" he still describes a big part of them. I would like to mention just a few that are concerning my focus on three-dimensional objects that contain animation or the idea of it. The first example is a vase or a goblet that was discovered in the Burnt City in Sis- tan-Baluchistan province in Iran. The goblet has a diameter of 8 cm and a height of 10 cm. It dates 2,600-2,700 BC. The ancient vase is decorated with a sequence of five consecutive movements of a goat that jumps towards a tree and eats the leaves of it (See Fig. 06.). This object was of particular interest for my research and it is a starting point of the practical part of the thesis.

Fig. 06. The goblet discovered in the Burnt City

Fig. 07. Reproduction of drawing on a pottery vessel found in Shahr-i Sokhta, Iran. Late half of 3rd Millennium B.C. Demonstration of the different phases of the movement

As we see on Fig. 07 above, it is clear that the author of these drawings was aiming

18 The animation sculpture

to express a movement. It is curious that a lot of other ceramic objects were found by the archaeologists in the Burnt City, many of them were decorated with repetitive motives, but only this one has different phases of a movement. It also strikes us that the tree is somehow marking the frame, similar to the film strip. We could speculate that with proper rotation, the tree could work as the black line between the frames and the author of the goblet has experienced the perception of animated images. Of course, this is just in the area of speculation. But it definitely makes us think about some important aspects of the way we think of animation. If this is not the oldest found animation, because we are not aware of an apparatus that is able to produce or record the illusion of movement, does this mean that animation is always connected to an apparatus? Does this suggest that animation is the narrative or abstract art plus an apparatus that is able to secure us the illusion of things becoming alive? I just want to quote Gianalberto Bendazzi again with apparently no connection with the above-mentioned questions: The fireworks shows, documented in China as early as the seventh century, were chronologically the first example of abstract animation. Every firework is made of motion, light, colour, sound and time. Furthermore, it is endlessly repeatable: a skyrocket does not produce a different result every time (=performing arts) but a consistent one (=fine arts). (Bendazzi, 2015, p. 20) The Chinese fireworks could not be recorded at the time, and it was not a repeatable animation. This was animation as an event. It is what Birgitta Hosea refers to as animation as a performance or "paraanimation" (Hosea, 2019, p. 46). So in this example, the animation is detached from an apparatus, but it is also quite a particular example and can be seen as an exception. The next example we will take a look at is the Parthenon frieze in Athens. The Par- thenon was built between 447 and 432 BC (Bendazzi, 2015, p. 8). Under the direction of Phidias a frieze in low relief, long around 160 m and 1,05 m tall was sculpted. It depicts a massive procession in honor of the goddess Athena. What is interesting here is the motion analysis made by experts. According to Ben- dazzi, the carefully sculpted figures of Gods, humans and animals are testifying for a vast knowledge about anatomy and human and animal locomotion. Although every figure is different, if we digitally superimpose them, we could perceive a smooth animation in the movement of the horses that refuse to be tamed (Bendazzi, 2015, p. 9). On the eastern side of the frieze, we can see a group of Gods; they appear in their classical representation for the time and have twice the size of the humans, por- trayed on the rest of the frieze. According to the above-mentioned motion analysis, their arms and movements could be interpreted as keyframes of one movement pointing to the procession that is getting closer. From Athena's relaxed position, we go to Poseidon's anticipation, and gradually

19 The animation sculpture

we reach the outstretched arms of Aphrodite. Moreover if we shoot these figures frame by frame, we obtain coherent animation. (Bendazzi, 2015, p. 9) The Parthenon is not an animation, but we can observe the interest and the fascination with the movement of bodies. The artists and sculptors wanted to incorporate movement with all possible means into their work of stone. In the years 1830 and in the years after scientists and philosophers did various experiments trying to explain how the human vision is working and why some visual phenomena do exist. Through this research, many optical instruments and devices were invented and later on reached a broader audience and many households. Now, these are known as "optical toys" or "philosophical toys". These mechanisms were mostly based "on rotation, repetition, and brevity, which was to dominate throughout the period" (Dulac & Gaudreault, 2006, p. 228).

2.2. Thaumatrope The thaumatrope was developed out of a bet between Sir John Herschel and the philosopher, mathematician and engineer Charles Babbage, who invented the difference engine, a predecessor of the computer. They challenged themselves to show both sides of a coin simultaneously without using any mirroring system. Herschel managed to do it by spinning the coin extremely fast on the table. Their friend Wil- liam Henry Fitton brought them later a model of a disc with two strings, attached to its edges (Gunning, 2012, p. 498). But the authorship of the thaumatrope is attributed to the English physician John A. Paris in 1825.2 Paris described the functioning of the thaumatrope in his book "Philosophy in Sport Made Science in Earnest". The thaumatrope has two images on both sides of the disc. By pulling the attached strings, the disc starts to spin around. When it develops a certain turning speed, the observer experiences an unexpected merging of the two images. A third transparent image, formed out of the two can be seen. Jonathan Crary outlines "the fabricated and hallucinatory nature" of this image and the emerging "rupture between perception and object" (Crary et al., 1992, p. 106). The thaumatrope works on the basis of the visual phenomenon, that in the nineteenth century was referred to as "persistence of vision", today known as "flicker fusion" (Gunning, 2012, p. 499). The explorers of the human sight at that time be- lieved that images are preserved in the retina for some time, and when the images change fast, a visual merging is happening. Now we know that this switching and merging of images is a brain process, that happens in the visual cortex and not in the retina (Sacks, 2017, p. 169).

2 The exact date is uncertain; there are also different versions and stories about who created it. Some attribute the authorship to Charles Babbage or William Henry Fitton.

20 The animation sculpture

Gunning proposes that the thaumatrope presents a new class of images to the Vic- torian era that is "simultaneously technological, optical and perceptual", because the only way one can experience this image is by having the thaumatrope "properly in motion". At the moment when the turning stops, the images separate, and we no longer experience the previous perception (Gunning, 2012, p. 501). He claims as well that the nature of the experience of "wonder" is also strongly connected to the symbiotic cooperation between hand and eye. The "operating" of the philosophical toy provides equally enough satisfaction as the image that is perceived (ibid. p. 501). Although we do not experience any movement in the image or animation per its classical definition, what interests me about the thaumatrope is the use of its three-dimensionality. Later on, artists will adopt the basic principle of the thaumatrope and explore the semitransparent nature of the third combined image (per example "Scan Sweep Swipe Wipe" 2015 by Marnix de Nijs).

2.3. Phénakisticope and the stroboscopic disc In the years that followed the invention of the thaumatrope, new experiments on the human vision were conducted, and another invention astonished the world: The Phénakisticope (also called phenakistiscope and often misspelled as phenakistoscope). It consists of a flat disc, on which a sequence of images that represent different stages of a movement is arranged radial around the centre. There are different variations of the device. In the first version: small slits are being cut between the images on the cardboard disk. The disc is connected with a handle. The viewer is looking through the slits in front of a mirror and rotates the disc (See Fig. 08). Through the rotation, the images start to flicker, and an illusion of movement is being created (Dulac & Gaudreault, 2006, p. 229). The number of images was limited therefore the narration was also very reduced. They depicted simple actions like a man jumping in a vase (See Fig. 09) or a dancing couple. The frames had to create an endless loop: the last frame hat to be naturally followed by the first frame, and the ac- Fig. 08. Phénakisticope and it's usage tion had to reverse at the starting point. In the next versions of the device, the mirror was replaced with second disc, positioned at a distance, but connected to the same handle. The viewer looked through the slits of the first disk and the second disk was the one with the drawn or printed images. The second disk was exchangeable, so one had the possibility to experience more than one animated loop. There were some versions of the Phénakisticope with

21 The animation sculpture

a stand for table usage. Apparently, this device was invented parallel at approximately the same time around 1832 in two different places. In Belgium, the physicist and mathematician Joseph Antoine Plateau who called his invention "the phenakisticop" (phenax= deceptive scopio= looking). His work was influenced by the Faraday's Wheel – a disc device with a mirror that aimed to demonstrate the stroboscopic effect.

Fig. 09. Phenakisticope disc, 1860, Paris. Cinémathèque française | Photo: Dabrowski, S.

In Austria, Simon von Stampfer introduced the same device calling it "Die stro- boskopischen Scheiben" (Stroboscopic Wheel). He experimented with different slit shapes and sizes, including a circular.3 Besides the fact that both scientists worked on the same subject at the same time, Plateau was for long time credited for the invention of the device. Platou collaborated with the painter Jean Baptiste Madou in creating a variety of phénakisticopic disks. Apart from the standard short animated movements, they also experimented with actions that are exceeding the surface of the disc and re- appear again. In one of them, green snakes emerge from the centre of the disc and disappear sliding on the backside of it. The snakes appear to have almost physical qualities. This was quite an innovative approach at that time, and also the three-dimensionality of the object is being used for this "trick" (Herbert, 2013b). Nicholas Miller suggests that from the moment the phénakistiscope was defined as an "animation device", it "becomes detached from its material origins" and of the scientific explorations on the persistence of vision (Miller, 2019).

3 A detailed presentation of most of Stampfer's stroboscopic wheels are collected by the scholar and animator Thomas Renoldner: https://vimeo.com/41922181

22 The animation sculpture

2.4 Zoetrope The "Zoetrope" (also called "Wheel of Life" and "Wheel of the devil") was introduced shortly after the invention of the Phénakisticope. It consists of a metal drum, on its surface there are vertical slits and inside an interchangeable stripe of drawings of a movement in a sequence is placed (See Fig. 10). When the drum is rotating, and a person is looking through the slits, the "phi phenomenon" happens: the images fuse in the brain of the viewer, and one can see the illusion of a movement. Zoetrope comes from greek "ζωή" (zoe) – life and "τρόπος" (tropos) – to turn. It was patented with this name by William E. Lincoln in 1867.

Fig. 10. William Lincoln patented the zoetrope as a toy in 1867

As a key invention of the history of cinema, the historical background of the Zoe- trope is rather well researched, and there are very informative articles about it like "Circularity and Repetition at the Heart of the Attraction" by Nicolas Dulac and An- dré Gaudreault or "From Daedaleum to Zoetrope” by Stephen Herbert. Therefore, I would like to mention just several of its aspects that are very important for the developing of a particular kind of modern animation sculptures that are based and inspired by the Zoetrope. I would like to quote Stephen Herbert, who formulated several "Rules of Zoetropical motion" in his essay:  "The same number of images as slots, and the images will animate in a fixed position, but will not drift (progress or regress) in the drum.  Fewer images than slots, and the images will drift in the opposite direction to that of the spinning drum.  More images than slots, and the images will drift in the same direction as the spinning drum". (Herbert, 2013a)

Another particularity of the Zoetrope was that as all the images were moving in the horizontal field of view, the sharpness of the image depended on the width of the slits. The wider the slits – the blurrier appeared the images, with narrow slits the images appeared sharper but with less light. This is why a compromise and constant

23 The animation sculpture

experiments were needed to achieve good results (Herbert, 2013a). It was a complex "toy", and it needed a lot of knowledge in mathematics and physics to be able to develop it properly. The bright imagination of the artists who were drawing the stripes was also expanding and experimenting with the limits of the apparatus. The animation stripes depict a variety of simple loops, similar to the ones of the Phénakisticope: couples dancing, acrobats, magicians changing their heads, small tricks, girls throwing a cat in the air, balls and flying explosions. The people who painted the stripes found some of the principles of animation. They employed for example acceleration and deceleration of bodies and changing the scale of objects when they move in perspective towards the viewer. Even the first animated morphing was done with the Zoetrope: it shows the shadow of a woman transforming into a camel. Dulac and Gaudreault argue that the Zoetrope added certain linearity, a glimpse of narration and the characters appeared located in certain setting (See Fig. 11) (Dulac, Gaudreault 2006, p.233). In the Phénakisticope they were freely flying around the centre of the disc.

Fig. 11. Zoetrope stripe "PRIME DU FIGARO", May Charles W. 91,5x 9,2 cm, 1868, Paris. Cinémathèque française | Photo: Dabrowski Stéphane

What Dulac and Gaudreault propose is that the fact that the spectator was able to control the speed of the movement of the Zoetrope and change the individual sequential stripes and even edit them, overlapping two stripes, what they call "zoetropic editing" is what made the Zoetrope to an attraction – transforming it into an interactive animation object (ibid. p. 236) I assume there is another level of interest for the viewer, apart from the controlling possibilities, and this is a tactile cinematic experience. People like to touch things, feel the surface of things and the materiality. The surrealists knew that and made a huge volume of tactile artworks. In the introduction of his book "Touching and imagining: An Introduction to tactile art" Jan Švankmajer writes that in the years when the regime was putting a lot of pressure on him and the censorship was going to extremes he turned his back and concentrated on exploring tactile art and its relation to the expanding of the imagination. He says that in many ways tactile art can be seen as the complete contradiction to the audiovisual film (Svankmajer, 2014, p. 19). Salvador Dalí considers the tactile experience as an add-on and claims he "had invented and worked out to the last detail the tactile cinema which would enable the spectator by an extremely simple mechanism to touch everything in synchronism

24 The animation sculpture

with what he saw: silk fabrics, fur, oysters, flesh, sand, dog, etc" (Dali, 1993, p. 290). It is not only the interaction and the need to control the narrative, but a different sensual approach to art. Many galleries are allowing their visitors to touch and experience the surface of the exhibited artworks. Although the audiences know that most of the works aren't interactive, they still touch the artworks. The sense of touch is one of the most important senses we have and helps us when we are trying to learn about objects, and it is also strongly connected to our memory. Our memory is stronger when we have direct contact with something. But let us come back to the 19th century where the principle of gyration was still the only way to convey the motion of still images and look at the three-dimensional Zoetrope.

2.5. Stereoscopic zoetrope The French physiologist, scientist, chronophotographer and inventor Étienne-Jules Marey was not entirely satisfied with the Zoetrope in its current form because it didn't help his goal to visualize movement in a scientific way. Through his chro- nophotographical experiments he managed to put this task into action (Gaycken, 2014, p. 70). He wanted to demonstrate the movement volumetrically. He claimed that the Zoe- trope that uses flat images has one disadvantage that the movement is being seen distorted. He introduced his model of a three-dimensional Zoetrope ("zoetrop à figures en relief") (Marey & Langley, 1894, p. 304). Inside the zoetropic drum, ten wax figures of a seagull in a flying cycle (See Fig. 12) are placed.

Fig. 12. Stereoscopic zoetrope by E.-J. Marey, Movement (1894; Arno Press, 1972)

Although his efforts were of entirely scientific character, the stereoscopic Zoetrope gave enormous opportunities for artistic research in the field of "animation sculpture" and its basic principle was widely explored. Before going to the successor of the Zoetrope – the Praxinoscope, we might also

25 The animation sculpture

take a look at another fascinating invention from around that time. 2.6. The photosculpture In his article "Polygraphic Photography and the origins of 3-D Animation" Alexan- der Galloway presents a less known invention that was widely popular in 1860 in France. François Willème opened a studio for "photosculpture". Above its entrance was written "Portraits–from mechanical sculpture: Busts, medallions, statues"(Gal- loway, 2014, p. 54). Willème had developed a method parallel to the chronophotography just instead of spreading the photographs in time; he spread them in space. How did that work? The subject is positioned in the middle of the room. There is nothing around but walls and sunlight from the sealing. Through the walls, many hidden photo-cameras are placed and pointed towards the subject (See Fig.13). Sobieszek explains: "Each camera had a primitive shutter arrangement in front of the lens; these shutters, in turn, were all interconnected, so that a single cord could be pulled to obtain two dozen simultaneous exposures" (Sobieszek, 1980, p. 621). The duration of the photo was about ten seconds. Like this, we have many photographs of the subject from slightly different angles. The silhouette of each photograph was traced on a thin slice of clay and then cut out. After the all the clay pieces were stuck together, they made an almost perfect, accurate three-dimensional portrait – sculpture (See Fig. 14).

Fig. 13. The photosculpture studio of François Willème Fig. 14. Unfinished photosculpture Then with a little bit of fine manual adjustments, they manage to produce very fast and relatively cheap sculptures. Willème filed on August 14, 1860, a patent under the name "Photosculpture Process". Galloway argues: With Willème's sculpture instantanée (instant sculpture) in mind, we are now in a position to compare and contrast photosculpture and chronophotography. Both techniques are digital techniques; that much is clear.

26 The animation sculpture

The difference lies in their different employments of the digital. In the case of chronophotography, digitality appears as a result of discrete photographic impressions segmented across time. For photosculpture, however, digitality appears as a result of discrete photographic impressions segmented in a spindle of space. (Galloway, 2014, p. 54) We could compare it to the 3D scanning process and photogrammetry that is now available to everybody. Although this invention has apparently not so much in common with the animation sculpture, the process here described, has a lot to do with the methods contemporary artists are using for their animation sculptures. 2.7. The praxinoscope The French inventor Charles-Émile Reynaud transforms the Zoetrope and make further developments on it and in 1876 files a patent of the "Praxinoscope". The word Praxinoscope comes from praxis- action and scopeo- I am looking (Mannoni, 2000, p. 367). He manages to replace the zoetropic slits with a system of prismatic mirrors positioned in the centre of the apparatus (See Fig. 16). The mirrors reflect the stripe with drawings. The advantage of it: that way, the problem with the reduced luminosity in the zoetropic drum was solved, and the painters of zoetropic stripes were not limited to high contrast figures with outlines anymore. Now the artists could explore ar- tistically also what it is related to the colours, surroundings and backgrounds of their protagonists. Thus, Émile Reynaud changed in a way the aesthetics of the Zoetrope. It is visible in the design of the praxinoscopic stripes (See Fig. 15).

Fig. 15. Stripe for praxinoscope, Émile Reynaud, 1878, Paris, France, Cinémathèque française. Photo: Dabrowski, S. Another advantage of the mirroring system was: the distortion of the images, present at the zoetropic movement, here disappeared. Reynaud also introduced an electric version of the Praxinoscope (See Fig. 17), where the manual triggering of the animation was removed.

Fig. 16. Simple Praxinoscope Fig. 17. Electric Praxinoscope.

27 The animation sculpture

Later on, Émile Reynaud introduced "The praxinoscope theater" with additional narrative element to the object – exchangeable backgrounds. The figures of the cyclic movements were drawn on a black background. Looking through the viewfinder, one was looking simultaneously through another semi-transparent mirror that reflected the different backgrounds and at the same time merged them with the moving pro- tagonsists in the circulating drum behind (See Fig. 18 and 19).

Fig. 18. The Praxinoscope theater. The apparatus. Fig. 19. The Praxinoscope theater. The apparatus. The shape of the actual object was becoming more sophisticated. The layering of surfaces with a mathematical accurateness could secure the desired visual experience only from one particular point, through the viewfinder. This restricted the possibilities of a collective encounter with the animated images. One could not simply go around and look inside, like with the Zoetrope. Despite the complexity of the three-dimensional object, its shape had still a merely practical purpose in the area of apparatus. Later on, the development of the technology will enable the shaping of the form to jump out of the limitations of the practical and to achieve more conceptual and artistic dimensions.

2.8. The projection praxinoscope All devices invented by Reynaud rested on the same principle from 1877: animation employing prismatic mirrors. (Mannoni, 2000, p. 374) He explored this catoptric principle in various directions. One of them was the Projection Praxinoscope (See Fig. 20), presented in front of Societé Française de Protographie in June 1880. In their bulletin was published: M. Reynaud adapted his Praxinoscope to a projection device and projected on a screen all the effects which can be produced by the standard Praxinoscope and the Praxinoscope-Théâtre. After having demonstrated the operation of these different devices to the Societé, M. Reynaud commented that the effects would be still more beautiful if, in place of the hand-drawn images representing the different phases

28 The animation sculpture

of a movement, it was possible to obtain them by means of photography. (Société française de photographie, 1880, p. 154)

Fig. 20. The Projection Praxinoscope. Émile Reynaud (1882). Photo: MdC. The Projection Praxinoscope was made for the broader audiences in 1882, but only a few were sold, this is why only a few complete examples survived. Laurent Manoni had the chance to examine one of them and explains with surprise that the stripe with the drawings was not made of paper, but the 12 images were directly lithographed on glass slides. The glass slides were connected with fabric. All the images of the figures had a black background. This stripe was positioned in a modified praxinoscope, and the difference was the angle of the mirror cage: the mirrors were under 45 degrees angle and forming a reverse truncated pyramid. Attached there was an additional oil lamp with a "reflectoscope" lantern (shows opaque images). The lantern had the following functions: to throw light on the glass stripes that were then reflected in the mirrors; to function as second lens, the lan- terned captured the images and transferred them projected on the screen; and it projected the backgrounds that were printed on paper. The resulting moving images were a superimposing of the moving characters on the still backgrounds (Mannoni, 2000, p. 374). The backgrounds were the same as the ones used previously in the Praxinoscope theater but printed in a different edition; they expanded the narrative possibilities of the otherwise limited actions. The audience could now decide in what setting "The Little Waltzers" would dance: interior, circus, countryside, snow effect or woodland. Moreover, here one important step happened, the eyes of the viewers shifted from the three-dimensional object and gazed into the projection screen. The next big technological invention – the cinema kept the importance of the rectangular flat screen for the next decades to come.

29 The animation sculpture

2.9. Mutoscope In 1894 in the USA a new device for animated pictures called "Mutoscope" was introduced. Invented by Wiliam Kennedy Dickson and Herman Casler, and patented later by Casler, this novelty object was a peepshow box; only one person could observe the moving images. The Mutoscope was hand-cranked and relied on the principle of the flipbook (See Fig. 22). The printed 850 cards with images were bound to a circular card reel and rapidly rotating in front of the eyes of the viewer (See Fig. 21). Through a crank, the viewer was in complete control of the speed of the moving pictures. The viewing time was around a minute, but one could even stop and inspect every frame of the animation and follow all the details. The reel with the cards had a diameter of around 26 cm, and each card with a picture was 7cm x 4,8cm.

Fig. 21. Mutoscope. Appartaus. 1917 Fig. 22. The Mutoscope cards.

Every machine included one film. "Chaplin, Mabel Normand, Tom Mix and other name actors appeared in fragmen- tary episodes, but the Mutoscope is above all famous for the "Girlies" dance and strip-tease subjects."(MoMA, 1967, p. 3) Most of the mutoscopes were coin-operated and installed in the arcade parlours. When the coin was inserted, a light was illuminating the pictures. There were also smaller pocket versions of it. Mutoscope was very successful invention because it did not rely on electricity but on the manual skill to control the data flow. The viewer was the engine. Additionally, it could be easily installed everywhere. Albeit the moving images were live-action footage, they were often referred to as "animated photographs". The flipping paper frames also relate to the animation practice of drawing and manipulating frame-by-frame. The viewer was becoming aware of the illusory character of cinema and motion pictures through the mechanical flipping of the cards. In the following chapters, we will observe that the Muto- scope was repeatedly employed as a device by artists working in the area of animation sculpture.

30 The animation sculpture

3. History of moving-image sculptures 3.1. Kinetic art. Kinetic sculptures. The cinema was becoming a mass media, and at the beginning of 20th century, the question "how to transfer real movement onto a panel or into a (static) sculpture [...] evolved into a central theme in art" (Schuler, 2016, p. 174). Naum Gabo is considered the father of the kinetic sculpture. In 1920 he created his artwork "Kinetic Construction" (also known as "Standing Wave"), it consisted of a motor-driven vertical string, attached to a wooden stand. When the motor is turned on, the string started rotating around its axis and created an intriguing movement. But also around this time, artists like Marcel Duchamp, László Moholy-Nagy, Alex- ander Calder, Jean Tinguely and Victor Vasarely were working on the same attempts to convey motion in their artworks. Pioneering the modern kinetic sculpture, these artists created the foundations of the kinetic art: art-forms whose physical elements were moved by air, by magnetic power, by electromagnetic apparatus or by the mechanic power of the audience. Gabo borrowed the term from "Kinetic Energy", which in the physics defines the "energy possessed by a body due to its motion" (Jain, 2009, p. 9). But not only artworks that possess physical motion are considered part of this art practice, the illusion of movement or op art (short from optical art) also falls under this category. Carlos Cruz-Diez, Jesús Rafael Soto, Carla Effa are some of the contemporary artists that explore these optical hypnotic illusions. The op artworks are abstract. Lines, colour or black and white, patterns, moire effect, rotating disks are common elements of the op art, one does not need complex technology, most of the works are static. They operate in the area of the perceptional illusion. In the contemporary examples of kinetic sculptures that use actual movement, the technological complexity is growing. The Dutch kinetic sculptor Theo Jansen creates since 27 years giant sculptures "Strandbeest" (beach beasts) (See Fig. 23) that move on the beach powered only by the wind. They are first created in a computer as a simulation where the proportions of the elements are being tested, and then he creates them as three-dimensional creatures using flexible plastic tubes and adhesive tape.

Fig. 23. Theo Jansen with one of his kinetic sculptures

31 The animation sculpture

The fascinating element in these sculptures is the organic movement of the creatures. Jansen analyses the movements of biological organisms and creates a mim- icry of their attitude in his creations, it is inspired by the evolution of species by Charles Darwin. Other artists like Lyman Whitaker, Anthony Howe also employ the power of the wind to convey motion in their sculptures, mostly executed out of metal. The kinetic artist Len Lye goes even further and claims that: Kinetic art is the first new category of art since prehistory. Its cultural value rates with that of both painting and sculpture ... [but] it took until this century to discover the art that moves. Had we taken the aesthetic qualities of sound as much for granted as we have taken those of motion, we would not now have music. But now, in kinetic art, we have begun to compose motion. (Lye, 1984, p.78)

Len Lye drifted from filmmaking into sculpture, but for him, his work with kinetic sculpture was the natural continuation of his films, in fact, he used the term "animation" when talking about the propelling of his sculptures through motors. The movement in them lasts for four minutes, approximately the same time as his films. He outlined that the timing and the programming were an essential element of the kinetic sculpture. The evolving of the movement was also carefully staged passing through spinning, oscillation, bouncing movement, muscular vibration, reverse action, rotation, reciprocating action, the flow of acceleration and deceleration (Horrocks, 2013, p.272). He was concerned with the involvement of his audience. Through his short kinetic installations, he carefully captured the attention of the visitor, working in a similar to a film director. Despite these different phases of the choreography of movement, in most of the kinetic sculptures, being motor-driven or not, the elements of "circularity and repetition" can also be observed. As they are planned, and their movement is not being decided by their own but by very calculated external forces, they are also bound to a certain loop. Jansen's and Calder's works are closer to going out of this predictive repetitive movement because they count on the wind and on gravitational forces which produce a rather spontaneous motion. But Jansen's dream that his kinetic sculptures develop their own consciousness and autonomously improve themselves alone without needing him anymore as an intermitter is still in the area where the science fiction takes dystopian plots from. Many of the principles of the kinetic sculptures are also employed in contemporary art installations.

32 The animation sculpture

3.2. Expanded cinema The integration of movement in the static sculpture through the experiments of the kinetic sculptors from 1930s till 1950s continued to expand. Susane Felleman outlines that sculpture was so long integrated in film, that in the 1960s and 1970s it was time to return the favor and involve film in the sculptural artistic practice (Felleman, 2017, p. 157). As we saw in the previous chapters the term "expanded cinema" was coined by Stan VanDerBeek and evolves around different practices of combining film or the concept of cinema outside of the classical cinematic experience. In his "Expanded Cinema. A Proposal and Manifesto" VanDerBeek outlines his relationship with technological developments: The 'technique power' and 'culture-over-reach' that is just beginning to explode in many parts of the earth, is happening so quickly that it has put the logical fulcrum of man's intelligence so far outside himself that he can not judge or estimate the results of his acts before he commits them. (VanDerBeek, 1966) Following this idea VanDerBeek created one of the first manifestations of expanded cinema, his work "Movie Drome" 1963-1965 (See Fig. 24 and 25). It consisted of architectonic space in the shape of a dome, where one could observe several films that are projected simultaneously on the curved walls of the space. The films had an overall impression to the audience, they were built to be experienced as one. Every visitor could subconsciously select which images are relevant for him or her. In terms of content, VanDerBeek tried to enclose the whole history of culture and human civilization in one hour of presentation. This was an ambitious attempt for seeking a new universal language. Charles and Ray Eames had a similar idea when contribut- ing with their innovative design of the World's Fair in 1959. Of course, the work of VanDerBeek is an artist's statement, and Eames's project was more or less propa- ganda, even tough a positive one, promoting universal peace and understanding shortly after the Cold War.

Fig. 24. VanDerBeek's "Movie Drome" 1963-1965 Fig. 25. VanDerBeek outside of his "Movie Drome"

Another early example of expanded cinema was the work of Robert Whitman: "Window" 1963. In it the artist merged an actual wooden window and tree branches with back-projected film, creating an ambiguous illusion, transforming the cinematic image into a window to another space. Felleman agues that:

33 The animation sculpture

Whitman’s cinema pieces implicitly interrogate scopophilic properties of movie going, creating unease by making present that which the viewer depends on to be absent: bringing the film object and viewing subject into physical co-presence. (Felleman, 2017, p.158) And indeed with his next work "Shower" 1964, Whitman creates an environment where the audience keeps wondering whether the perceived image of a women behind a shower curtain is real or has a cinematic essence. As an emblematic figure of the expanded cinema practice, Robert Whitman employs cinematic image as a creative tool, subsequently the artists start to use the materiality of film, the camera and the projector as a sculptural element, exposing and deconstructing the apparatus, which till now was hidden in favor of the image. Agnès Varda created "La Cabane de cinéma", it consisted of a house whose walls and roof were made out of copies of her film "Les Creatures" from 1966. This film was considered at that time unsuccessful. Varda questions the essence of a film and its most basic element – the light. Through the personal and biographical character of her constructing material – her own failed film, Varda creates a puzzling mausoleum of her personal past (Felleman, 2017, p.165). In 2012 Tacita Dean created a colossal expanded cinema installation in TATE Mod- ern – a monumental thirteen meters high film stripe. On it, film is being projected. The visitors appear small, gazing at the unreachable projection high. The horizontal film stripe here appears turned vertical. The monolith resembles a gravestone and the artist herself comments that it is a public “grieving the potential loss of [her] medium” (Dean as cited in Krauss, 2012, p.419). Another crucial artist of the expanded cinema: Anthony McCall, whose works will be closely discussed in the next chapters, outlines the influence of the technological development of projectors over his artistic practice: In the ’seventies, all my solid light works were horizontal. [...] But when I began working again, in the beginning of 2001 or 2 or something like that of course I was working with new kinds of projectors – digital projectors – and I quickly realized they were not gravity-bound like a film projector. And I began to explore vertical projections and became increasingly interested by the way in which they aligned themselves much more with a sculptural tradition than with a cinematic tradition because one began to think of them as vertical figures – standing figures. (McCall, 2012) McCall benefited from the technological developments of the projectors in pursuing more sculptural character of his installations, as the vertical orientation is rather associated with the sculptural than the horizontal. Together with expanded cinema practices, the art of video sculpture and video installations was evolving. One important sculptural element in these practices was the implementation of the television set. Therefore, in the following chapter, I will outline some important historical events around the invention of the television set.

34 The animation sculpture

3.3. The television set In 1884 Paul Julius Gottlieb Nipkow patented the Nipkow Disk (Shiers, 1996, p. 13). He never built one because of the lack of some essential components, but the basic principle he found was fundamental for the invention of the mechanical television. The term "television" was coined by the Russian scientist Constantin Perskyi at the International Congress of Electricity in 1900. The word comes from Greek "τῆλε(tèle)"-distant and the Latin "visio"-vision (Hospitalier, 1903, p. 54). John Logie Baird claimed that picture transmission could only be achieved through the use of two Nipkow Disks that rotate and scan at precisely the same rate. He patented the mechanical television with mechanical scanning system using transmitter and receiver. Baird managed to build the device and in 1928 implemented it in the market as the mechanical televisor. The mechanical television sets became popular consumer devices after World War II. But as the better image quality, required bigger disks, this technique soon faced its limitations. In 1924 Vladimir Kosmich Zworykin employed Braun's cathode ray tube (CRT) to patent a device for image reproduction. This event was the beginning of the electric television. Another pivotal moment was the invention of the transistor in 1948 by the Bell Labs physicists and engineers Walter Brattain, John Bardeen and William Shockley. The transistors quickly replaced the vacuum tubes as semiconductor signal amplifiers. The first television set, transistorized and mar- keted, was the TV8-301 from 1960 by Sony (See Fig. 26). Edward Lucie-Smith claims that this was the transformation of the television spectatorship from public to a private experi- Fig. 26. TV8-301 by Sony 1960 ence (Lucie-Smith, 1983, p. 208).

The televisor became part of every household's furniture set. And the rectangular screen became standard. Only three years later, in 1963 Nam June Paik had his first exhibition "Music/Elec- tronic Television" in the gallery Parnass de Wuppertal, where he presented several manipulated TV sets. And this moment led him on a long exploration of technology and art as a vital connecting element. He created robots out of TV screens, screen walls, combined screens with plants, TV beds, TV bras, TV aquariums and TV humans (Belloir, 1981, p. 28). In the 70s artists like Wolf Vostell, Shigeko Kubota, Friederike Pezold, Mary Lucier, Takahiko Iimura were exploring the sculptural properties of the screen and the tele-

35 The animation sculpture

vision set in galleries.

Fig. 27. From Mike to Marshall with Love (video). Roland Baladi, 1976

The TV set was becoming a fetish object. In 1976 Roland Baladi created his work "From Mike to Marshall with Love" making reference to Michelangelo and McLuhan and includes a life-size Carrara marble sculpture of a television and a real television. On the real televisor, images of the marble televisor are broadcast. The viewer slowly discovers all its sides and the sense of its monumental features (See Fig. 27). This sculpture and video installation fully reflect the relation of the artists at that time to the TV set and the monitor; it was a medium and a subject. They discovered the artistic potency of the technology. In 1990 video projection came in the gallery space and replaced the physical presence of the TV set. This lead to a more immersive experience and projection mapping added a whole new level of dealing with the physicality of the video sculptures.

36 The animation sculpture

3.4. Projection mapping In 1926 the German "epic theatre" director Erwin Piscator and the Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius were dreaming and planning their "Total Theater". Piscator was a theatre director at the Berlin Volksbühne and was famous for using projections of motion pictures and animated cartoons on the stage. His idea was to create a theatre with 3000-4000 seats. The auditorium was to be filled with projections and the performers and audience were to be close to each other. Gropius whose aim was to make the architecture planning for the theatre, claimed that this theatre should be "capable of shaking the spectator out of his lethargy, of surprising and assaulting him and obliging him to take a real interest in the play" (Gropius as cited in Giedion, 1954, p. 17). Apparently "screens were to be stretched between the twelve columns and twelve films projected through them simultaneously; at the same time an auxiliary apparatus suspended from the center of the ceiling could project upon these screens from inside the auditorium"(Cole, 1963, p. 315). Even though they didn't succeed to build the "Total Theater", it is noticeable the aspiration for immersive experience through projection and the pioneering steps in the stage design and dramatic arts. And to go back to the sculpture, the invention of the projection mapping 43 years later, enabled the returning of the audience's attention back to the object and its physical features. Projection mapping is a technique in which digital light projectors do not project on flat rectangular screens as usual, but on real objects with irregular shape and surface. It creates the illusion that virtually created animated images coexist with the real world. The first projection mapping on a non-flat surface was done in 1969 at the opening of the Haunted Mansion Ride in Disneyland. In the dark, the visitors experienced many optical illusions from Pepper's ghost, decapitation, paintings becoming alive and between them was the surprising singing busts "Grim Grinning Ghosts". By filming five singers singing on 16 mm film and then projecting this footage on their sculpted faces, the team of Marc Davis, Claude Coats and Xavier Atencio created a stunning illusion of five morbidly singing sculptures (See Fig. 28).

Fig. 28. Singing Busts in The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, California. Photo: HarshLight

37 The animation sculpture

In 1991 Disney filed a patent for "Apparatus and method for projection upon a three-dimensional object" (Monroe & Redmann, 1991, p. 1).

Fig. 29. Visualization. Disney patent. Apparatus and method for projection upon a three-dimensional object.

It was a patent for a set-up, apparatus and a method and the computer code for projecting images upon a three-dimensional object, that create a realistic illusion of three-dimensionality (See Fig. 29). The set-up enabled a person to interact with the projected image and the physical object through the act of virtual painting. The virtual image could be changed in real-time. Moreover, Disney claimed this method projects the virtual image vividly, calculating and accurately presenting the depth in the real object (Monroe & Red- mann, 1991, p. 1). Like in Fig. 29 a person could draw with projected colour on the three-dimensional horse. This could have been an inspiration for the growing trend of 3D drawing in virtual reality. This event inspired a group of academic researchers. In 1998 Ramesh Raskar, Greg Welch and Henry Fucks introduced the term "Spatially Augmented Reality (SAR)". Later on, the team worked on a study called "Shader lamps: animating objects with image-based illumination". And since this moment, the projection mapping technique started developing really fast. They discovered that when projection mapping is executed on more complex forms, they tend to throw shadows on their own shape ("self shadow"), that is why in those cases more then one projector is needed to cover all the curves of the surface fully. This aspect resulted challenging for the execution of my animation sculpture in the practical part of the thesis as well. In 1999 John Underkoffler invented the I/O Bulb and Luminous Room, a bulb that could simultaneously emit light and act like a camera, which records light. Under- koffler claims that through the aid of the I/O Bulb, with its two-way information flow, a new category of human-computer interaction happens, he calls it "luminous-tangible" (Underkoffler, 1999, p. 18). This achievement has been a considerable step towards contemporary projection

38 The animation sculpture

mapping techniques. Projection mapping and augmented reality have very similar goals: to connect "synthetic supplement" into the real physical environment. But the underlying technology set-up they are employing is different: projection mapping uses a light projector and enables more people to experience the projection. Augmented reality uses HMD (Head-mounted display) or screens to perform the layering of the virtual image over the physical space, and it is still experienced individually.

39 The animation sculpture

4. State of the art and case studies

In the following chapter, I will make an overview of some of the artistic approaches and strategies used in the development of animation sculptures. On the hand of some case studies I will search for common language and characteristics for this hybrid medium. As we observed in the previous chapter, with the development of technology, the possibilities of expanding video art out of the two-dimensional screen, are growing. Artists are engaged with the sculptural properties of the monitor since the 1970s. The combination and arrangement of different moving images in a gallery have been done with increasing interest. The "non-linear" aspect of the art form and the "real-time" approach are also very used tools to express the artist's ideas. Pixel-bending technology, powerful projectors, Arduino, raspberry pi, open-source software like VVVV or pure data enables the possibilities of various artistic approaches.

4.1. Case study: William Kentridge The complexity of an animation sculpture does not depend on technological complexity. William Kentridge is one of the best known South African artists. His work engages with various art forms: charcoal drawings, paper collages, installations, animation, theatre, and sculpture. He works in a variety of techniques and a wide thematic range. His approach is less connected with modern digital technology but with rather obsolete methods. I would like to discuss one of his works “What Will Come (Has Already Come)” from 2007. It is a sculpture that consists of a round table and projected warped drawings on it, at the centre of the table there is a mirror cylinder. The warped images are reflecting in the cylinder mirror, and they appear visually "corrected" (See Fig. 30).

Fig. 30. “What Will Come (Has Already Come)” 2017 by William Kentridge

40 The animation sculpture

This technique is called "catoptric anamorphosis", and the Lithuanian art historian Jurgis Baltrašatis outlines in his book "Anamorphic Art" that this method originates from the time of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) in China (See Fig. 31) and was im- ported in Europe around 1625 (Baltrušaitis, 1977, p. 165).

Fig. 31. Examples of Chinese cylindrical anamorphosis. Painting on paper. Win-Li period (1573-1619) Centuries later, William Kentridge explores in his work the repetitive character of history through the remediation of this anamorphic picture puzzle. This animation sculpture deals with a horrifying historical event: the Italian attack of Ethiopia on 3 October 1935 and the start of the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. This is also suggested through the sound design: carnival music, Shostakovich, Ethiopian and Eritrean music and the fascist song "Faccetta Nera" (Christov-Bakargiev, 2010, p. 115). The name of the work, the round table, the round distorted images, the cylinder and the cyclic movement of the animation, all these elements contribute and enhance this repetitive dramatic pace of history. The visitors see a double image: one: the distorted and "real" and the second one: the "corrected", but constructed in our head with the help of the mirror surface. This idea of ambiguity and uncertainty is crucial to Kentridge's understanding of the role of art, and it is worth to quote him fully: I think there is an important polemical and political role in art in defending the uncertain, in having critique of all forms of certainty whether it is on authoritarian politics or certainty of knowledge, of making ambiguity and contradiction it's central lifeblood, showing that these are not just mistakes at the edge of understanding but the way in which understanding is constructed, of making us aware of constructing meaning rather than receiving information. (Kentridge, 2018) William Kentridge challenges the viewers; for him, they must become an active part of his art. This participative role of the viewer is an important element to his animation sculptures. Also, an intriguing aspect of his practice with animation is the importance of the process. William Kentridge goes from one corner of his studio to the other: from the drawing to the camera. He takes a picture and goes back to make a change in the

41 The animation sculpture

drawing. In the constant movement between the camera and the drawing, he takes the creative decisions. Rudolf Frieling compares his process with the ideas from Heinrich von Kleist. In his essay "On the Gradual Production of Thoughts Whilst Speaking", Heinrich von Kleist elaborates that the ideas are being formed in the act of speaking. Similarly, Kentridge defends the rights of forms and ideas to be born in the uncertainty of the process (Frieling, 2010, p. 154). Kentridge works without storyboard and without knowing how the animated movement is looking. In the end, he has his last frame and no possibility to correct anything. His passion for material, manual and analogue processes is also translated into his animation films. The animations often then exceed the classical cinematic realm and merge with different materials, objects, shapes. Expanded animation installations as "Overload" in 1999, "Learning the Flute" 2003, "Preparing the Flute" 2005 are emblematic for his oeuvre. But I will draw my attention to his work "Black Box / Chambre Noir" from 2005. Here William Kentridge builds a miniature model of a theatre. It is structured around 13 painted two-dimensional layers, arranged towards the depth of this stage (See Fig. 32). The arrangement creates a depth of field. Still and animated drawings are projected onto the stage. There is also back-projection that is adding other images and shadow characters. Mechanic puppets –"automata" are moving across the layers and merge with some projections in a complex choreography. The theatrical stage and the layering of the set remind of the performances of the Emile Reynaud with his Théâtre Optique between 1892 and 1900.

Fig. 32. William Kentridge "Black Box / Chambre Noir"

42 The animation sculpture

William Kentridge says about "Black Box / Chambre Noir": So we now have a combination of elements: the photographic, the camera, the positive and negative, a reference to film, and the structure of the baroque theatre, the type of theatre and scenery that would have been used in early productions of the opera. Following this, Schinkel and his famous paintings for the scenery became an element of the design. (Marian Goodman Gallery, 2006, p. 2) In the work of Kentridge, we could find some elements that could lead us towards some central common aspects of the "animation sculpture". His expanded animation often works with the concept of layering. Kentridge layers time through the drawing marks and drawing traces of the charcoal. He layers different materials in space to achieve a tactile, sensory and kinesthetic engagement of the viewer and he layers the animation on the material surfaces. Like this, he mobilizes the "full potential of the material encounter with the filmic image in new forms of dynamic montage" (Rutherford, 2014, p. 1). There is also a aspect of remediation in his work. Kentridge very often uses old, ancient techniques and technologies in his art. Some of these technologies are bound to the elements of circularity and repetition. In "What Will Come (Has Already Come)" the transitions between the different scenes often employ the shape of the sculpture. Images are starting to rotate faster with a high motion blur and transition into new images.

4.2. Case study: Mat Collishaw Almost every aspect of the late work of the British artist Mat Collishaw is connected to the idea of animation sculpture. He has used a wide variety of media, combining screens, objects, projection mapping, Zoetropes, stroboscopic Zoetropes, robotics and VR. In his works "Throbbing Gristle" 2008, "Magic Lantern" (2010), "All Things Fall" 2014, "The Garden of Unearthly Delights" 2009, "The Centrifugal Soul" 2016, "Seria Ludo" 2016, Mat Collishaw explores the rich artistic possibilities that the Zoetrope offers. As inspiration he uses the three-dimensional Zoetrope, but instead of working with the classical slits and black drum, to rotate in front of the eyes of the viewer, he adopts the stroboscopic light to achieve the same effect of a shutter. In 2010 Collishaw was commissioned to produce a work for the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, UK. He created a giant three-dimensional Zoetrope in the cupola of the building, that was visible from everywhere "Magic Lantern". In 2009 he already had built his first large scale three-dimensional Zoetrope, so this has been one step further in exploring this medium. He transforms the octagonal architectural features of the building into an apparatus and an animation sculpture (See Fig. 33). Big moths out of expanded resin are rotating around the centre of the cupola, em-

43 The animation sculpture

ploying rotational motors. First, we see that something is rotating in the cupola of the museum; the light is bright. Suddenly the LED Lights start to flicker, and the spectators can perceive the animation. The moths are attracted by the light in the centre of the cupola (the museum). The work appears as a huge lantern.

Fig. 33. Mat Collishaw. "Magic Lantern" , 2010 In the same year, Collishaw produced a smaller replica of the "Magic Lantern" that was exhibited outdoor in the public space of John Madejski Garden. This installation was more approachable for audiences. They could take a closer look into it and have a more palpable experience with the work. In 2014 he continued with his works with crown cupola and Zoetropes, this time creating one of his emblematic works "All Things Fall". This artwork drew a lot of attention to his work. Employing again a meticulously executed three-dimensional Zoetrope with stroboscopic light, Collishaw creates a disturbing recreation of the biblical "Massacre of the Innocents". Tiny figures rendered in the style of marble statues are frenetically repeating the same act of aggression over and over again (See Fig. 34). They are situated in a temple with a dome, resembling Tempietto di San Pietro in Montorio in Rome. Here the short animation loop has a powerful narrative character, oscillating the experienced violence with every repetition.

Fig. 34. Mat Collishaw. All things fall 2014 As we see in Fig. 34, the environment where the work is exhibited also plays an essential role in the decoding of the work. Behind the animation sculpture, we see a marble statue that represents another act of violence.

44 The animation sculpture

Inspired by the early Victorian inventions, Mat Collishows uses modern technology to create hypnotic worlds, full of flesh and aggression. Through the never-ending cycle and repetition of the movements, one is paradoxi- cally and painfully reminded about the transitory nature of life. Similarly to William Kentridge, in his body of work, Mat Collishaw also explores the artistic possibilities of the anamorphic image. In his work "Slipping Into Darkness", 2009. But what drives artists to work with such media formats and technological inventions of the past? Nina Jukicˇ, Gabriele Jutz, Edgar Lissel suggest in their artistic research "Reset the Apparatus! Retrograde Technicity in Artistic Photographic and Cinematic Practices" that the oppositional way of thinking "old technology - new technology" should be revisited, in favour of a more broad and complex approach. They argue that the use of seemingly obsolete apparatus has a critical function. Furthermore, they outline: Since all technical media today are digitizable, the computer takes on the role of a convergence device. With its rise as a universal medium, our awareness of media differences gets lost along with the unique experiences that individual media are able to communicate. (Lissel et al., 2019, p. 20) Their focus is on the photography and cinematic experience, but I think we could adopt these ideas for our purposes, related to the animation sculpture.

45 The animation sculpture

4.3. Case study: Akinori Goto The work "Rediscovering of Anima" of the Japanese artist Akinori Goto was exhibited in 2018 at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz. He takes as a starting point the optical toys of the 19th century but goes further and develops another approach. "Rediscovering the Anima" is part of a series of works called "toki-" in which the artist explores the possibility of using sunlight to trigger animation in three-dimensional objects in space. The movement of the human body fascinates Goto and he takes sequential images of a walking cycle. Cuts every single image as outlines out of wood and bind them together in a wooden sculpture. When a ray of sunlight touches the sculpture and moves on its surface, we can experience the movement of the body (See Fig. 35).

Fig. 35. Akinori Goto. Rediscovering of Anima. 2017

Goto explains that he used only materials and tools that were available in the 19th century to imagine a work that would be able to exist in another time without the technology we have now. The sculpture reminds the three-dimensional chronomodel of human locomotion "Der Gang des Menschen", created by the anatomist Wilhelm Braune and the physicist Otto Fischer as part of their studies on a graphic method to represent movement around 1895 (See Fig. 36)

Fig. 36. Der Gang des Menschen. 1895. Wilhelm Braune and Otto Fischer

46 The animation sculpture

They used four cameras to record the movement, two on both sides of the subject and two in front of him. Then after analyzing the photos under a microscope, managed to build the model-sculpture that reflects on the relationship between movement and time. The goal of Braune and Fischer was to present with a maximal three-dimensional accuracy the trajectory of the movement of the human body with its spatial coordinates. On the other hand, Goto's work "Rediscovering of Anima" functions only because the keyframes of the body movement are being flattened into a two-dimensional form. In this work, the animation is following a linear structure. In Goto's other works from these series "toki", he uses 3D printing as a way to give form to "time through movement" (Diephuis et al., 2019, p. 236). In "toki- BALLET #01" the movement is enclosed in a circle, going back to the initial zoetropic representation and the loop. The 3D printed sculpture uses this time not sunlight but a controlled light stream that later multiplies to lighten up different phases of the movement (See Fig. 37).

Fig. 37. Akinori Goto. toki- BALLET #01. 2016

The animated movements are short and the possibilities of narration are limited, equivalently to the narrative challenges faced by the painters of Zoetrope and Prax- inoscope stripes. Here as well we cannot talk about "montage" of the animation in the sculpture. In this example animation is the sculpture.

47 The animation sculpture

4.4. Case study: Pedro Serrazina In 2017 the Portuguese animation film director Pedro Ser- razina had created an animation installation "Living between light and darkness" for the Sephardi Museum (Bra- gança, Portugal). The installation consists of a monolith (1,60m x 4m), positioned at the centre of an exhibition hall in the museum. On the front side of the monolith, Serrazina projects a non-narrative 7 minutes long sand animation that runs in a loop. He elaborates that his animation explores "the historical use of sand that was spread across the floors of Sephardi hous- es in order to muffle the sound of movement inside, during time of persecution by the Inquisition" (Serrazina, 2017). The contrast between the monolith, associated with stabil- ity, and the sand as a different state of matter of the stone, associated with fragility, is present in Serrazina's work. This animation sculpture plays with visual illusions. Some- times the screening surface transforms in front of the visitor's eyes into an open door to another time and space. Fig. 38. Film Still "Living The projected animation consists of brief moments. Win- between light and darkness" dows and doors are opening and closing, shadows are Pedro Serrazina passing through the lighten windows. An atmosphere of secrecy is created, the danger oscillates between the shadows and the light (See Fig. 38). The sound-design consists of whispered prayers that are interrupted. Our intuitive associations that light is something good and darkness is comprehended as something we should be afraid of, are inverted here. Serrazina highlights that he: designed this non-narrative piece in response to the content of the museum, hoping to create an atmospheric interpretation of the sense of displacement and concealment that defined long periods of Sephardi history, but also to represent the plight of “the outsider” throughout History. (Serrazina, 2017) Although in this animation sculpture we do not observe the circularity and rotation, present in the same way as in the previous examples, the animation runs in a constant loop in the museum space. It is also noticeable that the "montage" of the sequences has a circular character: the motives are similar short actions, mutually interchangeable, have repetitive nature, but are playing with scale and position. The contrast between light and darkness is affecting the transitions between the scenes; they are almost seamlessly executed in the dark before another window or door opens. It is not of importance that the visitor is experiencing the animation from

48 The animation sculpture

the beginning until the end, as the installation creates the illusion of disorientation. We as viewers are dragged quickly between exteriors and interiors, losing the perspective and ending feeling lost, claustrophobic and at the same time exposed and vulnerable. Not knowing if we are looking or being looked at (Serrazina, 2017). In terms of form and materiality of the sculpture, the work uses the classical properties of the flat rectangular screen projection but through the presence of this giant black monolith and through the animation the viewers experience an almost physical presence of the film, like another room in the gallery space.

4.5. Case study: Anna Vasof In her animation sculptures Anna Vasof explores the laws of physics by purposely forgetting what has already been invented and reinvent it from the beginning, which comes as an innovative, humorous and critical approach. Anna Vasof developed a new technique of video production called "Non-Stop Stop Motion". She argues that: With the Non-Stop Stop-Motion approach, a video camera continuously records a motion change illusion, which is caused by the "stop motion" properties of the space or setting in which it is placed. The final film has similar intermittent movements to a stop motion film. However, its media- reflective nature has a stronger influence on its content and form. (Vasof, 2017) In "The machine" 2015 she creates a three-dimensional object. It is a stand made from wood and metal, on the stand, vertically, ceramic plates with drawings of cogwheels are being arranged. In a video, we see the artist smashing the plates with a hammer one by one. The camera angle changes, and now we see the second camera perspective. The plates are breaking, first with normal speed, then the speed of the video material is doubled, then tripled and so on, until we experience the animation in the drawings on the ceramic plates: the cogwheels are rotating and working (See Fig. 39).

Fig. 39. Film Still "Machine" Anna Vasof. 2015 Anna Vasof explores the question: "How something could work only during its de- construction/demolition?"(Vasof, 2015). We only experience the object and the animation through "the editing" of the video. The object's properties and the animation are interconnected, but we can only make sense of it when experienced through the camera and the editing of the material.

49 The animation sculpture

Many of her works are following the same principle. In "Domino" 2014 she combines the domino effect with stop motion. Framed pictures of a corridor replace the domino blocks. The video-camera is following the domino fall, one block after another. At the end, we experience the animation and the movement: a claustrophobic repetitive running in this corridor and facing a red door. Her work is not an animation sculpture that can be exhibited classically in a gallery space as an object. The video she records and edits is the essential artwork. How- ever, to include Anna Vasof's work into this chapter because the objects she creates have sculptural properties, and they are as well the animation, seems a valuable contribution to the topic.

4.6. Case study: Kumi Yamashita In 1999 the Japanese visual artist Kumi Yamashita created the animation sculpture "Dialogue". The visitor sees an object created out of paper – hundreds of cut outlines of a human face are positioned radial around the centre of the object. Yamashita installs a spotlight that forces the sculpture to throw a strong shadow on the wall. The shadow has unexpected shape: the silhouettes of the heads of two people, facing opposite directions. When the implemented in the sculpture roto motor is working, the paper outlines start revolving around its central axis. We suddenly realize through the shadow, thrown on the wall, that every single paper outline is a single keyframe of an animation. The face of the fist person starts moving and appears to be talking. With some mil- liseconds delay the second person repeats like an echo the movements of the first one, creating the illusion of a dialogue between the two (See Fig. 40).

Fig. 40. Stills of the video documentation of "Dialogue". Kumi Yamashita. 1999

The three-dimensional object transforms in two-dimensional animation through the light and the crisp shadow. The artist often employs this technique in her works. Creating objects that throw a carefully created unexpected shadow is her primary area of artistic research. In this animation sculpture again, an essential element is the loop. The narrative limitation is because of the physicality of the object. The poetic and dramatic atmosphere

50 The animation sculpture

is enhanced by the repetitive structure of the animation and the sharp shadow. Its simplicity reminds us of all the pre-cinematic devices that existed: the Muto- scope, the flipbook, the Zoetrope, the theatre of shadows. Nevertheless, the shadow of Kumi Yamashita is very reduced, it has so less detail, and it is automatized through technology that turns the work into a kinetic animation sculpture.

4.7. Case study: Anthony McCall In all the previous case studies, we observed that light is a crucial element of the animation sculpture. Let us focus now our attention to one artist that is emblematic in the use of light to create animation sculptures – the British artist Anthony McCall. In 1973 he created the work "Line Describing a Cone". In this work, a film of a white line that moves and forms in the shape of a circle is projected on smoke and dust particles. The penetration of the projected light into the room transforms the line into a cone and the animation into a three-dimensional object formed by tiny particles. The duration of the film is 30 minutes (See Fig. 41). As here the light can be physically experienced, McCall calls it "solid light film"(as cited in MacDonald, 1992, p. 160). Anthony McCall explains: "The specific idea that I was working on was that the projector's light beam was not only visible, but physical and space-occupying, and it could be shaped, both in space and in time, using film as the medium." (ibid. p. 159)

Fig. 41. Line Describing a Cone. Anthony McCall

In all of his works, McCall questions the experience of the spectator towards the film. The classical passive audience transforms into an active participator of the artwork. An interesting perspective on him gives Birgitta Hosea. She argues that in his other work "Long Film for Ambient Light" (1975) "cinema is reduced to its bare essentials- light changing, time and audience"(Hosea, 2019, p. 44). In a room half of the windows are covered with a translucent paper and in the centre a light bulb is glowing. On the wall, markers point out how the light sources are changing in 50 days. For Sheldon Renan, the "essentially cinematic" parameters are light and time and

51 The animation sculpture

every artwork that possessed these characteristics were to consider "cinema" even if it did not include film, film-strip, camera or projectors (Renan, 1967, p. 227). On the wall, an artist statement "Notes in Duration" McCall labels the artwork as a film and also points out "light" and "time" as crucial for something to be cinema. Hosea makes an observation worth mentioning: "The cinematic apparatus has been removed, but the work becomes a film because Anthony McCall has called it a film and, therefore, we perceive it as a film" (Hosea, 2019, p. 44). If we consider animation as a type of "cinema" or if we prefer to consider film as "type of animation" like Alan Cholodenko, in both cases, we are also confronted with the aspect "light" in animation. Moreover, if we say light and time are also crucial characteristics for animation, then light and time become a vital elements of the animation sculpture as well.

4.8. Case study: LWZ I would like to take a closer look at the exhibition RINGGINGBLING from 2013 by the Austrian animation group LWZ. The first edition of the exhibition was part of the sound:frame festival and happened in Hotel Am Brillantengrund, but then it traveled and transformed itself in different places around the world. The group wanted to make "visuals and animation happen in a room without a projector or other visible technical equipment."(LWZ, personal communication, 2019) They manage to do this with the Annihilation technique of material surface colours and light colours. Positioning different three-dimensional objects in the gallery space, painting the walls and the objects in CMY (cyan, magenta and yellow) and shooting continuously altering RGB light (red, green, blue) all over the space, made the illusion of never-ending animation and movement everywhere (See Fig. 42).

Fig. 42. RINGGINGBLING exhibition view, Jerusalem, 2015

With the changing of the colours: red, green, blue in the room, the audience is invited to concentrate on the respective complementary-coloured objects and surfaces. These objects were not randomly positioned, but carefully arranged and designed

52 The animation sculpture

so that when the RGB lights are turned on and changing, these elements represent key-frames of the animation. The motives and mini-narratives were created as tiny loops, that constantly repeat. Different early animation techniques or devices were also implemented in the colour choreography. For example, a Zoetrope out of a bike wheel is implemented and apart from having the zoetropic animation inside the drum, additional animation was added through the changing of the RGB lights. The exhibition was presented in Vienna, Moscow, Prague, Ljubljana, Jerusalem and Cascais. For every single edition there was a different thematic idea. For Portugal, for example they have chosen “nautic exploration in the 15th century”. With the time, the project has evolved in an open lab situation; everyone could join and add his or her element to the pool of visuals. The colours were the uniting element that brings everything together in a homogeneous way. In this example of animation sculpture, the whole space is participating, everything in the room that has a surface is part of the experience. The "circularity and repetition" of the motifs in the loops are present. Even though, here the narrative possibilities are even more narrow than in the 3D Zoetrope, due to the only three colours that are as well the keyframes, the simplicity of the tiny movements everywhere in the room and the technique the group used are "in the heart of the attraction".

4.9. Case study: Bill Brand Bill Brand completed his work "Masstransiscope" in 1980. It is a permanent installation on one of the unused subway stations between the Dekalb subway stop and the Manhattan Bridge in New York. The work consists of a long box, with slits in it, and 228 brightly lit abstract paintings on the interior opposite side of the box (See Fig. 44). When the train passes, the passengers see the paintings through the slits and discover that they suddenly start to move and transform into animation. The work uses the zoetropic principle, but the dimensions of it are impressive (See Fig. 43).

Fig. 43. Video Still "Masstransiscope". Bill Brand Fig. 44. Bill Brand installing "Masstransiscope", 1980. Bill Brand confesses he worked with free association, transforming one shape into another. Even though he built a smaller version of it in a box to experiment and try different slits and different animated sequences, he did not have any idea if it would

53 The animation sculpture

work until the opening (Bill Brand, 2018). This work has the element of surprise and an unexpected experience. It is considered public art, but every passenger sees it differently and intimately. George Griffin argues that "the zoetrope is [...] the essential engine" of the "concrete animation" (Griffin, 2007, p. 269). Nevertheless, Bill Brand borrows only some elements of its apparatus: the slits. He still faced the same problem with the light as the creators of zoetropic stripes in the 19th century. Therefore, he positioned on each side of the slit a lamp. Like this, the paintings were brightly lightened, and the gazing viewers from the train could better perceive the animation. Brand gives an exciting perspective on his work: "it is a reversal to the normal film process where you sit in the theatre, and a film passes through a projector, here the film sits still, and you pass by it"(Brand, 2013).

54 The animation sculpture

5. Practical experiments

5.1. Previous projects and studies 5.1.1. Kopfkino In the first semester of my studies in "Experimental Media", I developed an interactive animation sculpture called "Kopfkino" (Inner cinema), exploring the idea of human fear. Fear is something that happens in your head; it becomes alive and often has a loop structure. The project combines a periscopic viewing device that is connected to the pre-cinematic invention: the Zoetrope, in a sort of wooden helmet with a crank. Through the crank, the mechanism is being activated. The idea was to develop an object that simulates a periscopic view in your own brain (See Fig. 45). Inside, in a loop, you see 13 frames of human fear. As a visual material, the sculpture is using changeable paper stripes of several sequential hand-drawn animations. And it is entirely mechanical.

Fig. 45. 3D Rendering "Kopfkino"

Some of the challenges in this projects were similar to the ones our zoetropic predecessors and Bill Brand faced: the stretching of animated figures, the lack of enough light, especially in a closed space with a complex mirroring system. These "classical" zoetropic disadvantages are nowadays mostly avoided by the artists through the use of stroboscopic light as a contemporary kind of shutter. But the choice to use stroboscopic light in a hat that a visitor is approaching and putting on his/her head, did not seem right. The interaction with objects and materials in a gallery space or exhibition realm is still not coming so intuitive to visitors. The

55 The animation sculpture

set-up should be inviting to the audiences. The manual rotation of the crank by the visitor is crucial to this sculpture. The goal was to activate what Wanda Strauven calls "the player mode", opposed to the "viewer mode" we experience with moving images (Strauven, 2011, p. 152). In this example, the use of repetition and circularity was part of the concept, as using a device that has a limited animation time.

5.1.2. The Outlander (animation sculpture) As part of my second-semester project: the documentary animation “The Outlander”, another "animation sculpture" was created. The animation consists of a hand-drawn animated documentary telling the true story of the elephant Süleyman who traveled trough places, people and time. His life story and huge exhausting journey in the 16th Century ended when he was turned into shoes four centuries later. The film was made of around 5000 pencil drawings on paper. Using the technique of papier mache, these original drawings were used for the creation of the sculpture in the shape of a shoe (See Fig. 46). A screen with raspberry pi were incorporated in the sculpted form. The work was exhibited in the Museum de São Roque (Lisbon) in 2018.

Fig. 46. Exhibition in the Museum de São Roque, (Lisbon, Portugal) in 2018

As the animation is five minutes long, quite informative and is playing in a loop, it is almost certain that the visitors would catch the film from somewhere in the middle, then had to watch the end and finally watch the beginning. This problem is quite common for narrative video works, video sculptures and animation sculptures that are about to be experienced in a gallery. Therefore, for the next animation sculpture project, I approached also this issue.

56 The animation sculpture

Possible solutions for this sculpture were the integration of a depth sensor in the opening of the shoe, so when a person is detected to look inside the shoe, the animation would be triggered. As a continuation of this media experiments in this project, the screen and the animation are expanding out of the classical screen shape to continue on the surface of the sculpture.

5.2. Cornucopia (animation sculpture) The prototype of the work "Cornucopia" was created as part of the explorations of the animation sculpture. In this chapter, I will share some of the inspirations, ideas, the process, some failures and suggestions that accompanied me through the course of the project. Some of the questions that arose around this process were: Can a static sculpture contain the illusion of rotation, "circularity and repetition", characteristics bound to the first rotating "animation sculptures" like the Zoetrope? What possibilities for interaction does modern technology and in particular, VVVV can offer us? If we are editing moving images for a physical object, what could the new possibilities or limitations be in the editing? How can we create a micro projection mapping on a complex form? How can viewers get the same visual experience, without this depending on their position in the space? Inspiration for the initial idea was the previously mentioned ceramic bowl found in Iran, that dates 5200 years, depicting sequential images of a goat jumping and eating leaves from a tree. When the goblet is rotating, we see the movement and the articulated intention of the person who created it. As we saw in the historical overview, there are many contradictions around its significance as "the first animation". Many argue that the bowl is very small and the sequential images are not enough, for it to be animation. Other people claim that at that time, there was no apparatus to bring these images to life. Having these contradictions in mind, I decided to create an animation sculpture that, on one hand, creates the missing keyframes of this first animation and on the other hand, invents the absent apparatus. The idea for the sculptural form was to create a vase: placed in an old museum vitrine like a displaced object from an exhibition. The vase on its purpose level has always been a vessel for keeping goods. Here it has the recognizable shape of an amphorae. If we imagine that every object has a story to be told, here we detach the vase from its domestic duty and leave it to tell us only the stories, through the alphabet of the vase painting and the micro projection mapping.

57 The animation sculpture

The name of the project comes from the word "cornucopia" (from Latin: cornu copi- ae), also called the horn of plenty in Greek mythology. It comes from the myth about the birth of the god Zeus, who as an infant, was taken care of by the divine goat Amalthea. She was feeding him with her milk. One day per accident Zeus breaks a part of her horn, and this broken horn becomes a well of eternal nourishment and abundance. This horn is the cornucopia. The search for this mystic horn of plenty has lasted for centuries. At least till the sensibility for legends and mythologies is alive. The idea that somewhere a well of never-ending goods exists has always attracted the longing for security and plea- sure homo sapiens. In our animation sculpture, three different animated stories tell how people are trying to catch the mythical goat, obtain its magical horn of plenty and receive all kind of goods in their lives without having to work. Our main protagonist is the same goat, painted on the first animation goblet in Iran. But on the surface of our amphora, it breaks out of its cyclic movement towards the leaves of the tree to become what has always been: an illusion.

Fig. 47. 3D Renderings for the project "Cornucopia"

58 The animation sculpture

5.2.1. The sculptural shape As part of the idea, the sculpture had to have small interaction. On the surface of the vase an animated pattern moves in a very subtle manner. When a person is getting closer to the sculpture, a laser detects the movement, the surface of the vase starts to rotate and one of the three animations is being started. The viewer's attention is the triggering element. To be able to use projection mapping in an enclosed object, a high-end computer and a video projector with ultra short-throw lens were needed (See Fig. 48). After measuring the nearest projection distance, where we still have focus and a crisp image, the dimensions of the projection surface was decided. This was important for the size of our half vase. The following step was to create a 3D model of the physical object with all its measurements. The 3D model was created in the 3D computer graphics and computer-aided-design software Rhinoceros 3D.

Fig. 48. 3D Renderings for the project "Cornucopia"

59 The animation sculpture

After exporting an STL file from the 3D model, with the measurements for the vase, I could proceed to the next step- the CNC machine. As a material Extruded polystyrene (XPS) was chosen as it is very soft and comfortable to work with. The CNC milling drills were not long enough to process the whole height of the half vase, so the shape had to be done in three stages and then the three formed polystyrene layers had to be glued together to achieve the final form (See Fig. 49).

Fig. 49. CNC miling of the first layer out of Extruded polystyrene (XPS) and the toolpath of the rotary cutter

When the layers were glued together, the form had to be finely sanded (See Fig. 50).

Fig. 50. Sanding the glued shape of the half vase

60 The animation sculpture

The goal was to create a deep-drawn 3mm transparent PLEXIGLAS® in the shape of the vase. The polystyrene (XPS) resulted too soft and not so resistant to high temperature and pressure. That is why a new mould out of gypsum had to be created. Because gypsum is a very porous and hygroscopic material, the new negative had to be sealed with epoxy resin. After it's complete curing, it had to be polished with a wax release coating. After that process – a thin layer of gelcoat was applied, so a glossy finish, that needed less sanding could be achieved (See Fig. 51). The outer shell was then reinforced with layers of fibreglass mats, that are glued together with polyester resin. After one day of curing, the Polyester resin becomes completely hard. The complex shape of the vase didn't allow us to take it out of the mould without destroying it. The positive form had some minor cosmetic issues which were corrected with polyester putty paste. After the appliance of a nano/re- finishing polish and some minor tweaks, we had our shape ready to be deep-drawn.

Fig. 51. Creating a shape negative out of gypsum and translating into a positive of Polyester laminating resin

61 The animation sculpture

In our case, the deep-drawing is a process where a PLEXIGLAS® sheet is heated evenly with a minimum temperature of 150°C for several minutes. When the PLEXI- GLAS® starts to soften and becomes in a semi-liquid state of the art, it is quickly transferred over our positive shape, and it is pressed over it. Since this process happens on a vacuum table, the air between the PLEXIGLAS® and the form is imme- diately sucked out. The procedure should happen rather fast, as the acrylic tend to cool down and gets harder again (See Fig. 52). After several attempts, we managed to achieve the desired shape.

Fig. 52. Deep drawing the shape of 3mm Plexiglass

After having the final shape, it was cut out and glued to another piece of 3mm PLEXI- GLAS®. As the PLEXIGLAS® was transparent, it had to be turned in a screen. This was achieved with the special acrylic paint "Rear Projection 500mL Finish Coat" of the Canadian company Screen Goo. We produced two versions of the vase one – transparent and one sandblasted.

62 The animation sculpture

Theoretically, I didn't need to paint the transparent with the special acrylic paint and could use the one that has the matt milk effect on it. But after running some tests- projecting on both surfaces, the one with the projection paint was showing visibly better results on the level of sharpness of the image. The next part of the process was to create the rest of the sculpture. It was supposed to look as a vitrine out of a museum (See Fig. 53).

Fig. 53. The final form of the sculpture.

After consulting some experts in the field of deep-drawing, we learned about other approaches that are more time and material-savvy. Instead of using the extruded polystyrene (XPS) for the positive moulding form, another harder and more temperature resistant material can be employed – SikaBlock®. This material, produced by the company Sika can be used for the CNC milling and then directly used for the deep-drawing process, without the translation into negative and then again into a positive form.

63 The animation sculpture

5.2.2. Technological aspect of the work After having the sculptural part, it was time to bring it to life with technology. Differ- ent technologies were explored with the focus on the narrative possibilities (linear/ non-linear, real-time interaction) as a tool for artistic research. In order to achieve the triggering of the animation with a human presence, a 360-degree omnidirec- tional laser range scanner (RPLIDAR A1, developed by Slamtec) was implemented on the bottom of the sculpture (See Fig. 54).

Fig. 54. RPLIDAR A1 .

RPLIDAR A1 is using the laser "triangulation measurement principle" (See Fig. 55) – light is being thrown on objects in the environment, it reflects on the surfaces and then is reflecting back in a light receiver that measures the receiving angle and cal- culates the distance from the objects in space (See Fig. 56).

Fig. 55. Basic principle of laser triangulation.

64 The animation sculpture

Fig. 56. Laser Triangulation with RPLIDAR A1

With the help of a rotational motor, the core of the RPLIDAR A1 is moving clockwise throwing light in the entire surrounding and then generating a map of the room. We have control over the rate of scanning: it can vary between 2Hz and 10Hz. We use the maximum scanning rate 10Hz witch means the laser scans the environment 8000 times per second.

We don't need the entire 360 degrees, for our purposes the front 180 degrees are sufficient, so we restrict the laser to measure only in this "important" area. It also has to detect moving objects only in the parameter of 2,5 m (See Fig. 57 and 58). Depending on the environment where the sculpture is exhibited, this distance which we call active area can be controlled and adapted for the particular space.

As we work with the hybrid visual/textual live-programming environment VVVV, we should get the data from the laser into our system. In VVVV we additionally explain to the laser scanner what should be detected as human and what not. Every group of moving pixels that on the generated map are between 3,5cm, and 5 cm is translated to the system as a human.

After the sculpture is installed in a new place, there is a new laser configuration that should be done. In order to know what is the environment without people, a picture should be made without nobody, so the laser knows this is the "0 state". When somebody approaches the sculpture, the laser detects the person and triggers one of the animations.

65 The animation sculpture

Fig. 57. The covered perimeter by the laser. The person is in the inactive area (above 2,5 m).

Fig. 58. The covered perimeter by the laser. The person is in the active area (under 2,5 m).

66 The animation sculpture

5.2.3. Projection mapping After creating the physical object and the form, the next stage of the development was to tune the micro projection mapping. There are several parameters, relevant for the projection mapping process: the complex shape of the half vase, the projection parameters of the display device, the ability to render virtual imagery onto this surface and the position of the person who is viewing the projection. The main goal is that the position of the user becomes ir- relevant, and the animation could be seen correctly from all angles. The augmented reality experience should preserve a three-dimensional aspect. But how does this work? In our case, to have the animation correctly projected on the "half-vase" surface, we need to have a 3D virtual model of our "half-vase". The initial 3D model is no longer useful as through the process of deep-drawing some of its features have been lost, and on its surface, there are tiny imperfections. A 3D scan of the final form with a Microsoft Kinect camera had to be performed. Here the challenge was to scan the surface without scanning through it due to its semi-transparent character. The scan is never perfect; additional cleaning and refining were needed. Eight calibration points (in xyz coordinates) were positioned on the backside of the form, and they serve later to calibrate our virtual 3D model with our real object (See Fig. 59).

Fig. 59. Front and back side of the secondary 3D Model of the final object with 8 calibration points

But one of the biggest challenges now is to create the UV map – this is the way we project our 2D animation onto the 3D surface so that we get the desired texture mapping without any warping. Most of the 3D software offers several UV mapping options: planar mapping, box mapping, spherical mapping, cylindrical mapping,

67 The animation sculpture

camera mapping. But as it appears our form is way more complex than a regular shape, this is why we had to create our own custom UV texture mapping (See Fig. 60).

Fig. 60. 2D mesh warpings

For the fine tuning of the mapping, an After Effects filter was created that warps our 2D animation on the ISO curves of the 3D model, so that image can follow the exact form of our sculpture. Through some experiments with the open-source visual/ textual live-programming environment VVVV, a patch was created to connect two animation states (active and passive) in the computer with the projector so they can be triggered by the laser. The entire patch is executed in real-time (See Fig. 61).

Fig. 61. VVVV patch of the whole program

Since VVVV is an open source programming environment, the VVVV users joreg,

68 The animation sculpture

robotanton and emarao have already researched in the area of projection mapping and contributed with "Calibrate and Re-Project" – a two steps projection mapping patch for semi-automatic calibration of the projector4. This patch was used as a starting point and was adapted to the particular needs of the project "Cornucopia". On the following Fig. 62. a technical setup for the installing of the sculpture is displayed.

Projector ultra short-distance Projection Lens F/2.8; f=7.42mm

Projection surface 3mm PLEXIGLAS® with acrylic screen paint

Control monitor Speaker (R)

HDMI

DisplayPort Cable

Audio

Audio-Video Speaker (L) Server

USB Laser Range Scanner

Fig. 62. Technical setup "Cornucopia"

After having the sculptural element and the technological implementation, it was time to draw the animation, make the compositing and sound design and render it.

4 For more information https://vvvv.org/contribution/calibrate-and-re-project

69 The animation sculpture

5.2.4. The animation process For the process of creating the prototype animation, there were several stages: first was written the script for only one of the animated stories that would be played in the curved shape. Then a rough storyboard helped me visualize, weather the script is working or not. For the purpose of this master thesis and the question and hypothesis that are being explored, a so called "animatic" (a very rough animation, animated storyboard) would lead me to sufficient results. The experts feedback would then help me develop completely the storyline and to draw the final animation in the next stage of development of the animation sculpture. As the animation was intend to look like drawn on the surface of the vase, the animation technique, chosen for this project was 2D animation, hand-drawn on paper. For the materials several tests were conducted with pastels, pencils and Indian ink. And the Indian ink was looking as close as possible to the desired outcome (See Fig. 63).

Fig. 63. Visual tests with Indian ink "Cornucopia"

In the following pages the structure of the animated storyboard of the first animation is presented. The scenes are accompanied by explanatory notes on what is happening in the vase-frame. While producing the animated storyboard there was the certainty that only black ink will be used, and the animation sequences would be rather monochrome. But after sending it to the experts and in dialogue with Dr Paulo Viveiros he gave me the idea to pursue color in the sequences that are inspired by the Greek vase paintings, as the Greek vase painters "used the style of black figures and then the style of red figures" (Paulo Viveiros, 2020, Appendix I).

70 The animation sculpture

Animated Storyboard

Scene 1 We see an amphora, the surface of it is decorated with a line of goats in a lush meadow with small juniper trees. The goats raise their heads and look up towards the crown of the trees. (These are also the first animated drawings from the ceramic Iranian bowl).

Scene 2 Suddenly the surface moves and the vase begins to rotate around its axis.

Scene 3 We see simultaneously multiple stages of the goat's movement (5). They jump high and tear off with their mouths the juniper leaves.

71 The animation sculpture

Scene 4 The rotation of the vase speeds up even more and now we see only one goat, which bounc- es and bites in a repetitive loop. (The movement is repeated five times). The goat stops suddenly, listens and looks up to the left.

Scene 5 Long legs descend from the sky, bend over the surface of the vase and approach towards the ground threateningly.

Scene 6 Following the legs, the bodies of two goats appear and go down. They are the same. Our goat transforms into one of them. Their feet are stilts. The three goats begin to march syn- chronously around the vase. Their marching becomes a kind of "goat choreography."

72 The animation sculpture

Scene 7 The goat-ballerinas go from one state to another, their appearance changes in harmony with the rhythm of the music: their horns become waves, and their bodies turn into but- terflies neckties.

Scene 8 A slight change in their appearance accompa- nies each choreographic movement. (For the different states of the dance metamorphosis, images of goats from Persian and Mexican ceramic paintings were used).

Scene 9 Their dance is suddenly interrupted by several spears that land right beside them. The goats are scared; they stop and then run to the back of the vase.

73 The animation sculpture

Scene 10 A lot of small men with spears pop up from the left and run after the goats.

Scene 11 At the back of this procession, two men carry together one spear because it is heavy.

Scene 12 The two friends are trying to catch up with the others.

74 The animation sculpture

Scene 13 Before hiding from our gaze at the back of the vase, both of them stop and drop the spear on the ground.

Scene 14 The vase is slowly rotating.

Scene 15 In front of our eyes is revealed what happened behind the scenes (without the participation of the two friends with the spear): tied with thin ropes with pegs and nails to the ground, our goat has fallen down like an ancient Gulli- ver. Tiny figures are fluttering on her back and around her. On the ground lies her severed horn.

75 The animation sculpture

Scene 16 The camera is getting closer and enters in the cut goat's horn.

Scene 17 The surface of the vase is covering with darkness.

Scene 18 Entering deeper and deeper in the darkness, we see an unprecedented celebration and a feast, lit by torches. We pass by a drunken harpist playing merry tunes and acrobatics walking on hands. (The images are rendered in the style of the Greek black vase painting).

76 The animation sculpture

Scene 19 We see naked people dancing.

Scene 20 We pass by a woman dressed in toga juggling apples for the amusement of a surprised duck.

Scene 21 And more people are dancing. We see that the outlines of the horn are getting smaller and smaller and the people are now celebrat- ing in a more narrow space.

77 The animation sculpture

Scene 22 We pass by a fat man stuck in an amphora and pouring wine into his mouth. And at the very end of the horn a drunk man is lying, because he can not stand in this tiny space.

Scene 23 We see the end of the horn, and suddenly the same trees and the same meadow appear. We are again in the beginning. The goat is jumping and eating the leaves of the tree.

PART II (short description) In the second part, the man and the goat are about the same size and the fight between them happens in front of our eyes. The man comes and tries to catch the goat, but it still escapes and they spin in a circle. Their faces meet and the pupils of the two adversaries (circle and square) slip away and fall. Fighting and dancing of abstract forms, reversing their places. Eventually the man manages to obtain the horn again, but it is already smaller and it just fits into his hand. He drinks a few sips of wine from it and throws it away. Finally, we go back to the first picture with the goat and juniper.

78 The animation sculpture

PART III (short description) The man has grown up much bigger than a goat. It looks like a card for playing with two heads and four hands, rides on a chariot and stretches two bows in both directions. He goes around the vase like a master. The horn is very small, like a stick with which the man pulls something from between his teeth. Finally, we are back to the old picture with the goat and juniper. After finishing the first animated clip the interaction was tested (See Fig.64).

Fig. 64 Interaction test "Cornucopia"

The initial idea for the scenes 17 till 21 was to perform a camera zoom in the goat horn and that a camera passes through the dancing couples entering deep into the darkness. And here this classical cinematographic tool that the consumer's eye is used to, resulted not convincing and unnatural, because of the shape of the vase. The figures were appearing distorted on the neck of the vase. Therefore, the spacial frontal movement was replaced with horizontal pan. Also when switching from total into close-ups with a simple cut, the outcome was not satisfactory. It had to have always a smooth animation transition that follows the form, through rotation and following the entire movement or through metamorphosis. In interview with Prof. Dr. Svetoslav Ovtcharov he claimed that "each form develops its own montage methods" (Ovtcharov, 2020, Apendix I). He outlines that when the animation sculpture is big and the audience could observe it from a distance, the editing transitions are different than the one in projects like "Cornucopia", where the form is small and the viewer can examine it really close. Here he sees the opportunity in the montage in the paradoxical editing, typical for the animation cinema.

79 The animation sculpture

5.2.5. Expert interviews. Evaluation Additionally, to my practical experiments, four interviews with experts, coming from different fields of studies, were conducted. Again, due to COVID-19 Pandem- ic, these qualitative interviews were carried out per e-mail. The experts received several questions concerning expanded cinema, expanded animation and animation sculpture, as well as videos of the practical project "Cornucopia" and its animated storyboard. They were asked to give an expert evaluation of my practical work and to outline their personal experiences or contacts with the hybrid medium "animation sculpture" or animation installations. I will shortly introduce the interviewed experts: Prof. Dr. Svetoslav Ovtcharov teaches film directing in the National Academy of Theater and Film Arts in Bulgaria and is director and screenwriter of over 30 feature films and documentaries. Dr. Paulo Viveiros is the program director for Bachelor and Master Studies in Anima- tion Arts at the Lusófona University, Lisbon, Portugal. Dr. Birgitta Hosea is an artist, practice-based researcher and curator that explores post-animation, performativity, hauntology, animism and materiality through video installation, animated performance art and experimental drawing on paper. She is also Moving Image lecturer at the University for the Creative Arts in Kent, United Kingdom. Stefan Stratil is animation director, president of ASIFA Austria and curator of the gallery space Asifakeil in MuseumsQuartier, Vienna, Austria. In the conception of the questions, the vibrant, individual and diverse biographies of the experts were considered (See Appendix I). To begin with, in all four interviews, an understanding and acceptance of the existing practices of animation sculpture and animation installations were manifested. All experts had experienced expanded animation in a gallery context. Prof. Dr. Ovtcharov brought an interesting perspective about the way these works are read and that the audience of those works is more "prepared" for the art-form as cinema audience (Ovtcharov, 2020, Appendix I). As a curator of a gallery space that exhibits expanded animation, Stefan Stratil discusses that animation art in a gallery context is "quite common nowadays" and that when they started the gallery in 2007, it was already a frequently exhibited art-form, due to artists like William Kentridge (Stratil, 2020, Appendix I). Hence, the audience is already "educated" regarding moving image installations, due to the pervasiveness of animation in our everyday lives: "from manuals to museums, from animated emojies to high end special effects in feature films" (Ibid. Appendix I). When Paulo Viveiros and his team were designing the curriculum of the Animation Arts Master Program they also tried to respond to these tendencies of intersection between animation and technology, creating a link between them in the subject "Hybrid spaces", that teaches "animation outside of traditional cinema" in Universi-

80 The animation sculpture

ty context (Viveiros, 2020, Appendix I). He also outlines that: our intention is to attract students from fine arts to experiment with animation. In that sense, we decided to open the animation to new fields of experimentation, we expanded the concept of animation to new technologies such as VR, augmented reality, installation art… (Viveiros, 2020, Appendix I). Another idea some of the experts agree upon is the tendency towards a more immersive experience of the art-form. The "oneiric side", the ephemeral, performative and immaterial space where the audience and the work meet, is a desired outcome. The contact with the artwork should gravitate towards a spontaneous spiritual experience. Prof. Dr. Ovtcharov suggests that: cinema was "chained" to its own nature, by its photographic essence that led it inevitably to realism. This makes it incomparably "earthier" than music or literature. Attempts to use cinema (and also animation cinema, as in your project "Cornucopia") as an integral part of hybrid art, are precisely this desire to overcome this "earthiness" that lies in the nature of cinema. (Ovtcharov, 2020, Appendix I) He also considers VR as a step towards a more immersive experience. Dr. Paulo Viveiros sees an opportunity in VR to escape the material side as well: Today, with the technology we have, we don’t need anymore the “frame” or the “box” (the TV set, or the screen), we can sculpt only with signals, that's the case with augmented reality, or VR, we built new environments with the image only. That’s why animation can be used in doing that kind of experiments. (Viveiros, 2020, Appendix I). And even though the artists and art-form are trying to avoid this earthiness and materiality, a lot of artists are currently working on how to enhance the cinematic experience through the involvement of all senses. Dr. Birgitta Hosea shares: At the moment I am working on a collaborative research project in haptic technology. It’s early stages, but we are looking at bringing some of the texture of the handmade and feeling of touch into digital technology. (Hosea, 2020, Appendix I) Regarding the question about the technological aspect of those artistic practices, all four experts agree on the peripheral role of technology. The "process, the experience and the ideas" (Hosea, 2020) were selected as vital elements. Stefan Stratil discusses that when they chose animation installations for their particularly shaped gallery space Asifakeil, they try to keep all technological apparatus simple, for practical maintenance reasons (Stratil, 2020, Appendix I). Dr. Paulo Viveiros argues that technology is merely a tool to experiment with, it is a

81 The animation sculpture

material, one can work with: Technology cannot be an end in itself, only a means to an end. Animation can use new technologies if it stills faithful to its basic principle of creating movement. Today with the proliferation of animation apps to computers or mobiles, it attracts youth to the medium, but to animate is a hard process, is too slow to many students… So I like the idea of expanded animation since the animation as creation of movement is still there, not moving graphics. (Viveiros, 2020, Appendix I) Dr. Birgitta Hosea also shares this idea: I always think the technology is just a tool. You can create very sophisticated ideas with simple tools if you put your mind to it. The idea and how much thought you have put into it is the most important aspect for me. (Hosea, 2020, Appendix I) On the one hand, I tend to agree that primary aspect should be the idea and the experience, but looking at the analyzed examples and the historical overview, technology was always an important part of the process and has limited or extended the possibilities of the medium. And it seems that with the development of these technologies, the nearer we get to achieve a fully immersive experience, the harder the documentation and the archiving of these intangible experiences becomes. Working in the area between animation practice and performance, Dr. Birgitta Hosea shares her experience with that issue: As for archiving – its very hard. I have often got very excited about a project and forgotten to take decent photographs. [... ] However, there are times you just can’t fully capture an experience in a photograph – particularly if you are working with a high dynamic range of light levels or holographic experiences. The question of documentation got me interested in documenting performance through non-photographic processes like drawings which record the traces of movement or silhouettes. (Hosea, 2020, Appendix I) In relation to the project "Cornucopia", the evaluation of the four experts can be summed up as rather positive. Prof. Dr. Ovtcharov evaluates it as Cornucopia" is looking for a middle ground: on the one hand, from the unexpected form of the image-carrying object, on the other – the subjects are close to traditional cinema. The control on the part of the viewer is expressed in the position in space, in the choice of perspectives and closeness. Probably in the future development of storyline two and three, which are now described only as a synopsis, the search for recognizable images will be sought again. They will give a new read to already known images, put them in a new context. In essence, "Cornucopia" is a kind of postmodern work that puts humanity's previous artistic experience in a new context through modern technology. The coincidence of combinations that might arise from the meeting of images can further contribute to different interpretations of the work.

82 The animation sculpture

(Ovtcharov, 2020, Appendix I) Dr. Birgitta Hosea outlines: I think it’s a very interesting idea and don’t think you need to change anything. I like the reference to the origins of animation and also the way in which you set up the expectation that this will be a literal bringing to life of the original plate, but then the visitor is surprised. It is well thought through both conceptually and technically. Well done! (Hosea, 2020, Appendix I)

Dr. Paulo Viveiros considers the project "Cornucopia" as very interesting and comments: The animated storyboard is perfect, congratulations. The only doubt I have is if the vase is to small in order to see the overall sequences. Because is not a flat screen too, as far as I understood, we the viewers we will see the animation in the vase, not in a projection through the vase in a big screen in the exhibition room. (Viveiros, 2020, Appendix I)

Stefan Stratil outlines his feedback as follows: The animation sculpture project seems very interesting and promising. The idea to animate an object from the inside with a three-dimensional rear projection is for sure a step towards the future of animation. Probably the installation will have to be displayed in a darkened room so that the illusion of a real vase rotating will work out properly and the attention is fully on the animated object and not on the construction. I like the idea that the animation consists of ancient sequential drawings that originally were depicted on such a vase. I think the storyline should stay simple in style and narration so that this unity of the object and the narration will not be disturbed. There should be sound to strengthen the illusion of a turning object. (Stratil, 2020, Appendix I)

Using the valuable feedback, I gained through the communication with the experts, I am planning to implement some of the ideas and suggestions that were offered. In the evaluation of the results and for my further studies on that subject, should be taken into account that these interviews were taken and reflect a European perspective. Therefore, they are limited to reflect global knowledge about the hybrid medium of animation sculpture. I tried to compensate that by bringing more diversity in the analyzed examples.

83 The animation sculpture

6. Results and conclusion

After examining the rich history of the symbiosis between three-dimensional objects and animation and collecting some common characteristics of this medium in the vibrant practice of several contemporary artists, I would like to go back to my initial research questions: What is an "animation sculpture" and can it be important as a distinctive art form in the context of visual and participatory arts? As we could observe from the historical overview: the historical path of the animation has always been connected with three-dimensional objects from the first animation vase until the projection mapping. We could dare to say that the Zoetrope and the Praxinoscope were the equivalents of the TV set in the 70s. Every household had one; everyone could experience motion pictures at their home. The objects were carefully made in special boxes, with lithographed stripes with drawings. Addition- ally, the audience could interact with these objects and determine the speed of the moving images. The animation, the object and the apparatus were united in one piece. The cinema hid the apparatus, the object behind the white screen. The focus was on a collective and immersive experience with a beginning and an end. One could not take it home, play with it and touch it. Cinema is an event. Expanded cinema practice exposed and brought back the apparatus in the spotlight and invited cinema into the gallery space. And when the TV set appeared in every house, and artists start to use it as a physical object in their artistic practice, the new term "video sculpture" was born, because it was new and unseen. But it results that the animation sculpture is actually a very old hybrid medium, it has always been there, and it has been developing on a parallel path. Of course, we could say animation sculpture is a type of "expanded animation", but I tend to disagree on some points. Expanded animation has its origin in the term "expanded cinema" and it includes all types of contact with animation that exceed the classical cinematic experience. But animation, merged with a three-dimensional physical object with interactive elements, existed before there was cinema and before there was expanded cinema. Hence now animation is expanding out of polite- ness to film studies. I can understand as well that the comparatistic approach is an appropriate way of doing good criticism and agree with Deleuze when he claims that: the encounter between two disciplines doesn't take place when one begins to reflect on the other, but when one discipline realizes that it has to resolve, for itself and by its own means, a problem similar to one confronted by the other. (Deleuze & McMuhan, 1998, p. 49) Therefore, animation studies as an interdisciplinary field is approaching the ques-

84 The animation sculpture

tion about expanded animation, taking into an account the means of animation theory and animation itself. According to the definitions of animation I revisited in the first chapter, several characteristics resulted as essential to animation as medium:  Frame-by-frame aspect / working on the level of the frame  Constructed nature of the image (hand-made or generated)  Movement or visual change I also studied the different definitions of sculpture and its primary features:  Sculpture as being three-dimensional object or body  Occupies real space  Everything is sculpture when the artist decides to call it sculpture Hence, it could be concluded that for something to be an "animation sculpture", should possess all these properties. Therefore, animation sculpture is a three-dimensional object or body that is merged with the experiencing of moving or changing images with constructed nature (hand- made or generated) and whose author decides to call it that way. Of course, this attempt of a definition should not be so strictly taken, as art is fluid and there can not be and shouldn't be a strict line between artistic practices. As Gilles Deleuze comments: "There is no work (oeuvre) which does not have its beginning and end in other arts" (Deleuze & McMuhan, 1998, p. 49). And the works of art are also not isolated in the art field; they have their beginnings or their ends in the development of technology or engineering. Some might argue that just because someone uses Victorian optical toys in contemporary art practice, does not mean this deserves to be treated as distinctive art- form. But the employing of the Zoetrope or Praxinoscope in art works does not need to be seen as a retrograde technicity from the distant pre-cinematic past. Here I agree with Thomas Elsaesser, who outlines that: apparent ‘returns’ […] need not be plotted on a chronological timeline and therefore need not be seen as returns at all, but instead, appear as ever-present resources that film-makers and artists are able to deploy as options. (Elsaesser, 2016, p. 201) Animation sculpture could also be called "video art" or "video sculpture", but in this case we see again that this is just partly applicable, as in many examples of the case studies (Mat Collishaw, Bill Brand), the animation in the sculpture is not a video. And like the term video sculpture or kinetic sculpture exist to refer to certain artistic practices, I consider possible to have a distinct term to refer to works that combine animation and sculpture, as these artistic practices do exist as well. My interest in the merging between animation and sculpture is not on merely nomenclature level. So I am continuing with my next question. What common aspects can be found between the artistic practices of contemporary art-

85 The animation sculpture

ists working with animation sculpture? Perhaps we could get a better overview of some of these aspects, I analyzed in this research collected in the following table. I will outline the characteristics of animation sculpture, that we studied in the previous chapters. Each one of the case studies and my own artistic projects was analyzed according to those features and confronted with the definition of animation, sculpture and the other main questions of the research. What Will Come ... Come What Will Fall All Things of Anima Rediscovering light and darkness Living between machine The Dialogue Line Describing a Cone RINGGINGBLING Masstransiscope Kopfkino Outlander The Cornucopia

Essential features / animation

Frame-by-frame aspect / working on the level of the frame

Constructed nature of the image (hand-made or generated)

Movement or visual change

Essential features / sculpture

Three-dimensional object or body

Occupies real space

The artist’s intention for an object to be sculpture

Further characteristics to test

Technicity

Remediation

Limitation of the narrative possibilities through the form

Interactivity

Rotation

Repetition

Brevity

Table 1. The relation between tested characteristics and Case studies.

86 The animation sculpture

On Table 1, we see that all of the case studies are bound to the characteristics we defined as essential for both art-practices: animation and sculpture. We also can see that the technicity feature is also present in every project. The rest of the tested features are only sporadically present. With the help of this table, we could answer some of the other research questions. Is a certain technicity or technicality always present? In the interview with Dr. Birgitta Hosea, she outlines that for her technology is merely a tool and comes as a secondary to process, ideas and experiences. She shares that: You can create very sophisticated ideas with simple tools if you put your mind to it. The idea and how much thought you have put into it is the most important aspect for me. (Hosea, 2020, Appendix I) Many scholars have claimed that animation can not be experienced without a certain apparatus. We saw in the case of Akinori Goto, this apparatus does not necessarily have to be some kind of technology, this could be sunlight and the movement of the wrist. But still, to be able to experience this illusion of movement we nevertheless need some sort of mechanical or digital technology to power or trigger the animation. Therefore, the animation sculpture is also bound to a certain technicity. Does something in the "montage" of the moving images change, when we have animation cinema in a three-dimensional object? Through the conducted practical experiments and the interviews with the experts, it could be concluded that there are certain changes that should be taken in the art of editing the animation. Classical cinematographic transitions like zooming in and out, cut between long-shots and close-ups are more appropriate for flat shapes. In a curved form, if the editing links follow the surface of the object smoothly, the montage could contribute better for the reading of the work from the audience.

Are there any limitations of the narrative possibilities because of the physical form? As we see on Table 1 all the works that use zoetropic principle or any other principle where the animation is produced through the physical body of the object we face limitation in the narrative – in most of the cases the time for the narrative is very narrow. Some artists fully employ these limitations for enhancing their idea (like Mat Collishaw). But when the work is using digital technology for reproducing the moving images, the narrative possibilities are growing. One is not restricted in time and could play any content. The artists can even create different narrative possibilities that depend on the viewer. Are rotation, repetition and brevity also relevant vital aspects of the animation sculpture? After exploring some examples, it could be observed that the element of rotation is not a vital aspect, but it still tends to appear in a lot of works. Similar to the narrative limitations, the brevity characteristic only appears in some works where the illusion of movement is produced employing the physical body of the sculpture.

87 The animation sculpture

But the repetitive element is present in every discussed work, due to the linear character of the animation and because the animation content is previously created and is not being regularly and newly generated through a constant data-flow. Judging by the developments of the deep-learning, it is not so improbable that this could soon become a reality. But how prepared are the galleries and museums to face a more complex technology is a different question. As curator of a gallery that exhibits expanded animation and animation installations, Stefan Stratil shares his perspective: Due to the fact that the ASIFAKEIL installations are supposed to run reliably for two months without special maintenance we mostly try to keep the technical aspects simple if possible. (Stratil, 2020, Appendix I) So there are additionally some practical issues that should be taken into account. But in general, if I may speculate about some future developments of the art form, probably one of the important changes would be the interaction. It is probable that with the fast sensor technology, a more tactile and more interactive work would appear. On what level this interaction will be and if the user would be able to generate his or her own plot or content is hard to predict. In the interview with Prof. Dr. Svetoslav Ovtcharov he expressed his uncertainty about the productive side if art turns "into a tangible game of user's imagination" (Ovtcharov, 2020, Appendix I). He also outlines that virtual reality is a step towards "bringing the consumer (the viewer) to experience the proposed situation fully" (ibid. Appendix I). Concerning the material side, Dr. Paulo Viveiros sees an opportunity for creating immaterial sculptural forms through animation and VR: Today, with the technology we have, we don’t need anymore the “frame” or the “box” (the TV set, or the screen), we can sculpt only with signals, that´s the case with augmented reality, or VR, we built new environments with the image only. That’s why animation can be used in doing that kind of experiments. (Viveiros, 2020, Appendix I) One of the main hypothesis in this thesis was hard to be examined: "the animation sculpture is a haptic and sensorial experience". We can agree that animation is a visual art, but when it starts to enter in the haptic sensorial experience, we have a rather negative result (See Table 1). Most of the analyzed works, including my own artistic practice, do not offer physical interaction or physical contact with the object. Due to the current dramatic situation in society because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the recommendatory avoidance of any haptical experiences with any surfaces there are realistic chances that in the proximate future art, sculpture and animation will remain in the digital realm. In this times, the question of having a sharing community and Online learning and

88 The animation sculpture

teaching possibilities became increasingly important. This leads me to the next research question: How do technological developments and open-source platforms like VVVV enable artists to reach to the hybrid medium – animation sculpture? A lot of animation artists and sculptors are not programmers, so having an open- source tools and what is more important a community of coders and engineers like VVVV who share their experience and collaborate can be very fruitful for these art practices. VVVV offers a way of creating animation and connecting multiple devices, even for people who don't have previous experience with animation. There are many others that work on the same level, like touch designer or pure data. But in the exploration of its possibilities, I believe we are still at the stage where this interactive tools are merely in the area of the attraction. Nevertheless as Prof. Dr. Ovtcharov outlines in our interview "if the element of attraction does not exist, the newly offered art of motion pictures may soon disappear" (Ovtcharov, 2020, Appendix I). And when George Griffin comments on the artistic practice of "concrete animation", I tend to adopt these observations for the animation sculpture: By building complex environments and contraptions which are unwieldy, clanky, and not easily portable, designed to investigate the essential mechanisms of perception in motion, these artists are becoming the architects of animation. Just as pilgrims in an earlier age flocked to magnificent cathedrals to actively witness a unique experience, we can expect to visit spaces of controlled intermittent observation, where image and sculpture spring to life as we physically move […] over and under animating demimondes of synthetic time. (Griffin, 2007, p. 270)

89 The animation sculpture

List of Figures

Fig. 01. Pietà. Michelangelo Buonarroti. Photo by Juan M. Romero 9 https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B6mische_Piet%C3%A0#/media (accessed on 20.04.2020) Fig. 02. David. Donatello. Photo by Patrick A. Rodgers 10 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donatello_-_David_-_Florença.jpg (accessed on 20.04.2020) Fig. 03. Joseph Cornell. "Magic Soap Bubble Set". 1940 11 https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/joseph-cornell-1903-1972- magic-soap-bubble-5684055-details.aspx (accessed on 20.04.2020) Fig. 04. Marcel Duchamp with his ready-made "Bicycle Wheel" 11 https://www.artsy.net/artwork/julian-wasser-marcel-duchamp-duchamp- retrospective-pasadena-art-museum (accessed on 20.04.2020) Fig. 05. One Minute Sculptures. 1997. Courtesy of Erwin Wurm 12 https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/wurm-one-minute-sculptures-p82013 (accessed on 11.03.2020) Fig. 06. The goblet discovered in the Burnt City 18 https://touriar.com/article/Share-e-Sookhte-a-city-full-of-mysteries (accessed on 19.10.2019) Fig. 07. Reproduction of the drawing on a pottery vessel found in Shahr-i Sokhta, Iran. 18 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vase_animation.svg (accessed on 19.10.2019) Fig. 08. Phénakisticope and it's usage 21 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=83098956 (accessed on 15.12.2019) Fig. 09. Phenakisticope disc, 1860, Paris. Cinémathèque française | Photo: Dabrowski, S. 22 https://www.cinematheque.fr/fr/catalogues/appareils/collection/phenakistiscope- disque-de-ap-95-1696.html (accessed on 15.12.2019) Fig. 10. William Lincoln patented the zoetrope as a toy in 1867 23 https://www.stephenherbert.co.uk/wheelZOETROPEpart1.htm (accessed on 16.12.2019) Fig. 11. Zoetrope stripe "PRIME DU FIGARO", May Charles W. 91,5x 9,2 cm, 1868, Paris. 24 https://www.cinematheque.fr/fr/catalogues/appareils/ (accessed on 16.12.2019) Fig. 12. Stereoscopic zoetrope by E.-J. Marey, Movement (1894; Arno Press, 1972) 25 https://photobibliothek.ch/seite004a1.html (accessed on 16.12.2019) Fig. 13. The photosculpture studio of François Willème 26

90 The animation sculpture

https://onthisdateinphotography.com/2017/05/27/may-27/ (accessed on 20.12.2019) Fig. 14. Unfinished photosculpture 26 https://frenchsculpture.org/en/sculpture/4264-unfinished-photosculpture- portrait-head-of-a-woman (accessed on 20.12.2019) Fig. 15. Stripe for praxinoscope, Émile Reynaud, 1878, Paris, France. 27 https://www.cinematheque.fr/fr/catalogues/appareils/ (accessed on 11.03.2020) Fig. 16. Simple Praxinoscope 27 https://www.cinematheque.fr/fr/catalogues/appareils/ (accessed on 11.03.2020) Fig. 17. Electric Praxinoscope. 27 https://www.cinematheque.fr/fr/catalogues/appareils/ (accessed on 11.03.2020) Fig. 18. The Praxinoscope theater. The apparatus. 28 https://www.cinematheque.fr/fr/catalogues/appareils/ (accessed on 11.03.2020) Fig. 19. The Praxinoscope theater. The apparatus. 28 https://www.cinematheque.fr/fr/catalogues/appareils/ (accessed on 11.03.2020) Fig. 20. The Projection Praxinoscope. Émile Reynaud (1882). Photo: MdC. 29 https://visitmuseum.gencat.cat/en/museu-del-cinema-col-leccio-tomas-mallol/ object/praxinoscopi-de-projeccio (accessed on 11.03.2020) Fig. 21. Mutoscope. Appartaus. 1917 30 https://www.cinematheque.fr/fr/catalogues/appareils/collection/folioscopeap- 95-1771.html (accessed on 05.04.2020) Fig. 22. The Mutoscope cards. 30 https://www.cinematheque.fr/fr/catalogues/appareils/collection/folioscopeap- 94-1159.html (accessed on 05.04.2020) Fig. 23. Theo Jansen with one of his kinetic sculptures 31 https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/sculptural-species-strandbeest-dream- machines-theo-jansen (accessed on 10.05.2020) Fig. 24. VanDerBeek's "Movie Drome" 1963-1965 33 https://www.artforum.com/print/201407/live-and-direct-cinema-as-a- performing-art-47842 (accessed on 10.05.2020) Fig. 25. VanDerBeek outside of his "Movie Drome" 33 https://www.dailyserving.com/2010/01/anticipate-difficulty/ (accessed on 10.05.2020) Fig. 26. TV8-301 by Sony 1960 35 https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18796291/ (accessed on 19.04.2020) Fig. 27. From Mike to Marshall with Love (video). Roland Baladi, 1976 36 http://act.mit.edu/cavs/group/0404ea25-f0ac-48df-8972-faf9946b05d6 (accessed on 19.04.2020) Fig. 28. Singing Busts in The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, California. 37 https://www.flickr.com/photos/harshlight/16633878467/ (accessed on 19.04.2020)

91 The animation sculpture

Fig. 29. Visualisation. Disney pattent. 38 https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/9c/99/32/ 25f3bac842ef01/US5325473.pdf (accessed on 19.04.2020) Fig. 30. “What Will Come (Has Already Come)” 2017 by William Kentridge 40 https://www.mariangoodman.com/artists/49-william-kentridge/works/25081/ (accessed on 23.01.2020) Fig. 31. Examples of Chinese cylindrical anamorphosis. Painting on paper. 41 Win-Li period (1573-1619) Baltrušaitis, Jurgis. 1977. Anamorphic Art. New York: Harry N. Abrams. p.160, p.161, p.166 (accessed on 23.01.2020) Fig. 32. William Kentridge "Black Box / Chambre Noir" 42 Auping, Michael, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Rudolf Frieling, Cornelia H. Butler, Judith B. Hecker, Klaus Biesenbach, and William Kentridge. 2009. William Kentridge: Five Themes. Har/DVD edition. edited by M. Rosenthal. San Francisco, Calif. : West Palm Beach, Fla. : Ne Haven: Yale University Press. Fig. 33. Mat Collishaw. "Magic Lantern", 2010 44 https://matcollishaw.com/works/magic-lantern/ (accessed on 12.03.2020) Fig. 34. Mat Collishaw. "All things fall", 2014 44 https://matcollishaw.com/works/all-things-fall/ (accessed on 12.03.2020) Fig. 35. Akinori Goto. "Rediscovering of Anima", 2017 46 https://vimeo.com/272616026 (accessed on 12.03.2020) Fig. 36. Der Gang des Menschen. 1895. Wilhelm Braune and Otto Fischer 46 https://www.cinematheque.fr/fr/catalogues/appareils/collection/sculpture- chronophotographiqueap-18-3276.html (accessed on 30.03.2020) Fig. 37. Akinori Goto. toki- BALLET #01. 2016 47 https://vimeo.com/193223122 (accessed on 05.02.2020) Fig. 38. Film Still "Living between light and darkness". Pedro Serrazina 48 https://vimeo.com/203752018 (accessed on 17.11.2019) Fig. 39. Film Still "Machine". Anna Vasof. 2015 49 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLXDBJd67no (accessed on 17.11.2019) Fig. 40. Stills of the video documentation of "Dialogue". Kumi Yamashita. 50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLMLt_7_Evs (accessed on 02.11.2019) Fig. 41. Line Describing a Cone. Anthony McCall 51 https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/mccall-line-describing-a-cone-t12031 (accessed on 02.11.2019)

92 The animation sculpture

Fig. 42. RINGGINGBLING exhibition view, Jerusalem, 2015 52 https://ringgingbling.com/jerusalem.html (accessed on 13.01.2020) Fig. 43. Video Still "Masstransiscope". Bill Brand 53 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-_eHFXqxpQ (accessed on 04.02.2020) Fig. 44. Bill Brand installing "Masstransiscope", 1980. 53 https://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?53337 (accessed on 04.02.2020) Fig. 45. 3D Rendering "Kopfkino". Photo: Ani Antonova 55 Fig. 46. Exhibition in the Museum de São Roque, (Lisbon, Portugal) in 2018. 56 Photo: Ani Antonova Fig. 47. 3D Renderings for the project "Cornucopia". Photo: Ani Antonova 58 Fig. 48. 3D Renderings for the project "Cornucopia". Photo: Ani Antonova 59 Fig. 49. CNC miling of the first layer out of Extruded polystyrene (XPS) and the toolpath of the rotary cutter. Photo: Ani Antonova 60 Fig. 50. Sanding the glued shape of the half vase. Photo: Ani Antonova 60 Fig. 51. Creating a shape negative out of gypsum and translating into a positive 61 of Polyester laminating resin. Photo: Ani Antonova Fig. 52. Deep drawing the shape of 3mm Plexiglass. Photo: Ani Antonova 62 Fig. 53. The final form of the sculpture. Photo: Ani Antonova 63 Fig. 54. RPLIDAR A1 . 64 http://bucket.download.slamtec.com/e680b4e2d99c4349c019553820904f 28c7e6ec32/LM108_SLAMTEC_rplidarkit_usermaunal_A1M8_v1.0_en.pdf (accessed on 13.12.2019) Fig. 55. Basic principle of laser triangulation. 64 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Basic-principle-of-laser-triangulation_ fig3_281744073 (accessed on 13.12.2019) Fig. 56. Laser Triangulation with RPLIDAR A1 65 http://bucket.download.slamtec.com/7fe7e3656e811ab1a645753af4080 9f05fa7ddcd/LD108_SLAMTEC_rplidar_datasheet_A1M8_v2.4_en.pdf (accessed on 13.12.2019) Fig. 57. The covered perimeter by the laser. The person is in the inactive area (above 2,5 m). 66 Photo: Ani Antonova Fig. 58. The covered perimeter by the laser. The person is in the active area (under 2,5 m). 66 Photo: Ani Antonova Fig. 59. Front and back side of the secondary 3D Model of the final object 67 with 8 calibration points. Photo: Ani Antonova Fig. 60. 2D mesh warpings. Photo: Ani Antonova 68 Fig. 61. VVVV patch of the whole program. Photo: Ani Antonova 68 Fig. 62. Technical setup "Cornucopia". Photo: Ani Antonova 69 Fig. 63. Visual tests with Indian ink "Cornucopia". Photo: Ani Antonova 70 Fig. 64. Interaction test "Cornucopia". Photo: Ani Antonova 79

93 The animation sculpture

Bibliography

Animation | Origin and meaning of animation by Online Etymology Dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved January 2, 2020, from https://www.etymonline.com/word/ animation#etymonline_v_26294 Baltrušaitis, J. (1977). Anamorphic art. Harry N. Abrams. Beckman, K. (2014). Animating Film Theory: An Introduction. In Animating filmtheory (pp. 1–22). Duke University Press. Belloir, D. (1981). Cahiers du Cinéma: Dominique Belloir. Vidéo Art Explorations. Editions de l’Etoile. Bendazzi, G. (2015). Animation: A World History: Volume I: Foundations - The Golden Age. CRC Press. Benjamin, W. (2002). Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner Reproduziertbarkeit. In Medienästhetische Schriften (4th ed.). Suhrkamp Verlag. Berg, S. (2009). Erwin Wurm (E. Wurm, Ed.). DuMont. Brand, B. (2013). Reinstalling Masstransiscope [Interview]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-_eHFXqxpQ Buchan, S. (2006). The Animated Spectator: Watching the Quay Brothers’ ‘Worlds.’ In D. Surman & P. Ward (Eds.), Animated Worlds (pp. 15–38). Indiana University Press; JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt22p7j2j Buchan, S. (2013). Pervasive Animation. Routledge. Carpenter, R. (1960). Greek Sculpture: A Critical Review (First Edition edition). University of Chicago Press. Cholodenko, A. (2014). “First Principles” of Animation. In K. R. Beckman (Ed.), Animating Film Theory (pp. 68–81). Duke University Press. Christov-Bakargiev, C. (2010). Über Trännen und Risse. Die Kunst von William Kentridge. In M. Auping (Ed.), William Kentridge—Fünf Themen (pp. 110–154). Hatje Cantz. Cole, W. (1963). The Theatre Projects of Walter Gropius. Educational Theatre Journal, 15(4), 311–317. JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/3204848 Crary, J., Baker, G., Bois, Y., Buchloh, B. H. D., & Dickerman, L. (1992). Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century (New Ed edition). MIT Press. Dali, S. (1993). The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí (Reprint edition). Dover Publications. Darley, A. (2016). Bones of Contention: Thoughts on the Study of Animation: Animation. https://doi.org/10.1177/1746847706068902

94 The animation sculpture

Deleuze, G., & McMuhan, M. (1998). The Brain Is the Screen: Interview with Gilles Deleuze on “The Time-Image.” Discourse, 20(3), 47–55. JSTOR. Denslow, P. (1998). What is animation and who needs to know? An essay on definitions. In J. Pilling (Ed.), A Reader In Animation Studies (pp. 1–4). Indiana University Press. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/40033 Diephuis, J., Hagler, J., Lankes, M., & Wilhelm, A. (Eds.). (2019). Expanded Animation: The Anthology: Mapping an Unlimited Landscape. Hatje Cantz. Dobson, N. (2009). Historical Dictionary of Animation and Cartoons. Scarecrow Press. Droth, M. (2018). Things of Beauty Growing Study Day: Martina Droth. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=86F5eUi5M5w Dulac, N., & Gaudreault, A. (2006). Circularity and Repetition at the Heart of the Attraction: Optical Toys and the Emergence of a New Cultural Series. In W. Strauven (Ed.), The Cinema of Attractions Reloaded (pp. 227–244). Amsterdam University Press; JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt46n09s.17 Elsaesser, T. (2016). Media archaeology as symptom. New Review of Film and Television Studies, 14(2), 181–215. https://doi.org/10.1080/17400309.2016. 1146858 Frieling, R. (2010). Gehen / Sehen. Technologie und Handeln in William Kentridges filmischen Werken. In M. Rosenthal, M. Auping, W. Kentridge, Exhibition William Kentridge: Five Themes, & Albertina (Eds.), William Kentridge—Fünf Themen (pp. 154–194). Hatje Cantz. Galloway, A. R. (2014). Polygraphic Photography and the Origins of 3-D Animation. In K. R. Beckman (Ed.), Animating Film Theory (pp. 54–67). Duke University Press. Gaycken, O. (2014). “A Living, Developing Egg Is Present before you”: Animation, Scientific Visualisation, Modeling. In K. R. Beckman (Ed.), Animating Film Theory (pp. 68–81). Duke University Press. Giedion, S. (1954). Walter Gropius, work and teamwork. Reinhold Pub. Corp. Griffin, G. (2007). Concrete Animation. Animation, 2(3), 259–274. https://doi. org/10.1177/1746847707083421 Gunning, T. (2012). Hand and Eye: Excavating a New Technology of the Image in the Victorian Era. Victorian Studies, 54(3), 495–516. JSTOR. https://doi. org/10.2979/victorianstudies.54.3.495 Herbert, S. (2013a). From Daedaleum to Zoetrope,’ ... The most wonderful antics that ever a nightmare invented to puzzle the brain. https://www.stephenherbert. co.uk/wheelZOETROPEpart1.htm

95 The animation sculpture

Herbert, S. (2013b). The Phenakistiscope, and Stroboscopic Disc. https://www.stephenherbert.co.uk/phenakPartOne.htm Hopkins, R. (2012). Sculpture and Space. In M. Kieran & D. Lopes (Eds.), Imagination, Philosophy and the Arts (1 edition, pp. 272–290). Routledge. Horrocks, R. (2013). Art That Moves: The Work of Len Lye. Auckland University Press. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/oeawat/detail. action?docID=1531092 Hosea, B. (2012). Substitutive bodies and constructed actors: A practice-based investigation of animation as performance. University of Arts London. Hosea, B. (2019). Paracinema and the Dematerialization of Animation. In J. Diephuis, J. Hagler, M. Lankes, & A. Wilhelm (Eds.), Expanded Animation: The Anthology: Mapping an Unlimited Landscape (pp. 40–51). Hatje Cantz. Hospitalier, É. (1903). Congrès international d’électricitè (Paris, 18-25 août 1900). Gauthier-Villars. Husbands, L., & Ruddell, C. (2018). Approaching Animation and Animation Studies. In N. Dobson, A. H. Roe, & A. Ratelle (Eds.), The Animation Studies Reader (pp. 5–16). Bloomsbury Academic. Jain, & C, J. M. (2009). Textbook Of Engineering Physics. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd. Kentridge, W. (2018). William Kentridge – ‘Art Must Defend the Uncertain’ | Artist Interview | TateShots (Tate, London, Interviewer) [Interview]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dnweo-LQZLU Langer, S. K. (1953). Feeling and Form (First Edition edition). Macmillan Pub Co. Leslie, E. (2014). Animation and History. In K. R. Beckman (Ed.), Animating Film Theory (pp. 25–36). Duke University Press. Lissel, E., Jutz, G., & Jukic, N. (Eds.). (2019). Reset the Apparatus!: The Persistence of the Photographic and the Cinematic in Contemporary Art. De Gruyter. Lomax, P., & Parker, Z. (1995). Accounting for Ourselves: The problematic of representing action research. Cambridge Journal of Education, 25(3), 301–314. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305764950250303 Lucie-Smith, E. (1983). A History of Industrial Design. Phaidon Press. Lye, L. (1984). Figures of motion: Len Lye, selected writings (R. Horrocks & W. Curnow, Eds.). Auckland : Auckland University Press : Oxford University Press. https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/21323525 LWZ. (2019). RingGingBling [Personal communication]. MacDonald, S. (1992). A Critical Cinema 2: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers. University of California Press. Mannoni, L. (2000). The Great Art Of Light And Shadow: Archaeology of the Cinema

96 The animation sculpture

(R. Crangle, Trans.; 1 edition). University of Exeter Press. Marey, E.-J., & Langley, S. P. (1894). Le mouvement. G. Masson, éditeur, Librairie de l’Académie de Médecine ... Marian Goodman Gallery. (2006). William Kentridge: The Magic Flute: Drawings and Projections. Press Reliese. 2. McCall, A. (2012). "Anthony McCall: Five Minutes of Pure Sculpture | Film zur Ausstellung / Film on the exhibition". Retrieved Mai 15, 2020 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfOdk11pxSc. Miller, N. (2019). The Temporality of Seeing: Reconsidering the Origins of the Phenakistiscope. Animation Studies 2.0. https://blog.animationstudies.org/?p=2997 MoMA. (1967, February 8). The Museum of Modern Art Archives. MUTOSCOPES. Press Reliese. 1967. Monroe, M. M., & Redmann, W. G. (1991). Apparatus and method for projection upon a three-dimensional object. Patent Number: 5,325,473. Date of Patent: June. 28,1994. The Walt Disney Company. Pummell, S. (1996). Will the Monster Eat the Film? Or The Redefinition of Animation 1980-94. In M. O’Pray (Ed.), The British Avant-Garde Film: 1926-1995: An Anthology of Writings (pp. 299–315). University of Luton Press. Renan, S. (1967). An introduction to the American underground film (1st edition). Dutton. Rogers, L. R. (2019). Sculpture | Definition, Types, Techniques, Elements, & Facts | Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/art/sculpture Rutherford, A. (2014). Space, Body and Montage in the Hybrid Installation Work of William Kentridge. Animation, 9(1), 81–101. https://doi. org/10.1177/1746847713517194 Sacks, O. (2017). The River of Consciousness (First Edition edition). Knopf. Scheugl, H., & Schmidt, E. (1974). Eine Subgeschichte des Films: Lexikon d. Avantgarde-, Experimental- u. Undergroundfilms (1. Aufl edition). Suhrkamp. Schuler, R. K. (2015). Seeing Motion: A History of Visual Perception in Art and Science. Berlin/Boston, GERMANY: De Gruyter, Inc. Serrazina, P. (2017). Living between light and darkness—Vivendo entre luz e sombra. https://vimeo.com/247497747 Shiers, G. (1996). Early Television: A Bibliographic Guide to 1940 (1 edition).Routledge. Sifianos, G. (1995). The Definition of Animation: A Letter from Norman McLaren. Animation Journal, 3(2), 62–66.

97 The animation sculpture

Sobieszek, R. A. (1980). Sculpture as the Sum of Its Profiles: François Willème and Photosculpture in France, 1859-1868. The Art Bulletin, 62(4), 617–630. JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/3050057 Société française de photographie. (1880). Bulletin de la Société française de photographie. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1082683 Strauven, W. (2011). The Archaeology of the Touch Screen. Maske Und Kothurn. https://www.academia.edu/26430412/The_Archaeology_of_the_Touch_ Screen Svankmajer, J. (2014). Touching & Imagining. I.B. Tauris. Tarkovsky, A. (1989). Sculpting in Time: Reflections on the Cinema (K. Hunter-Blair, Trans.). University of Texas Press. Tate, London. (2020). Sculpture – Art Term. Tate. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art- terms/s/sculpture Thomson, C. (2011). Felt: Fluxus, Joseph Beuys, and the Dalai Lama (NED- New edition). University of Minnesota Press; JSTOR. https://www.jstor. org/stable/10.5749/j.cttttwp1 Tomkins, C. (1998). Duchamp: A Biography (Reprint edition). Holt Paperbacks. Truckenbrod, J. (2013). The Paradoxical Object: Video Film Sculpture. Black Dog Press. Underkoffler, J. S. (1999). The I/O bulb and the luminous room [Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology]. https://dspace.mit.edu/ handle/1721.1/29145 Vasof, A. (2015). Machine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLXDBJd67no Vasof, A. (2017). Non-Stop Stop-Motion [Universität für Angewandte Kunst Wien]. http://zentrumfokusforschung.uni-ak.ac.at/index.php/projects/ phd/anna-vasof/ Walley, J. (2003). The Material of Film and the Idea of Cinema: Contrasting Practices in Sixties and Seventies Avant-Garde Film. October, 103, 15–30. JSTOR. Wells, B. (2011). Frame of reference: Toward a definition of animation. Animation Practice, Process & Production, 1, 11–32. https://doi.org/10.1386/ap3.1.1.11_1 Wells, P. (1998). Understanding Animation. Psychology Press. Wilson, E. (2018). ‘Diagrams of Motion’: Stop-Motion Animation as a Form of Kinetic Sculpture in the Short Films of Jan Švankmajer and the Brothers Quay. Animation, 13(2), 148–161. https://doi.org/10.1177/1746847718782890 Zielinski, S. (2013). "Exapnded Animation – A Short Genealogy in Words and Images." In Suzanne Buchan (Ed.) Pervasive Animation ( pp. 25-51). Routledge.

98 The animation sculpture

Appendix I. Interviews with experts

INTERVIEW WITH PROF. DR. SVETOSLAV OVTCHAROV Lecturer in Film Directing at the Department of Film and Television Directing and Animation at National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts, Bulgaria

1. With the advancing of various interactive technologies and the emerging of video installations and video sculptures since the 1970s, which have used monitors and television sets as a central sculptural element, this kind of hybrid art has evolved in a parallel reality with cinema. Some scholars define it as "expanded cinema". Are these artworks still related to the cinema or have they developed their own alphabet over time?

Svetoslav Ovtcharov: As a relatively new art, cinema is continuously developing its language. Sound, colour, wide-format, multi-channel mixing, multi-screens, 3D, etc. can be considered both as technical means and as components of the film language. None of the listed means can exist on its own without being placed in the context of its use. It is usual for such a new art form to develop its subspecies, "branches". We can look for the roots of cinema in photography, in the illustrated newspapers of the 19th century, in picture reports and we can look for the origins of this kind of hybrid art in cinema. It "is" and at the same time it "is not" cinema. Its very existence is an attempt to overcome the existing form and thus to create new content and meaning. It is natural for this kind of art to create a new model of reading the works, in which the alphabet of traditional cinema is only an auxiliary tool. In your project "Cornucopia" for example, there is a successful attempt to use icono- graphic symbols: to put familiar ceramic and pottery painted images into a new context, to form a new narrative organization and meaning.

2. Is the director's approach different if his or her work is intended for a gallery space?

Svetoslav Ovtcharov: The main difference is probably rooted in the fact that works intended for gallery space, have a clear segmentation of the viewers. If in a "normal, standard, cinema" a large percentage of the audience goes by accident, or under the influence of adver- tisements, then gallery visitors are people looking for certain types of art. The other

99 The animation sculpture

factor is that some galleries have "educated" their audience in the perception of a particular type of art, and this audience comes to see precisely that kind of art that they are looking for. The audience in the galleries is much more "prepared" for the works that await it there than the audience that visits regular cinemas, for example. In this sense, directors can rely on a "reading of their work" in-depth, understanding and sensing messages that require specific skills, knowledge and attitudes from the audience. On the other hand, this audience can also be very demanding. But this can as well result stimulating for the authors to put more efforts into their works. Cornucopia relies on a prepared audience who can read the characters encoded in it. This does not mean that the unprepared viewer will not have fun with the image on the vase and its transformation. Just the second type of viewer will not read the depth of the message that the first viewer will sense.

3. Nowadays, the screen can take on any shape, do you think that this change in shape affects the "montage" that need to be adapted to the physical body of the object?

Svetoslav Ovtcharov: Probably, the answer depends on the particular format and method of use. For example, there are dioramas in which the image is enclosed in a cylinder ten feet high. The public can observe the image mostly in a wide shot, and the transitions between scenes in the diorama are made through time changing (for example, in one scene is a day, in the other night and the editing transition is the time of twilight, a kind of "cross dissolve"). In small shapes that can be examined closely, as in "Cornucopia", mounting forms that are near to the classic ones are applicable. The editing transitions offered in the "Cornucopia" project are, of course, in the style of animation cinema, in which paradoxical editing links are the rule and not the exception. So, each form develops its own montage methods.

4. After the invention of the optical toys, such as Zoetrope, Phenakitiscope, Prax- inoscope, Nicolas Dulac and André Gaudreault outline some of the relevant principles "at the heart of the attraction": circularity, repetition, brevity, the possibility for the viewer to control the speed of the moving images and his or her physical contact with the object. These inventions (as well as the cinema) subsequently succeeded in going beyond mere "attraction". Would you agree that any new technical device or principle related to visual media at the beginning of its existence is merely an "attraction"?

Svetoslav Ovtcharov: "Cinema is the art for soldiers and servants", said Bernard Shaw. He was re- ferring not only to the audience of the first cinematic sessions but also to the fact that cinema was "chained" to its own nature, by its photographic es-

100 The animation sculpture

sence that led it inevitably to realism. This makes it incomparably "earthier" than music or literature. Attempts to use cinema (and also animation cinema, as in your project "Cornucopia") as an integral part of hybrid art, are precisely this desire to overcome this "earthiness" that lies in the nature of cinema. Any innovation in art is first perceived by its attractive (scandalous, unexpected) side. It then seeks to make sense of the process, both of production and the perception of the particular type of art. But if the element of attraction does not exist, the newly offered art of motion pictures may soon disappear.

5. Now a new VR wave is coming in, subsidies for developing VR movies are everywhere. Is there interest in your students for this type of production? How far can the viewer participate in the film?

Svetoslav Ovtcharov: The oneiric side of cinema has always captivated authors, audiences, and researchers of the arts. The ability to immerse yourself in reality to the fullest, experiencing the cinematic action as a "dream come true" is a cherished goal for many. Perhaps this explains some of the first attempts in virtual reality. They were in the direction of flying, the pursuit of that carefree sense of lightness that one experiences in a dream. Virtual reality is a step towards bringing the consumer (the viewer) to experience the proposed situation fully. Probably in certain types of cinema, in those who rely on mythological discourse or on a young audience, this will develop very rapidly. Whether these developments will be stable is difficult to predict. As an example, the 3D cinema only ten years ago was announced as the cinema of the future. But the need to use special gadgets to perceive it, as well as the audience's obsessive feeling as a "fish in an aquarium" gradually dampened the en- thusiasm of the 3D patriots. Today there is not a single 3D TV set on the market, for example. So when virtual reality comes out of its fairground stage and enters its realization as a method, it will be clear if there is a future for it.

As for the viewer's involvement in the drawing of the plot, the construction of his culmination, and basic thoughts (these), this is still at the beginning of his development. We can give an example with the role-playing computer games, in which the user chooses the type of character which to embody and the way he or she moves this character. However, there are still certain frames, outlining the terrain, the other characters one could meet, as well as some ultimate goals set by the game and not by the user. The moment at which art will turn into a tangible game of user's imagination may not be far off, but I'm not sure how productive it is for other subjects who do not participate in the specific oneiric experience of the VR user.

101 The animation sculpture

6. How would you evaluate the practical part at this stage? Do you have any suggestions on how can I improve the animation sculpture in the future development of the project and drawing the final animation?

Svetoslav Ovtcharov: "Cornucopia" is looking for a middle ground: on the one hand, from the unexpected form of the image-carrying object, on the other - the subjects are close to traditional cinema. The control on the part of the viewer is expressed in the position in space, in the choice of perspectives and closeness. Probably in the future development of storyline two and three, which are now described only as a synopsis, the search for recognizable images will be sought again. They will give a new read to already known images, put them in a new context. In essence, "Cornucopia" is a kind of postmodern work that puts humanity's previous artistic experience in a new context through modern technology. The coincidence of combinations that might arise from the meeting of images can further contribute to different interpretations of the work.

102 The animation sculpture

INTERVIEW WITH DR. PAULO RENATO DA SILVA GIL VIVEIROS Program Director for Bachelor and Master Studies in Animation Arts Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, Portugal

1. As head of the Animation Department in Universidade Lusofona, you are very much involved in the designing of the curriculum. You had decided that the subject “Hybrid spaces” (a subject that explores animation outside of the classical film production practice – combining technology, animation and materials and object) brings an essential set of skills for the future animation artists you are teaching. What was your motivation, and can you tell me some of your thoughts that led to this decision?

Paulo Viveiros: When we designed the Animation Arts MA’s curriculum our intention is to attract students from fine arts to experiment with animation. In that sense, we decided to open the animation to new fields of experimentation, we expanded the concept of animation to new technologies such as VR, augmented reality, installation art… The main idea was a response to what happen in the field of arts in its intersection with technology today, and we felt that this relationship can be done in university. Another idea is, obviously, to explore animation outside of traditional cinema.

2. I learned that you researched the work of Shigeko Kubota very thoroughly. Her works are pioneering in the area of video art and video sculpture. Would you say that in the milieu of animation art there is an equivalent of this kind of artistic practices? Can we say that something like “animation sculpture” also exists? Is animation slowly expanding into the gallery? (Comment: When I talk about animation sculpture I refer to a wide variety of combination of animation and three-dimensional objects- from Mat Collishaw, William Kentridge, Ana Vasof, Anthony McCall, Pedro’s sculpture for the Muse- um in Braganca etc.)

Paulo Viveiros: In fact, I spent ten years of life studying video art, in particular the work of Bill Viola. In that process, I found many other artists such as Nam June Paik, his wife Shigeko Kubota, Wolf Vostell and Gary Hill, among others. What interests me in their work, namely in Paik and Kubota, was the combination between art and engineering. They were true pioneers in the manipulation of the video signal and to include it in video sculpture. It attracts me, the way they used television sets to create antropomorphical figures and to reexpose the medium. Today, with the technology we have, we don’t need anymore the “frame” or the “box” (the TV set, or the screen), we can sculpt only with signals, that´s the case with augmented reality, or VR, we built new environments with the image only. That’s why animation can be used in doing that kind of experiments. You mentioned a few examples, those

103 The animation sculpture

artists create something new, as Paik and Kubota did, they used technology (and animation) in a way that is not expected, to produce the “accident”, the “noise”… on the contrary, the example of Takashi Murakami who creates animation to explore his artistic work is too much “contemporary” in the sense to be provocative or sen- sational, that is less interesting in an aesthetic point of view but very helpful in the point of view of mass media to open the art galleries doors to new artists.

3. In 2018 your students in Master Animation Arts presented their final projects that included augmented reality, mixed media animation with technology on the walls of an abandoned hospital. Do you see technology as an opportunity for animation to broaden, to inspire animation students to work with different technological gadgets and coding to convey their ideas and the students in technology to get in touch with the animation?

Paulo Viveiros: Technology, for me, is a material to experiment. Technology cannot be an end in itself, only a means to an end. Animation can use new technologies if it stills faithful to its basic principle of creating movement. Today with the proliferation of animation apps to computers or mobiles, it attracts youth to the medium, but to animate is an hard process, is too slow to many students… So I like the idea of expanded animation since the animation as creation of movement is still there, not moving graphics.

4. Apart from my theoretical research on the subject, I also created a prototype of an animation sculpture. How would you evaluate the work that is still in process?

Paulo Viveiros: It is very interesting Ani, I love it. But I have some remarks to make: the first one is the so-called “the first animation”, because in palaeolithic art we also have some engravings with movement too (I will send you some examples by WeTransfer); the second one is about the colors: the colors we see in the storyboard are the same you will use in the final animation? My doubt is about the “Greek sequence”, because they used the style of black figures and then the style of red figures. Of course, this is a minor question, but you have to be prepared to answer to your aesthetics options.

5. I would gladly hear some suggestions how can I make it better in the course of my future development of it and the process of animation. If there is something that was not so clear or understandable in the storyboard? Do you think it might be too distanced and I should add more personal elements in it?

Paulo Viveiros: The animated storyboard is perfect, congratulations. The only doubt I have is if the vase is to small in order to see the overall sequences. Because is not a flat screen too, as far as I understood, we the viewers we will see the animation in the vase, not in a projection through the vase in a big screen in the exhibition room.

104 The animation sculpture

INTERVIEW WITH DR. BIRGITTA HOSEA Artist, practice-based researcher and curator explores post-animation, performativity, hauntology, animism and materiality through video installation, animated performance art and experimental drawing on paper. School of Film, Media and Performing Arts Farnham, United Kingdom Position: Reader in Moving Image

1. Your artistic practice is bound to the idea of animation as an ephemeral experience, temporally limited and very often participative. You define it as post-animation. Why did you chose this very broad term and do labels bother you? How do you deal with the documentation and archiving of this intangible experience?

Birgitta Hosea: As I have worked on mainstream animation education courses since 2000, I found that my practice and research interests were very different to that of my colleagues. I felt like a bit of a weirdo and didn’t even always tell them or my students what I was doing in my own research. I didn’t feel that I could say with confidence that I am an animator, but my work is very influenced by animation and I even teach conventional character animation sometimes. This is why I started to say that my work is post-animation, because I didn’t think that I properly fitted the label of an animator and I wanted to experiment with animation as an idea. I notice that when I go out to social events, people often introduce me as a performance artist or a media artist, which are different labels. Lately, I’ve been calling myself a time-based media artist, which is an old term that people seem to understand. Labels don’t really interest me, but other people seem to need them to know where to fit you.

As for archiving – its very hard. I have often got very excited about a project and forgotten to take decent photographs. In my earlier works I didn’t have a decent camera and the DV files from my old digital video look poorer quality than the full HD files you get now. The documentation of some of my work is quite poor, I know. Now I try to remember to ask friends to take photos for me or, if I have a budget, pay for a photographer. However, there are times you just can’t fully capture an experience in a photograph – particularly if you are working with a high dynamic range of light levels or holographic experiences. The question of documentation got me interested in documenting performance through non-photographic processes like drawings which record the traces of movement or silhouettes.

2. In my attempt to work with expanded animation, the limitations of the available technology very much influenced some of the decisions on the sculptural shape of the work. As a curator at Ars Electronica, you have a lot of experience with expanded ani-

105 The animation sculpture

mation practice and the newest cutting edge technology. Do you think we are still not yet at the stage where this technology is so accessible for everyone, like for example, an Adobe After Effects or Blender for making 2D and 3D animations?

Birgitta Hosea: I always think the technology is just a tool. You can create very sophisticated ideas with simple tools if you put your mind to it. The idea and how much thought you have put into it is the most important aspect for me.

3. Could you share some of your thoughts about the future of animation? Will animation practice become a more transdisciplinary field where engineers and animation artists collaborate? Will coding be one of the essential skills in the future's animator toolkit?

Birgitta Hosea: I think its just not possible to know everything – you need to specialize. A lot of my students have been very interested in using analogue materials because they like the messiness and happy accidents that happen with natural media. But now I see people try to experiment with computer animation in the same way – trying to introduce messiness, imperfection and the unexpected through using noise, generative algorithms and ‘found’ data sources. I did learn coding at college – first HTML, then Lingo and then ActionScript – all now obsolete! If I had more time I would really like to sit down and properly learn more coding – but there is just not enough time in the day! At the moment I am working on a collaborative research project in haptic technology. It’s early stages, but we are looking at bringing some of the texture of the handmade and feeling of touch into digital technology.

Birgitta Hosea: Yes. You might like to read Paul Virillio’s book on War and Cinema which talks about why technology develops in particular ways. As someone who cares about environ- mental issues, it makes me annoyed how many screen technologies are just a quick fashion to sell more equipment and are then discarded for the next trend. If I get the

106 The animation sculpture

chance I’d like to work with more recycled technology.

5. When talking about the work of Anthony McCall "Long Film for Ambient Light", you discuss that in his work "cinema is reduced to its bare essentials - light changing, time and audience." How important is the apparatus in expanded animation practices?

Birgitta Hosea: For me its about the process, the experience, the ideas and not the equipment. If we can analyse the technologies we use and reframe them, then we can start to think of new technologies and new ways of working.

6. Apart from my theoretical research on the subject, I also created a prototype of an animation sculpture. How would you evaluate the work that is still in progress? I would gladly hear some suggestions on how can I make it better in the course of my future development of it and the process of animation.

Birgitta Hosea: I think it’s a very interesting idea and don’t think you need to change anything. I like the reference to the origins of animation and also the way in which you set up the expectation that this will be a literal bringing to life of the original plate, but then the visitor is surprised. It is well thought through both conceptually and technically. Well done!

107 The animation sculpture

INTERVIEW WITH STEFAN STRATIL Animation director, president of ASIFA Austria and curator of Asifakeil

1. As head of ASIFA Austria and curator of Asifakeil, you organize a lot of exhibition (100 in 11 years) related to expanded animation, presenting animation and animation installations in this tiny gallery space. Can you share some of your thoughts about how this project started and why do you think this hybrid art should have a home here in Vienna?

Stefan Stratil: Austria’s rich tradition in experimental film implies a lot of expanded animation that many artists continuously refer to in their works. ASIFA Austria’s history is specially connected to Maria Lassnig who used animation as an expansion of drawing and painting in her unique cinematic work. Both her films and the opportunity she gave to her students by founding an experimental animation studio at the University of Applied Arts in the 1980s evoked a much higher output of expanded animation art than there was or is in other countries with an animation industry background. The fact that there have already been 110 exhibitions by different artists under the general topic of animation art proves the huge potential of this art form.

2. Do you think the audience got somehow “educated” by the meeting with animation in a different than cinematic context? Do you think there is an audience for this kind of installations?

Stefan Stratil: Animation art in a gallery context is quite common nowadays, already when we started the ASIFAKEIL exhibitions in 2007 there were famous artists like William Kentridge who used animation in a gallery context with tremendous international success. The digital revolution lead to a pervasion of everyday life by animation and moving images in general, so animated pictures are everywhere from manuals to museums, from animated emojies to high end special effects in feature films.

3. Asifakeil has a particular shape itself. When you chose an artist to exhibit in Asifakeil, does he or she produce work, especially for the form of the space or do you search for already ready installations and animation sculptures?

Stefan Stratil: Both is possible but in general the unique shape of the room forces specific spacial solutions which finally add an extra quality to the installations.

108 The animation sculpture

4. In the last 11 years a lot of developments in the technology happened, do you notice some changes in the art of exhibiting “expanded animation” through those developments? Were there some limitations or challenges that were overcome?

Stefan Stratil: Due to the fact that the ASIFAKEIL installations are supposed to run reliably for two months without special maintenance we mostly try to keep the technical aspects simple if possible. Anyway there have been some important technical changes like a new generation of affordable wide angle beamers with a much higher luminosity than it used to be. Also projection mapping being used by artists lately is an example of technical development, it did not exist when we started in 2007.

5. Apart from my theoretical research on the subject, I also created a prototype of an animation sculpture. How would you evaluate the work that is still in progress? I would gladly hear some suggestions on how can I make it better in the course of my future development of it and the process of animation.

Stefan Stratil: The animation sculpture project seems very interesting and promising. The idea to animate an object from the inside with a three-dimensional rear projection is for sure a step towards the future of animation. Probably the installation will have to be displayed in a darkened room so that the illusion of a real vase rotating will work out properly and the attention is fully on the animated object and not on the construction. I like the idea that the animation consists of ancient sequential drawings that originally were depicted on such a vase. I think the storyline should stay simple in style and narration so that this unity of the object and the narration will not be disturbed. There should be sound to strengthen the illusion of a turning object.

109 The animation sculpture

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the following people and institutions for the support they offered through my research, writing and executing of the practical part of the project:

Dimiter Ovtcharov Antoni Raijekov Sebastian Babos Alexander Peev Nina Wlazny Christina Bierbaumer Ina Hristova Joan X. Vázquez Laurent Mannoni and La Cinemateque Française FH St. Pölten and my family

110