DOCSLIB.ORG

Lichtspiel: Contemporary Abstract Animation and Visual Music

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Lichtspiel: Contemporary Abstract Animation and Visual Music FILM AT REDCAT PRESENTS Lichtspiel: Contemporary Abstract Animation and Visual Music Tue Nov 3 | 8:30 pm Jack H. Skirball Series $9 [students $7, CalArts $5] Co-presented with Center for Visual Music Los Angeles Premieres This ravishing “play of light” explores rhythmic abstractions in the tradition of Oskar Fischinger and visual music animation. The centerpiece of the program is the Los Angeles debut of Joost Rekveld’s #37 (Netherlands, 2009, 35mm CinemaScope, 31 min.), a stunningly beautiful study of the propagation and diffraction of light through crystalline structures. Sure to bend more than a few minds, the lineup also offers award-winning animated shorts from around the world, most of which are screening in Los Angeles for the first time. Featured artists include Scott Draves, Robert Seidel, Steven Woloshen, Bärbel Neubauer, Thorsten Fleisch, Bret Battey, Michael Scroggins, Samantha Krukowski, Mondi, Devon Damonte, Scott Nyerges, Vivek Patel and Yusuke Nakajima. Highlighted as well is the final film by the late CGI wizard Richard “Doc” Baily. Lichtspiel showcases a variety of animation techniques, from handmade camera-less (hand-painted, taped and scratched) films to traditional drawn animation to live-object animation to microphotography and state-of-the-art 3D computer graphics. Visual music styles are just as varied, with some artists like Draves and Baily writing computer code to realize their visions, while others draw inspiration from the pioneering work of Fischinger or the cosmic meditations of Jordan Belson. In person: Joost Rekveld Program Program notes are adapted from the descriptions by the artists and Center for Visual Music. Screening formats are digital unless otherwise noted. Please note that the titles below are not listed in the order in which they will be presented. The program order will be confirmed closer to the date of the www.redcat.org | 1 event. #37 (Netherlands, 2009, 35mm Cinemascope, 31 min., color, sound) by Joost Rekveld Joost Rekveld’s latest in his ongoing series of films imagines a multi- dimensional universe – one inhabited by particles that act on their neighbors and organize themselves into constellations with varying levels of symmetry. The constellations produce simulated diffraction patterns, which in turn constitute the film’s images. The International Film Festival Rotterdam has hailed #37 as “an undeniable masterpiece.” Rekveld describes his body-of- work as inspired by the lesser frequented by-ways in the history of science and technology. More recently, his fascination with the spatial aspects of light and complex organization has prompted him to explore, in addition to his filmmaking, such new fields as cybernetics, artificial life and robotic architecture. Since 2008, the Dutch artist has headed the ArtScience Interfaculty of the Royal Conservatory and the Royal Academy in The Hague. Morphs of Pegasus (Germany, 2009, excerpt of work-in-progress, approx. 7 min., color, sound) by Bärbel Neubauer Considered one of Europe’s leading experimental animators, Bärbel Neubauer is as adept making handmade films, painting and scratching directly onto celluloid, as she is creating 3D digital abstract animation. The prolific artist has also composed music and her own soundtracks since 1991. Morphs of Pegasus, she says, “is a journey through planet-like worlds and objects of phantasy. There are no cuts; the spectator moves inside the space from one place to the next.” The Firebird (US, 2007, 4x3 version, 4:15 min., color, sound) by Scott Draves Music by Kenji Williams This homage to Igor Stravinsky’s 1910 symphony is itself an excerpt from Dreams in High Fidelity #2 – re-rendered at 2400x2400 resolution for full- dome projection, but scaled down from the planetarium version. Graphics were created by the open-source Electric Sheep, a cyborg mind consisting of 60,000 computers and people communicating with a genetic algorithm, developed by Scott Draves in 1999. Draves also created the Flame algorithm in 1992 and the Bomb visual-musical instrument in 1994. His work is permanently hosted on MoMA.org. xtacism (US, 2005, 5 min., color, sound) by Richard Baily with John Buchanan www.redcat.org | 2 Music by Richard Baily Xtacism was created with SPORE, the extraordinary CGI program developed by the late visual effects luminary Richard Baily (1953-2006). Baily called SPORE, a “software/aesthetic development project that [grew] out of a proprietary ultra high-speed particle renderer.” He said of xtacism: “There is no middle, beginning, end, it is like the river, it just keeps on going...” A CalArts alumnus, Baily founded his own visual effects animation company, Image Savant, in 1992. His work can be seen in feature films ranging from Fight Club (1999) to Superman Returns (2006), as well as in numerous title sequences, commercials and music videos, including for Madonna and Janet Jackson. Energie! (Germany, 2007, 5 min., sound) by Thorsten Fleisch This award-winning work takes the old cathode-ray technology of television and spins it into uncommon realms of visual wonder. Instead of the TV set’s controlled beam of electrons, photographic paper is exposed to uncontrolled high-voltage jolts. The outcome is time-lapse poetry that’s been literally charged into existence. Experimental film/videomaker Thorsten Fleisch often applies crystals, fire and electricity directly on 16mm film. futures (Germany, 2006, 4 min., color, sound) by Robert Seidel Music: zero 7 feat, José González, courtesy of Atlantic Records In futures, according to Robert Seidel: “You will see crushed things, completely abstracted… [coming] together and building up to something we all have seen before… Like our true wishes and desires… [taking] shape over time and [getting] clearer… followed by the next longing… Innuendos, artifacts and… rough synchronization add subtle emotions to the uncertain process that builds the morbid tableaux of all possible futures.” Seidel, who is Berlin-based, considers his work to be an exploration of “organic-digital graphics.” Adagio for Jon and Helena (US, 2009, 5 min., color) by Michael Scroggins Using instruments to compose abstract animation in real-time has been at the heart of Michael Scroggins’ work for over 30 years. The pioneer of absolute-animation performance and CalArts professor dedicates this “continuous-take digital recording from a live solo liquid light projection performance” to his “liquid light teachers Jon Greene and Helena Lebrun.” “I developed the unique techniques used in this performance in 1968,” Scroggins explains, “and have recently revisited them in order to enjoy the www.redcat.org | 3 immediacy of this particular form of direct physical expression…. [I]t is the affective power found at the edges of gestural control and indeterminate chaos that motivates me.” Shimmer Box Drive (Canada, 2007, 3:45 min., color, sound) by Steven Woloshen Montreal filmmaker Steven Woloshen describes Shimmer Box Drive as “[r]eflections, recollections and thoughts from the front seat of an automobile…. [C]reated in a small wood and glass box installed in my car, [it] catalogs four years of impressions, desires and thoughts about the road ahead.” Woloshen is a longtime exponent of handmade film, and teaches, exhibits and lectures extensively on the genre. artreading v. 1 (US, 2008, 4:19 min., b/w & color, sound) by Samantha Krukowski A trained architect and art historian, Samantha Krukowski makes painterly abstract videos, often without a camera. “artreading,” she says, “is a response to image saturation in contemporary culture, a critique of image excess as it relates to cultural memory, and a personal attempt to remember images from the multitude presented in the art, architecture and film magazines that appear monthly on my doorstep.” Krukowski teaches design in the Department of Architecture at Iowa State University. Mercurius (UK, 2007, 6:09 min., color, sound) by Bret Battey Volatile and unstable, Mercurius shifts rapidly between multitudes of seemingly conflicting states. A sound-synthesis process and nearly 12,000 individual points are continually transformed and warped, restrained and released, without cuts, to form sonic and visual curtains and vortexes evoking both unity and destruction. Using special algorithms, artist Bret Battey creates electronic, acoustic, and multimedia concert works and installations that emphasize continuous flow and transformation, an aesthetic inspired in part by his practice of Vipassana meditation. Battey has earned numerous honors, including the prestigious Prix Ars Electronica, for his work. Welcome Licht (US, 2009, 35mm, 2 min., silent) by Devon Damonte A camera-free, direct-on-film invocation made especially for the occasion that summons the Light/Licht, assumes the position of Play/Spiel, and calls to order assembled deities for a transcendent, incandescent screening. Devon Damonte is a Washington state-based artist who has specialized in making, teaching and showing direct animation for over 20 years. www.redcat.org | 4 Polar (US, 2007, 1:35 min., color, silent) by Scott Nyerges In Polar, Scott Nyerges deploys the melting of the Arctic ice cap as “a metaphor for a body out of balance.” The film/videomaker – who counts Stan Brakhage, Jordan Belson and Scott Bartlett among his influences – writes: “Fissures emerge. Mass transforms. The sea falls into itself. This silent film was created with hand-painted 35mm film strips and digital video.” Kronos (US, 2005, 4:20 min., color, sound) by Mondi Kronos is the seventh in a series of 10 films predicated on spherical harmonics. Its creator, Mondi, lives and works in Stockholm, using custom tools and software to explore the intersections between disparate forms of expression. INCREASE (Japan, 2009, 6 min., color, sound) by Yusuke Nakajima This video by the Osaka-based Yusuke Nakajima explores the visual illusion of objects seeming to enlarge in their afterimage. Miserlou (US, 2005, 3 min., color, sound) by Vivek Patel Music: Aaron Kula; performed by the Klezmer Company Orchestra “Miserlou uses abstract elements to create a sensual show. Visual elements come to the screen and exist like actors in a play.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Persistence of Vision: the Value of Invention in Independent Art Animation
    Virginia Commonwealth University VCU Scholars Compass Kinetic Imaging Publications and Presentations Dept. of Kinetic Imaging 2006 Persistence of Vision: The alueV of Invention in Independent Art Animation Pamela Turner Virginia Commonwealth University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/kine_pubs Part of the Film and Media Studies Commons, Fine Arts Commons, and the Interdisciplinary Arts and Media Commons Copyright © The Author. Originally presented at Connectivity, The 10th ieB nnial Symposium on Arts and Technology at Connecticut College, March 31, 2006. Downloaded from http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/kine_pubs/3 This Presentation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dept. of Kinetic Imaging at VCU Scholars Compass. It has been accepted for inclusion in Kinetic Imaging Publications and Presentations by an authorized administrator of VCU Scholars Compass. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Pamela Turner 2220 Newman Road, Richmond VA 23231 Virginia Commonwealth University – School of the Arts 804-222-1699 (home), 804-828-3757 (office) 804-828-1550 (fax) [email protected], www.people.vcu.edu/~ptturner/website Persistence of Vision: The Value of Invention in Independent Art Animation In the practice of art being postmodern has many advantages, the primary one being that the whole gamut of previous art and experience is available as influence and inspiration in a non-linear whole. Music and image can be formed through determined methods introduced and delightfully disseminated by John Cage. Medieval chants can weave their way through hip-hopped top hits or into sound compositions reverberating in an art gallery.
    [Show full text]
  • Live Performance Where Congruent Musical, Visual, and Proprioceptive Stimuli Fuse to Form a Combined Aesthetic Narrative
    Soma: live performance where congruent musical, visual, and proprioceptive stimuli fuse to form a combined aesthetic narrative Ilias Bergstrom UCL A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2010 1 I, Ilias Bergstrom, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 2 Abstract Artists and scientists have long had an interest in the relationship between music and visual art. Today, many occupy themselves with correlated animation and music, called ‗visual music‘. Established tools and paradigms for performing live visual music however, have several limitations: Virtually no user interface exists, with an expressivity comparable to live musical performance. Mappings between music and visuals are typically reduced to the music‘s beat and amplitude being statically associated to the visuals, disallowing close audiovisual congruence, tension and release, and suspended expectation in narratives. Collaborative performance, common in other live art, is mostly absent due to technical limitations. Preparing or improvising performances is complicated, often requiring software development. This thesis addresses these, through a transdisciplinary integration of findings from several research areas, detailing the resulting ideas, and their implementation in a novel system: Musical instruments are used as the primary control data source, accurately encoding all musical gestures of each performer. The advanced embodied knowledge musicians have of their instruments, allows increased expressivity, the full control data bandwidth allows high mapping complexity, while musicians‘ collaborative performance familiarity may translate to visual music performance. The conduct of Mutable Mapping, gradually creating, destroying and altering mappings, may allow for a narrative in mapping during performance.
    [Show full text]
  • Idmaa BB Catalog Optimized.Pdf
    Dena Elisabeth Eber / Bowling Green University iDEAs 07: Beyond Boundaries, which coincides with the International Digi- Randall E. Hoyt / University of Connecticut tal Media and Arts Association conference, addresses the notion that the Rejane Spitz / Rio de Janeiro Catholic University, Brazil nature of digital arts is to embrace the new technologies of the time while Kenneth A. Huff / Savannah College of Art and Design perfecting those of the past. As such, it tends to sit outside the margin of discipline, thus deifying boundaries within its own set of standards. This art form is complex and multifaceted, however, it embraces two distinct aspects that are currently, and will continue to be, characterized by flux and defined by the rate of change of technology. The first exists on the fringe of the art world, embracing, exploring, incorporating, and translating the new- est digital media for the given time. The second is the molding of yesterday’s digital “edge” into traditional art forms or into mature and unique works that often do not fit within traditional aesthetics. Regardless of whether the art includes older or newer technologies, digital media art sits outside of tradition. It is a lightning rod for new media and acts as a disseminator of language and implications connected with it. Although traditional boundaries do not apply, grounding in artistic practice does, albeit in flux. The iDEAs 07 exhibition not only displays art that goes beyond bound- aries, but shows work that does not even consider them as the art reflects a discipline that seeks to find its own foundation.
    [Show full text]
  • CHAPTER 4. Film Sound Presentation: Space and Institutional Context
    CHAPTER 4. Film Sound Presentation: Space and Institutional Context 4.1 Film Sound Presentation In the previous chapter I examined the preservation of early sound systems, namely the Biophon, Chronophone, Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre, and Vitaphone systems. In the analysis of preservation practices, I highlighted the importance of relevant elements of film sound: the material carriers, the technological devices and human actors, the dispositif situation, the film text, the screening performance, and the history of exhibition. These elements of preservation practices contribute to understanding and defining what film sound is and how it relates to film image. The analysis of the preservation of these early sound systems further demonstrated how preservation and presentation are two highly interconnected activities. As the shown by the example of the Tonbidler, the choice of a certain carrier in the preservation process is often incited by the context of presentation. As I will now argue in this chapter, decisions about the presentation of film sound similarly depend on decisions made during preservation. Preservation and presentation practices, intended as the core activities of film heritage institutions, point to a number of factors important in defining film sound and its core dimensions. The preservation practices examined in the cases of early sound systems highlighted in particular the three dimensions of film that I defined as carrier, dispositif, and text. The presentation practices that will be analyzed in this chapter will bring attention to other dimensions of film sound, namely the spatial and institutional dimensions, which are less evident in preservation practices. Film presentation concerns the screening situation, where the dispositif and the audience are central.
    [Show full text]
  • Iconoclasm in Visual Music
    EMMANOUIL KANELLOS Iconoclasm in Visual Music Abstract From the earliest experimental film works to today’s contemporary and diverse use of moving image platforms, the notion of visual music is considered synonymous with abstract animation, because in part, abstract imagery is employed across the vast majority of musical visualisation. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the absence of figuration and representation in visual music can now reengage with the problematic debate of representation versus abstraction - a debate that has taken place in other art forms and movements in the past. Introduction Visual music is a type of audio-visual art, which employs the use of moving abstract images that are synchronised with music/sound. This approach to moving image works started prior to Modernism. However, it was during this period that it developed significantly and continues to expand the field in a variety of expressive ways in our current digital era. Although the subject area of this paper is visual music it will start with an outline of several known abstraction-representation dialectics in art and more specifically, the rejection of representation caused by different ideologies, political dogmas, and spiritual beliefs. In doing so, it will demonstrate the lack of representation in the creation of artworks throughout history and focus on the past and current situation in visual music. The abstraction-representation debate in visual arts is deep-rooted and has triggered some of the greatest conflicts in the history of art. Such examples include: two iconoclasms in Byzantine Empire in the eighth and ninth centuries; the label ‘Degenerate Art’ to describe Modern art during the Nazi regime; and the violent reactions in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Pakistan in 2006 over the cartoons that depict Muhammad.
    [Show full text]
  • The Expanded Image: on the Musicalization of the Visual Arts in the Twentieth Century Sandra Naumann
    The Expanded Image: On the Musicalization of the Visual Arts in the Twentieth Century Sandra Naumann Sandra Naumann, The Expanded Image: On the Musicalization of the Visual Arts in the Twentieth Century, in: Dieter Daniels, Sandra Naumann (eds.), Audiovisuology, A Reader, Vol. 1: Compendium, Vol. 2: Essays, Verlag Walther König, Köln 2015, pp. 504-533. 505 Exposition Until well into the nineteenth century, the experience of audiovisual arts was bound to a unity of space and time (and action, too, in a certain sense). The technical media of photography, gramophone recording, silent film, talking film, and video made it possible to reproduce sounds and images, but they also separated them only to slowly reunite them again. These media evolved from devices used purely for storage and reproduction into performative instru- ments for creating new forms of audiovisual experience in real time, a process reinforced through numerous efforts to synthesize or expand the arts by incor- porating or transferring concepts and techniques from different art forms. Thus, musical theories and techniques were adopted to explain developments in the visual arts, and vice versa. Against this general background, this essay aims to identify strategies which the visual arts borrowed from music while changing and expanding compul- sively during the twentieth century. The focus will not be on image/sound com- binations, although sound does often play a part in the works that will be dis- cussed in the following. Instead, this text will deal with the musicalization of the image in a broader sense. These endeavors first culminated in the 1910s and 1920s, then again in the 1960s and 1970s, and for the third time from the 1990s until today.
    [Show full text]
  • Real Time Music Visualization: a Study in the Visual Extension of Music
    REAL TIME MUSIC VISUALIZATION: A STUDY IN THE VISUAL EXTENSION OF MUSIC A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Fine Arts in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Matthew Neil Bain, B.F.A. The Ohio State University 2008 Master’s Examination Committee: Approved by Professor Alan Price, Advisor Professor Maria Palazzi ____________________________________ Dr. Gregory Proctor Advisor Graduate program in the department of Industrial, Interior, and Visual Communication Design Copyright by Matthew Neil Bain 2008 ABSTRACT This work documents a design-led process of discovery for artistic development of real time 3D animations functioning as a visual extension to a live music performance. Musical dynamics, patterns, and themes are transposed into a visual form that develops over time through a carefully orchestrated process driven by the artist and the computer. Historical animations by Fischinger, Whitney, and “light organ” projections by Wilfred inform the work’s conceptual development. Various systems automate camera controls, audio analysis, and layers of motion in addition to providing the artist with a unique set of controls that demonstrate the effectiveness of the computer as a visual instrument for the artist. The complete system balances artistic responses, live multi-channel audio input, and computer control systems to orchestrate a real time visualization of a live music performance. The artist’s sensibilities and the computer’s generative capabilities combine to create a visually-focused member in the performing music ensemble. ii Dedicated to my Grandad iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Alan Price, for his guidance, thought provoking conversations, and lunches.
    [Show full text]
  • Musical Form in Non-Narrative Video
    MUSICAL FORM IN NON-NARRATIVE VIDEO by Ellen Irene Sebring Bachelor of Music Indiana University SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN VISUAL STUDIES at the MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY September 1986 Copyright @ 1986 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Signature of Author E_ Ellen Irene Sebring Department of Architecture /'j.J f. June 17, 1986 Certified by Otto Piene, Professor of Visual Design Thesis Supervisor Accepted by -' Nicholas Negroponte Chairman, Departmental Committee on Graduate Students Rotch R ~ MusIcAL FORM IN NON-NARRATIVE VIDEO by Ellen Irene Sebring Submitted to the Department of Architecture on June 17, 1986 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Visual Studies. Abstract "Musical Form in Non-Narrative Video" explores musical structure as a model for visual form over time, specifically in the creation of artistic video. Video is a medium in which sound and image coexist at the source as electronic signals, offering new possibilities of abstract synesthesia. Forms in which neither sight nor sound dominants facilitate a sensory experience of the content. A musical model for abstract form supports an effort to free video from the forward-impelled, linear narrative; to create a form which can be experienced many times on multiple levels. Musical parameters such as meter, dynamics and motivic development are correlated to visual parameters. Their application in my own videotapes is analyzed. Experimental form-generated pieces are outlined. "Aviary" and "Counterpoint" are video scores which present two different approaches to music- image composition.
    [Show full text]
  • 32 Rudolf Pfenninger in His Laboratory with Hand
    Rudolf Pfenninger in his laboratory with hand-drawn sound strips, 1932. Source: Pfenninger Archive, Munich. 32 “Tones from out of Nowhere”: Rudolph Pfenninger and the Archaeology of Synthetic Sound THOMAS Y. LEVIN 4.014 The gramophone record, the musical idea, the written notes, the sound waves, all stand in the same internal representational relationship to one another that obtains between language and the world. —Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus (1921) “All-of-a-tremble”: The Birth of Robotic Speech On February 16, 1931, the New York Times ran a story on a curious development that had just taken place in England: “Synthetic Speech Demonstrated in London: Engineer Creates Voice which Never Existed” read the headline.1 The day before, so the article began, “a robot voice spoke for the first time in a darkened room in London . uttering words which had never passed human lips.” According to the accounts of this event in numerous European papers, a young British physi- cist named E.A. Humphries was working as a sound engineer for the British International Film Co. when the studio ran into a serious problem. A synchro- nized sound film (then still quite a novelty) starring Constance Bennett had just been completed in which the name of a rather unsavory criminal character hap- pened to be the same as that of a certain aristocratic British family. This noble clan was either unable or unwilling to countenance the irreducible—even if seemingly paradoxical—polysemy of the proper name (so powerful, perhaps, was the new experience of hearing it actually uttered in the cinema) and threat- ened a libel suit if “their” name was not excised.
    [Show full text]
  • The Dream of Color Music, and Machines That Made It Possible
    Animation World Magazine, Issue 2.1, April 1997 The Dream of Color Music, And Machines That Made it Possible by William Moritz Elfriede Fischinger, Barbara Fischinger and Bill Moritz at a 1996 Lumograph performance at the Goethe Institute in Los Angeles. The dream of creating a visual music comparable to auditory music found its fulfillment in animated abstract films by artists such as Oskar Fischinger, Len Lye and Norman McLaren; but long before them, many people built instruments, usually called "color organs," that would display modulated colored light in some kind of fluid fashion comparable to music. Ancient Greek philosophers, like Aristotle and Pythagoras, speculated that there must be a correlation between the musical scale and the rainbow spectrum of hues. That idea fascinated several Renaissance artists including Leonardo da Vinci (who produced elaborate spectacles for court festivals), Athanasius Kircher (the popularizer of the "Laterna Magica" projection apparatus) and Archimboldo who (in addition to his eerie optical-illusion portraits composed of hundreds of small symbolic objects) produced entertainments for the Holy Roman Emperors in Prague. The Jesuit, Father Louis Bertrand Castel, built an Ocular Harpsichord around 1730, which consisted of a 6-foot square frame above a normal harpsichord; the frame contained 60 small windows each with a different colored-glass pane and a small curtain attached by pullies to one specific key, so that each time that key would be struck, that curtain would lift briefly to show a flash of corresponding color. Enlightenment society was dazzled and fascinated by this invention, and flocked to his Paris studio for demonstrations.
    [Show full text]
  • Mice and Elephants Animation Has Never Just Been About Animation
    Mice and Elephants Animation has never just been about animation. The cave wall sequential etchings of prehistory, of human in pursuit of beast, spears suspended mid- flight, were perhaps as much about ritual and social cohesion—a talisman for future success and group survival—as they were about ‘story’ and the illusion of life. Eadward Muybridge's human and animal locomotion studies, the photographic origins of the moving image, are as much about zoology, physics, and anatomy, as they are about a travelling show and that legendary wager regarding the cadence of a horse's trot. The thaumatrope, praxiniscope, zoetrope, etc. doubled as middle-class toys of enchantment as well as devices of inquiry into human perception; in offering a contemplative distance on the illusion of life, they were sometimes labelled “philosopher's toys”.1 Animation arose out of these inquiries and pursuits: the pointy bit, the tip of an iceberg, a mouse atop an elephant. Evolving from the printed comic and the vaudeville stage, animation connects with slapstick via Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck; with the printed panel through motion comics, superheroes, and the “flash aesthetic”2; with live action via “Disney realism”,3 3D features, and special effects; with the television sit-com through The Simpsons and Family Guy; and with music through Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong,4 and Gorillaz.5 Animation draws on sculpture through claymation (think Aardman and Gumby) and on puppetry via Henry Sellick, Jiri Trnka, and George Pal. Design, illustration, painting, photography, fashion, architecture, and theatre—both east and west—are integrated into, and have empathies with, the animated image.
    [Show full text]
  • Visual Music: Searching for an Aesthetic
    Visual Music: Searching for an Aesthetic Tom DeWitt Abstract-If the nonverbal and emotionally evocative aesthetic of music is to be extended to visual art, we must examine the psychology of sight and the intuitive uses of this psychology by visual artists. The structure of the eye, the nerve connections between the eye and the brain, and the visual cortex can give us clues as to how human perception is uniquely sensitive. These sensitivities, amplified through the self-expression of artists, can induce emotional responses that are more related to the form of the expression than to the content of the imagery. Works by the author and by other artists who influenced him are used to illustrate these points. I. INTRODUCTION apparatus simplifies some image processing when the modulating frequency is at integral During the nineteenth century, Helmholtz [1] problems, particularly geometric rotation. Their multiples of the sine wave frequency. The studied the relationship between musical model of visual perception and cognition seems pattern in the petal leaves is determined by the harmony and the human perceptual apparatus. to be related to an aesthetic that I developed timbral qualities (wave shape) of the His discoveries can guide an investigation into independently in my art. modulating wave form. An image made by this the relationship between music and visual art, In 1974 I produced a work called technique is shown in Fig. 1. Since the process not because he uncovered a direct correlation, Philharmonia [4], which was based on the was realized with an audio synthesizer, I was but because his method of analysis can be used logarithmic spiral.
    [Show full text]