This paper explores historical and theoretical examples related to animation in the expanded field. In particular, it considers improvisational and chance Making Room for Chance: operations as structures for expressive practice, reimagined through real-time animation pedagogy. Framed by the historical avant-garde, Real-time Animation and the Expanded Cinema, and immersive storytelling practice, this paper explores new prospects for animation at the intersection of art and technology. Expanded Field Keywords: real-time animation, animation studies, motion design, immersive media design, intermedia art, arts pedagogy

Johannes DeYoung Carnegie Mellon University, United States Staid Foundations Animation is not a medium. Defining animation has been a longstanding topic of interest for animation studies scholars. Its diverse field encompasses a ABSTRACT Animation is an expressive field. Its etymology elicits the breath breadth of processes and practices, drawing upon equally rich histories. Why of life, drawing upon the Indo-European root, ane- (to breathe), and the is definition important? As a means to shape conceptual frameworks, definition Latin root, anima (life). The sentiment isn’t lost on those who explore the demonstrates capacity to frame both pedagogy and cultural production. Too field’s possibilities. Animate forms evoke profound perceptual sensations. narrow a definition yields boxed-in thinking; too liberal a definition yields end- Yet, while the illusion of life appears spontaneous and unrestrained, audi- less uncertainty. It would be vain to attempt an absolute definition. I fear the ences are rarely sensitive to the labor involved in the production of animated effort would snuff the very breath of life that animation evokes. Yet, it’s helpful content. For all that its immediate sensations suggest, animation is to indicate theoretical frameworks for consideration, as both measures for traditionally time and energy intensive—commonly involving projects planned establishing common foundations and as platforms for expanded possibilities. years in advance, organized through industrialized systems of labor. In such At the very least, we might consider alternatives to the staid foundations that models, risk mitigation reigns supreme and capital loss is avoided at all costs. lock animation into popular idioms of filmic cartoons. Oxymoronic? Traditional production leaves little room for chance. Declaring that animation is not a medium unbinds the constraints of medium The expanded field of animation has long suggested alternatives to Twentieth specificity. In their essay, Approaching Animation and Animation Studies, Lilly Century industrialized film paradigms. Artists, theorists, and engineers con- Husbands and Caroline Ruddell address the challenges that definition entails. tinually press the boundaries of the field in search of more direct, expressive, While they point to techniques that might distinguish animation from other and idiomatic forms. While such alternatives have historically proven chal- fields—namely frame-by-frame production that is entirely constructed (Hus- lenging to scale—often limited by cost and the accessibility of production and bands and Ruddell 6)—they provide numerous contradictory examples where distribution systems the practice and pedagogy of animation has reached a efforts have been made to both establish and collapse notions of medium critical inflection point. Advancements in virtual production and motion cap- specificity. Certainly there is a need to account for breadth and depth, including ture technologies, real-time 3D computer graphics engines, machine learn- the plurality of forms, processes, and histories that inform the field. ing, and visual programming tools provide open technological frameworks for exploration in more improvisational, spatial, and interactive contexts. While Maureen Furniss expands upon the many deep historical origins of animation, such changing technological paradigms offer revolutionary new possibilities, noting the limitations by which popular idioms are generally understood, they also present opportunities to reframe thought and pedagogy. especially in contrast to the varied modalities that emerge from related fields (Furniss 12). A reductive historical framework precludes a great many possibil- ities. If we unlock animation from a dominant industrialized cinema model, we might better understand it within a continuum of immersive and time-based arts practice. We find relevant traces of animation in countless examples of

34 MODE 2021 Edited Conference Proceedings pre-cinema art, ranging from cave painting, to ancient Egyptian papyrus draw- of the disc (e.g. a bird on one side, a cage on the other). The phenomenon ings, to ancient Greek pottery, to the optical technologies of theater—Pepper’s established the groundwork for what would be called persistence of vision, a Ghost and the Magic Lantern, for instance. Tom Gunning elucidates how devel- leading moving-image theory during the Nineteenth and early-Twentieth opments in optical technologies proliferated post-Enlightenment, giving rise Centuries (Gunning 499). Examples of the thaumatrope and phantasmagoric to philosophical toys and rational amusements—fore-bearers of animated theater underscore a few relevant themes: perception of after-image effects; film and cinema technologies (Gunning, Hand and Eye 498). “These optical spatiotemporal collapse; performative frameworks that enable expressive devices display a double function. On the one hand, they produce an image improvisations; and varying degrees of interactivity and immersion. and a visual experience; on the other hand, they seek to demonstrate the processes of visual perception through their operation” (498). Some devices In his chapter Defining Animation, Ülo Pikkov describes animation as an illusion indeed produced early forms of moving image. Examples include the zoetrope, that happens within the mind (Pikkov 14–18). Certainly what Gunning and phenakistoscope, and flip-book. Their constructions inform later developments Furniss outline as pre-cinematic origins have significant bearing on the forms of like the Mutoscope and the modern film projector. Alongside this filmic lineage the field; however, we must also consider the perceptual frameworks by which we find a few related examples that inform our understanding of animation the phenomenon of animation is experienced. Given its unfixed definition, better relative to other fields—namely computation and theater. Charles Babbage’s understanding animation through its relationship to human cognition will prove thaumatrope (a spinning disc device in which recto and verso images appear illuminating. combined when activated) and Étienne-Gaspard Robert’s phantasmagoric theater are examples of the latter. Carnegie’s Monocle Gunning’s notion of the technological image outlines the advancements that Phantasmagoria plays an especially interesting role during the post-Enlighten- made animation craft possible. Such technological developments are not ment period. It paradoxically leverages some of the more advanced scientific divorced from philosophical consideration, nor do they happen in isolation optical engineering technologies of its time to create ghostly Romantic period without impact on human behavior. In his book, Understanding Media: illusions. The juxtaposition of Enlightenment and Romantic period tendencies Extensions of Man, Marshall McLuhan points to the cyclical relationship is complex and fascinating. The operating mechanism behind the phantasma- between humanity and its technologies (McLuhan). The ensuing relationship goric theater was essentially a kinetic Magic Lantern on rails. While versions of presents a kind of feedback loop: change the means by which you see the phantasmagoric theater are evidenced as early as the 1780s, credit for its inven- world and you’ll entirely change what you see. The contemporary technological tion is most often attributed to Étienne-Gaspard Robert (stage name Robertson) landscape has thrown the loop into hyperdrive. in 1798. The phantasmagoric experience involved the projection of ghostly apparitions on a variety of screen surfaces, including smoke screens and vapor Considering this brave new world, a new foundations curriculum was developed columns. As Laurent Mannoni describes, “When the lights in the auditorium at Carnegie Mellon University’s Integrative Design, Arts, and Technology pro- went out, a ghost appeared on the screen, at first very small; it grew rapidly and gram to investigate changing paradigms for making and experiencing animation. seemed to move towards the audience […] The illuminated views were animat- Real-time Animation was introduced in Spring 2019 in an effort to reshape the ed and mobile, they seemed to surge towards the terrified spectators, not at all core curriculum (Figure 1). In relation to other animation studio curricula, which accustomed to such pictorial assaults” (Mannoni 390). This late Eighteenth often emphasize filmic grammar,Real-time Animation explores the expanded Century theatrical production provides direct lineage to immersive entertain- field, emphasizing hybridity, spatiality, and interdisciplinary practice in relation ment experiences like Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion attraction, as well as to more theatrical models of experience design. Research and practice are more contemporary Augmented Reality (AR) and holographic displays. framed through examples of art history, social practice, and cognitive science. Significantly, the curriculum emphasizes non-hierarchical, rhizomatic models for Perceptual phenomena underlie the illusion of Babbage’s thaumatrope. collaboration (Deleuze and Guattari), which are facilitated inside the studio and Babbage was the polymath inventor of the difference machine, a complex with external partners. mechanical calculator and a fore-bearer of the modern computer. By contrast, the thaumatrope was a simple construction, composed of a small disc Our first substantial collaborative endeavor resulted in Carnegie’s Monocle, an suspended between two silk threads. Its operation results in perceptual flicker interactive art-walk experience created in partnership with the Carnegie Public fusion, the illusory combination of distinct images represented on each side Library of Pittsburgh and an experimental sound synthesis class at Carnegie

Making Room for Chance: Real-time Animation and the Expanded Field 35 Figure 1 (left): Real-time Animation Prompt Exercises. Figure 2 (right): Carnegie’s Monocle.

Mellon University School of Music (Figure 2). Students were prompted to re- through overlapping, parallel experiences: those which are pre-recorded and search the library’s special collections and create a related immersive art expe- presented to audiences through the device, and those which happen phenome- rience over a period of eight weeks. The experiences were facilitated through a nologically outside of the device—that is to say, everything that happens in the custom built mobile-AR app, made freely available through popular mobile soft- audience’s immediate spatiotemporal environment. As the audience walks, they ware platforms. Effectively, mobile-AR served as the guide to lead general public follow the video and audio cues that are presented on the device—pre-recorded audiences through the library, where they would encounter spatial audio/visual media from the same location. Cardiff’s voice leads the audience through the installations at key sites. The app also served as a window into a virtual world— city. Set against the backdrop of a real-time environment, Cardiff-Miller staged one where elements of the library’s architecture would spring to life through scenarios within the virtual video landscape: incidents, musical moments, and target-based animation. What resulted was a playful spatial experience that performances that audiences discover along the way. The blend of overlapping remained available to the general public between May and August 2019. realities—one virtualized and one concrete—results in a collapse of time and space that elicits poetic reflection of the city’s overlapping historical narratives. Carnegie’s Monocle provides only one brief example of animation in the expand- ed field. Its conception and approach owes much to the broader field of Expand- Forking Paths ed Cinema works that have been created since 1965, when Stan VanDerBeek The title of Cardiff-Miller’s work pays homage to the 1941 short story,The Garden coined the term (VanDerBeek). In particular, the structure of the work—or at of Forking Paths, by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. Borges’ story revolves least the structure of the prompt—draws inspiration from the art-walks of around a mysterious Chinese novel, also called The Garden of Forking Paths. Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, whose spatial audio/video works antici- Taken at first glance, the mysterious novel appears to be an incoherent collec- pate much of what’s happening in contemporary mobile-AR experiences. tion of drafts. In one section the novel’s protagonist prevails as a hero; in anoth- Cardiff-Miller’s works exhibit profound capacity for spatiotemporal collapse. er he dies; and in yet another the protagonist is a villain. As the legend goes, the mysterious novel’s enigmatic author, Ts’ui Pên, withdrew from public life to craft Their video walk, The City of Forking Paths, commissioned by the 19th Bien- his masterwork, and “construct a labyrinth in which all men would lose their way” nale of Sydney, employs an iPod Touch device to prompt audience navigation (Borges 122). Alluding to literary genres like the detective novel, or perhaps even through visual and aural cues. Audiences follow these pre-recorded narrative anticipating the spy thriller, Borges’ tale follows its protagonist along a tangled cues along a defined path through Sydney Australia. Fiction and reality blur and self-reflexive journey. It is revealed that Ts’ui Pên’s legendary novel and laby-

36 MODE 2021 Edited Conference Proceedings rinth are one and the same—the labyrinth is the novel. Its puzzle is not day we are in Iraq, in Pakistan, in New York City, in a car. Memories are coming one constructed in space, but one constructed in time. The Garden of Forking in and birds are flying. And some part of you is now thinking about other parts Paths suggests a temporal fork in which all possible realities play out in of the world and it’s influencing your work. […] The unexpected juxtapositions, parallel simultaneity. Ts’ui Pên’s ancestral riddle is the key to a multiverse. the startling elisions, the scenes out of sequence—asleep or awake, this is how we think, in a fast dissipating vapor” (qtd. in Rose 116–118). Rose drives forward In the eighty years since its inscription, Borges’ story has demonstrated an important characteristic of hypertext—namely simultaneity. He attributes profound impact on artists, theorists, and technologists, alike. The tale main- our conceptual acclimation to such multiversal synchroneity to the advent of tains heightened relevance in comparison to works by internet and media television—especially after the proliferation of remote controls in the 1970s (119). artists of the late-Twentieth and early-Twenty First Centuries. What bearing Such hyper-textual perspective advances McLuhan’s concept about the end does this have for the practice and pedagogy of animation? If we consider a of sequence—or reversal of the overheated medium—aligning with humanity’s broad, intermedia definition of animation, such parallelism provides a critical harnessing of electricity (McLuhan 36). The instantaneousness of electronic contextual framework. media ushered-in an undoable reversal of sequential narrative. We’ve felt the effects since the rise of personal computing devices and network ubiquity in the As Frank Rose discusses in his book, The Art of Immersion, we live in a 1980s. The network effect has only grown stronger in the past forty years. hyper-textual world. Published in 2011, Rose serendipitously writes at a critical time for traditional filmic storytelling and media distribution models. To start, Processual Frameworks Rose’s book anticipates the 2012 Kickstarter campaign for the original Oculus The hyper-textual path relates to what Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari refer Rift VR headset by less than a year. 2011 was also the year that Netflix went to as a line of becoming (Deleuze and Guattari 293). The path suggests a all in on its streaming service—despite some initial blunders (Wingfield and continuum. As they describe, “a line of becoming has neither beginning nor end, Stelter)—and transformed popular media distribution and consumption habits. departure nor arrival, origin nor destination […] A line of becoming has only a Rose points to a moment in 1965 when Ted Nelson coined the term “hypertext” middle. The middle is not an average; it is fast motion, it is the absolute speed at the annual Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) conference. As Rose of movement” (293). remarks, computer professionals were initially dismissive of Nelson’s idea: “He provided few technical details in the paper he presented before the ACM, and Certainly we can understand animation in relation to movement. And consider- for good reason: his proposal would have required an amount of memory and ing animation within a historical continuum provides an open contextual frame- processing power that in the mid-sixties seemed hopelessly out of reach” (Rose work. Dan Torre extends the metaphor to human cognition. In his publication, 109). Hypertext disrupts linearity. This is not too dissimilar from the packets of Animation—Process, Cognition and Actuality, Torre frames animation through animation that are pre-built and assembled for video games, improvised on-de- process-based philosophies, providing a lens that envisions all matter of mand through player performance. As Rose continues, “Links change our rela- existence in a perpetual state of transformation. As Torre illuminates, “Meta- tionship to information. They empower individuals and destroy hierarchies” (111). morphosis is in many regard a unique manifestation of animative processes, one that has helped to differentiate animation from the traditional film image” Through a number of film and media examples, Rose effectively relates (Torre 26). Such philosophical perspective emphasizes time and flux over hyper-textual and non-linear filmic storytelling efforts to Borges’ short story. As inert matter. As Torre suggests, “Such a process based approach has been Rose states, “Borges’s labyrinth of possibilities is what we would call a multi- overlooked in animation’s scholarship and is […] indispensable to a fuller verse. Coined by William James in 1895, the term was applied much later to the understanding of the form, and how animation’s incredible diversity might be ‘many-worlds interpretation’ of quantum physics. Borges, in his story, described considered in a more unified manner” (7). Relative to the definition dilemma, such fiction as an incoherent jumble. Yet by the 1980s, half of Hollywood had a Torre asserts that “If something is engaged in a continuous process of becoming, multiverse going” (115). He cites Rashômon (Akira Kurosawa 1950), Back to the then we must consider this becoming as integral to the thing, and it is essential Future (Robert Zemeckis 1985), Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive (David Lynch to recognize this position in any definition or exposition of the thing” (9). This 1986, 2001), and Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino 1994) as films that explore line of reasoning insists that process is central to understanding animation, the many-worlds model of storytelling. In an interview with David Lynch, Rose not only in a material sense, but in a theoretical sense—in a way that relates inquires if human consciousness has been warped by hypertext, or if hypertext animation to ontological and cognitive processes. is a product of consciousness. For Lynch, “It’s the nature of life now. […] In one

Making Room for Chance: Real-time Animation and the Expanded Field 37 It might help to consider a few processual examples related to perception and saccadic rhythms and active looking processes (Lawrence and Noton). cognition. In his book, Inner Vision: An Exploration of Art and the Brain, Sémir Lawrence charted the principle features in visual stimuli that attracted the Zeki discusses the modularity of vision (Zeki 58). In particular, Zeki explores no- eyes most strongly; the results are like gesture drawings—scan paths sepa- tions of cognitive specialization and parallel processing in relation to how visual rated by cluster regions where active looking fixates (36–37). To further stimuli is assembled in the brain (59). Distributed and specialized processing of emphasize the saccadic process, Lotto suggests a simple experiment in visual information is separated into discrete brain regions according to charac- which a person might close one eye and gently hold the other eye in place teristics such as motion, color, shape, form, and depth. Zeki relates that while with their thumb and forefinger. Restricting saccadic movement induces perceptual information enters through the eyes, vision is actively constructed temporary blindness by cutting off the flow of relational information that’s in the brain through several visual systems acting in parallel—the cumulative needed for the brain to create vision. As Lotto describes, “you’re eliminating effect leading to bothseeing and understanding what is seen (63). Interesting- the essence of context and in doing so blocking your brain’s ability to make ly, Zeki observes that artists have tapped this cognitive specialization in their meaning, so you briefly go blind” (Lotto 82). works. In particular, kinetic artists such as Jean Tinguely and Alexander Calder often restricted their works to black and white. “In hisMétaMalevichs and Mê- How does perception inform our understanding of animation? Dan Torre taKandinskys, Tinguely eliminated almost all colours to heighten and emphasise makes an important consideration relative to parallel cognitive process- actual movement while Calder thought that colours made his mobiles ‘confusing’ ing and the construction of animation—one in which motion and form are and, like Tinguely, eliminat ed colour in some, though not all, of the mobiles” (64). considered independently (Torre 21). Considering motion through liberated abstraction, we might recognize that animate motion is not actually innate to Here we have a continuum of perception—one in which input sensation is per- characters or objects, but is rather externally imposed through the process petually synthesized and integrated by regions of the brain acting in parallel of animation (26). Motion-capture technology provides an obvious example, process. Zeki goes on to cite experiments that measured various component as movement can be captured from one form and applied independently to parts of vision, including color, motion, and form. Notably, these component another. As Torre frames it, “Movement in animation is always extra-diegetic parts are perceived in their correspondent regions at different rates—color in process—an imposed element that can be added to the image in a num- recognized before form, which in turn is recognized before motion (66). While ber of ways, and even copied from other moving forms” (106). Animation and the difference in perception of the component parts is typically separated by cognition share processual relationships, particularly in the ways movement milliseconds, the research demonstrates that the functionally specialized visual and form require separate evaluation. If we understand motion and form as systems are temporally organized. distinct processes, we can examine the independent role motion plays in our ability to make meaning of our environs. For example, how does the expres- Another fascinating account of perception comes from Beau Lotto, who writes sion of motion help us better understand the nature of form? This could illumi- about the subjectivity of perception in his book, Deviate: The Science of Seeing nate the uncanny reaction one has to a wholly inert body. Or, perhaps it can Differently. As Lotto describes, the human brain deals with relationships. In par- help elucidate our inclinations to imbue static forms with activity. ticular, the brain is well equipped to detect contrasting sensorial stimuli. Lotto argues that “Detecting differences (or contrast) is so integral to the functioning Phenomenal Encounters of our brains that when our senses are deprived of different relationships they Recent mirror neuron research suggests that an involutionary neural re- can shut down” (Lotto 86). To illustrate this point, we need only observe the sponse inclines us toward a kind of animate empathy (Torre 111). Through eyes—they are always moving. Tiny involutionary movements called saccades animation we experience empathetic capacity to transpose abstract move- perpetuate relatively unnoticeable ballistic twitches, enabling constant scan- ment from one form to another. As previously suggested in relation to motion ning through rapid movement. capture, applied movement can spark an empathetic illusion of life, enabling audiences to relate to non-human, anthropomorphic characters (a cartoon This process was notably demonstrated by the Russian psychologist, Alfred mouse imbued with human movement, for example). Yarbus, who in the 1950s measured saccadic rhythms in his subjects. Yarbus tracked the arcs and lines of the saccades through use of a suction “cap,” which Applied movement can also evoke meaning from purely abstract forms. Take produced sketch-like mappings of the jittering, saccadic motion. American for example The Dot and the Line (Chuck Jones and Maurice Noble 1965) or neurologist, Lawrence Stark, advanced eye movement research that measured Allegretto (Oskar Fischinger 1936). In both examples, the films are almost

38 MODE 2021 Edited Conference Proceedings entirely composed of shape, color, and line, sans any photographic or clearly identifiable imagery. While the former example utilizes cultural representations through voice-over narration, Fischinger composes to classical music, doubling the abstraction through sound. Yet, despite such levels of abstraction, there are moments in Fischinger’s film when the movement of abstract shapes draws clear analogy to definable representations: swarming flight patterns, schools of swimming fish, or planetary orbits, for example. Fischinger’s abstract anima- tion anticipates the research of Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel, who in 1944 conducted an experiment in which subjects viewed a short, silent animated film and reported their observations. In the film, a circle moves in relation to a group of lines (which form a kind of box structure) and two triangles. Absent sound and definable representations, one might expect the absence of relatable content. Yet, the result is much different. Despite a lack of sound and pictorial represen- tation, a relationship is implied through the movement of shapes. The triangles appear to move in pursuit of the circle—an oppositional relationship is suggest- ed. The circle appears to shelter inside of the box. To audiences, the purely ab- stract arrangement of kinetic shapes is commonly perceived to be much more than the sum of its parts. Heider and Simmel’s Experimental Study in Apparent Behavior reveals audiences’ inclinations to project subjective narratives and readily assign meaning to abstract movement without sound.

The relationship of sound and image was a steady point of interest and research for Oskar Fischinger. Drawing upon his background as an engineer, Fischinger was not only a prolific filmmaker, but an inventor wholly engaged in the process- es of animation. His impeccably timed abstract films were informed by elabo- rate graphical scores, composed of colorful arrays of shape notations diligently charted on paper. His ornament sound experiments of the 1930s—which pro- posed hand-printed or drawn notations within the optical sound track of cellu- loid film—notably inspired later generations of animators like Norman McLar- en, as well as pioneering electronic sound artists of the 1950s and 60s (Hyde 145–146). Fischinger even created his own improvisational light organs, which could be performed by puppeteering a rubber screen framed within a colorful light array (Figure 3)—an iteration of Thomas Wilfred’s mechanized Lumia light displays from thirty years earlier (Fischinger). One particularly notable exchange is that between Fischinger and John Cage. Richard Brown highlights this brief but meaningful encounter in The Spirit inside Each Object: John Cage & Oskar Fischinger. Cage pays tribute to Fischinger: “When I was introduced to him, he began to talk with me about the spirit which is inside each of the objects of this Figure 3: US Patent: Device for Producing Light Effects. world. So, he told me, all we need to do to liberate that spirit is to brush past the object, and to draw forth its sound. That’s the idea which led me to percussion” (qtd. in Brown 140). The experiments of Fischinger and Cage paved the way for computational art pioneers to advance expressions of procedural animation and visual-sound synthesis in generations to follow (Snibbe and Levin).

Making Room for Chance: Real-time Animation and the Expanded Field 39 Chance Protocols ‘authorial’ control. For Cage, the coupling of organized processes with It’s interesting to consider John Cage’s brief apprenticeship for Oskar Fisch- leatory (chance generated) results made it possible to transcend inger in relation to Cage’s teaching at Black Mountain College. Black Mountain predictable habits of composition and recital (Díaz 56). College operated in Black Mountain, North Carolina between 1933–1957. The Cage is credited for initiating the first art happening in 1952—a social art relatively short-lived experiment emphasized holistic learning, blending Dewey- format in which organized structures for chance played the operative role. an liberal arts pedagogy with the Bauhaus, which was infused by Josef and Anni Albers who were recruited to help form the school after the Nazis shuttered the Cage’s procedural methods revolutionized music and performance art in the Bauhaus in 1933 (Sutton 71). In the decade prior to their arrival, Albers had been mid-Twentieth Century. Among those in a similar orbit was the artist, Allan part of a flourishing educational reform movement in Germany. As art historian Kaprow. Kaprow is well known for advancing the happening through the 1950s Eva Díaz notes, “[Josef Albers] followed John Dewey (whose Democracy and and 1960s. His works and writings express the paradoxical tensions between Education appeared in German translation soon after its publication in 1916, and formalist and anti-formalist tendencies. In his essay, Formalism: Flogging a in an interesting transatlantic cross-pollination, its call for ‘learning by doing’ Dead Horse, Kaprow points to a medieval description of God—one in which God rallied progressive educators throughout Europe) in describing traditional edu- is described as a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is cation as an operation of both selective cultural transmission and social control” nowhere. The metaphor extends to the indefinite frame through which we expe- (Díaz 46). Contrary to the dominant Beaux-Arts model that prioritized tradition, rience Cage’s work. As Kaprow remarks, “If art in the high formal sense is what apprenticeship, and ornamentation, the Bauhaus model sought to reclaim arts gives order to life’s aimlessness, then Cage’s music qualifies as antiformalist. practice for the proletariat. Bauhaus pedagogy emphasized the leveling of form But Cage does not create his music in a disorganized way. His ‘chance opera- and function; interdisciplinary approaches that collapsed disciplinary silos and tions’—already procedural by his choice of the word ‘operation’—involve careful embraced industrial processes; a philosophy that art practice could be taught and lengthy preparations and the use of the I Ching or computer, both very for- and learned by anyone; and a spirit to bring art into contact with everyday life. mal tools” (Kaprow 160). Not unlike jazz, the underlying formal structures enable Albers expressed sentiments of Bauhaus pedagogy through his instruction and improvisation; yet, the underlying formalism may very well escape unequipped direction of Black Mountain College between 1933–1948. His teaching empha- audiences. To the untrained listener, jazz improvisation may wholly resolve to sized dehabituating experimentation, through a fusion of scientific method and antiformalist expressions without indication of underlying assembly. Still, the rigorous craft. paradox remains an operative mechanism of tension and release.

John Cage arrived at Black Mountain College in 1948, upon the invitation of Such proceduralism also provides a framework for thinking about animation. We Albers, with a version of experimentation that promoted a marriage of order see this actualized in computational practices of the late-Twentieth and ear- and freedom. As Cage’s mode of experimentation evolved into one that favored ly-Twenty First Centuries. Yet, the technological developments that enable such the primacy of chance events, the divergence from Albers’ neo-Bauhaus model proceduralism only represent instruments in Kaprow’s greater philosophical resulted in a significant turning point for the institution. To Cage, the experi- debate. A general understanding provides that formalist tendencies favor sta- ment—the test—was not one of control and careful examination, but rather an bilizing harmonic structures while anti-formalist tendencies promote chaos as embrace of uncertainty. The Bauhaus model of theater and live performance the rule. Kaprow elucidates that “in meanings and attitudes, the formalist’s view that proliferated Black Mountain College during Albers tenure gave way to a of reality is more indirect and meditative; or it is passionate on a transcendent model that anticipated the happenings of the 1950s and 1960s. These changes plane purged of personal idiosyncrasy” (157). By contrast, “the antiformalist were ushered into vogue with the arrival of John Cage and Merce Cunningham. seems to champion the release of energies, rather than the control of them; he or she wants things indeterminate, muddy, or sensually lyric, rather than Cage paradoxically referred to his method as chance operations. As Díaz notes: proportioned and balanced” (156). Cage’s methodology of chance-based experimentation first emerged in the scores and events he composed when he taught at Black Mountain College Of course, nothing is quite so binary. Kaprow demonstrates just how easy it is from 1948 through 1953 […] In these scores and events, Cage initiated a to spin the proverbial thaumatrope, wherein chaos and order combine through series of practices that were highly structured, yet paradoxically attempted activation—for what is chaos but a deep and profound acknowledgement of to sever the performance of a work from intention, argumentation, or order, and vice versa? Chance operations provide a fitting model. Kaprow illustrates the point through a brief survey of his contemporaries: “[Jackson]

40 MODE 2021 Edited Conference Proceedings Pollock would seem to be an antiformalist. Nevertheless, Pollock’s canvases are VanDerBeek’s work provided inspiration for a collaborative intermedia event consistent in their recurrent choice of fairly even dispersions of short gestural at Carnegie Mellon University, titled Every Possible Utterance (Figure 4). The flurries and trials. […] As Pollock wrote about them, they have no apparent collaboration involved animators, sound artists, and performance artists in beginning, middle, or end. We feel they could go on forever. The effect of en- cooperation with the Pittsburgh MuseumLab (December 2019). Following ergies in a state of becoming replaces the formalist’s arrangements of poised, Deleuze’s line of becoming, the exchange drew inspiration from Jorge Louis completed configurations. That is, in rejecting one set of formal elements and Borges’ short story The Library of Babel. Borges’ tale describes a universe procedures, Pollock established another” (159). The processual description composed of hexagonal library rooms, each room containing a random assort- of Pollock’s paintings relates directly to Torre’s metamorphosing cognitive ment of books along its walls, with the totality containing every possible order- animation theory and Deleuze’s line of becoming. ing of human language and every permutation of knowledge. The vast majority of books in the library are pure gibberish. Those who interact with the library Every Possible Utterance adopt strange behaviors in relation to it: some despair in its overwhelming glut At Black Mountain College, Cage’s proposition for chance protocols aligned with of information; some form cults to purify the library of perceived nonsense; Buckminster Fuller’s notion of comprehensive design (Díaz 105). Fuller was also some scour the library for an index that must surely hold the key to unlock its invited to the college by Albers in 1948, and was beginning initial research into mysteries. geodesic geometries when he joined the summer program faculty (105). For Fuller, comprehensive design was utilitarian, emphasizing process and action The intermedia event drew upon structures for chance: the literary text formed over objects. Process entailed an act of dehabituating through discovery and one structure; a hexagonal scrim projection surface provided another. There always a risk of failure—not too dissimilar from Cage’s proposal. was also the interrelation of animators and performers whose independent interpretations of the prompt unfolded simultaneously in parts, within a general At Black Mountain, Fuller advanced his research into portable nomadic three-act structure. Audiences entered the MuseumLab on its ground-level and structures that he called Dymaxion constructions, “a neologism derived from ascended three levels to encounter an event stage encased by the projection Fuller’s predilection for the words dynamic, maximum, and tension”(106). The surfaces. Along the way, audiences encountered sound and performance works utilitarian streamlined aesthetics of Fuller’s Dymaxion proved impactful for in process—fragments of experiential narrative responding to Borges’ prose, the work of artist and Expanded Cinema pioneer, Stan VanDerBeek. or visual/auditory installations. When audiences reached the third level, they encountered the hexagonal scrim structure, inside of which an electronic music VanDerBeek briefly studied at Black Mountain College (1949–1950); however, ensemble occupied the event stage. Animations were performed and projected it was his later exchange with Fuller (1965) that led to VanDerBeek’s adoption onto the scrim surfaces, through real-time motion capture and an interactive of Dymaxion principles in his design of the Movie-Drome (Sutton 72). The programming interface. What resulted was a simultaneous, spatial, improvised, Movie-Drome drew upon the portable streamlined construction of Dymaxion. and networked display of overlapping component parts, combined through The domed structure was intended to serve as a socially engaged and globally phantasmagoric activation into a synthetic whole (Figure 5). networked hub for collaged moving-image projection murals. VanDerBeek envi- sioned a global network of Movie-Dromes interconnected through telecommu- Making Room for Chance nication technologies. The hyper-textual Expanded Cinema experience was an How do we consider the cultural relevance of animation today? If we consider effort to shake loose media power structures and dehabituate human behavior. animation within narrow idioms of popular entertainment, we relegate it to car- To VanDerBeek, “Technical power and cultural ‘over-reach’ are placing the toon amusements and escapisms. Animation scholars readily embrace the com- fulcrum of man’s intelligence so far outside himself, so quickly, that he cannot plexities of the field’s definitions and cultural positioning; however, popular audi- judge the results of his acts before he commits them. The process of life ences generally maintain normative entertainment standards. This is no fault of as an experiment on earth has never been made clearer” (VanDerBeek 39). their own, but rather has to do with the kinds of cultural productions that reach VanDerBeek’s animated collage films and telecom fax murals, were already well these audiences. For nearly a century, the dominant experience of animation known by the time of the Movie-Drome; however, the Movie-Drome’s embrace has been determined by industrialized standards. Content is driven by capitalist of simultaneity, spatiality, real-time improvisation, and network aesthetics interests and moved through corporatized systems of labor and distribution. exemplify hallmarks of Expanded Cinema.

Making Room for Chance: Real-time Animation and the Expanded Field 41 Resources that were once required to move traditional modes of labor and production have leveled in the wake of more accessible technologies. As always, a scramble ensues to seize the reins and steer momentum. In the wake of such technological transformation, it is critical that artists and designers claim a stake in the future.

Animation is a field much broader than cartoon entertainment. It is a process by which our senses are activated and heightened—a process by which our own expressions of life are reflected and actualized in the material world. Real-time graphics technologies provide one method of radically transforming the ways we create and experience animation and time-based media. As these resources become more ubiquitously available, it is imperative that artists and educators advance practices and pedagogies of expressive and idiomatic communication. One way to achieve this is through the promotion of holistic structures that facil- itate improvisation, discovery, and self-reflection.

The creative minds of Black Mountain College offer alternative frameworks for practice and pedagogy. Their energies express the values of dehabituation, emphasizing that the most critical framework is the system itself. Making room for chance yields rounder definitions, more inclusive and expansive understand- ing, and avenues of discovery for artists, producers, and audiences alike. Their rich histories and legacies of experimentation run parallel, adjacent to, and around dominant industrialized models of habituated media culture. Their works demonstrate the value of collapsing art and design idioms through holistic thinking, and their legacies remain radically relevant when we consider art and design practices as mutually invested, culture-shaping co-conspirators. If we wish to enable more expressive and idiomatic communication, rethinking systems by design is an imperative challenge we must embrace.

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42 MODE 2021 Edited Conference Proceedings Fischinger, Oskar. Patent analyzing system. US 002707103, United States Pat- Yarbus, A. L.. Eye Movements and Vision. Germany: Springer US, 2013. ent and Trademark Offce, 26 April 1955. Zeki, Sémir. Inner vision: an exploration of art and the brain. Belgium: Oxford Furniss, Maureen. A New History of Animation. New York: Thames & Hudson. University Press, 1999. 2016. Zyman, Daniela. “At the Edge of the Event Horizon,” in Janet Cardiff: The Walk Gunning, Tom. “Hand and Eye: Excavating a New Technology of the Image in the Book. Mirjam Schaub, Ed. Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna, Victorian Era,” Victorian Studies, Volume 54, No 3. 2012. 495–515. in collaboration with Public Art Fund, New York. 2005. Heider, Fritz., Simmel, Marianne L.. An Experimental Study of Apparent Behavior. United States: éditeur inconnu, 1944. Hofstadter, Douglas R. I Am a Strange Loop. United States: Basic Books, 2007. Husbands, Lilly and Caroline Ruddell. “Approaching Animation and Animation AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Studies,” The Animation Studies Reader. Ed. Nicola Nobson et al. United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. 5–15. Printed. Johannes DeYoung is an artist whose work blends computer animation, algorithmic systems, and experimental material processes. His works are Hyde, Joseph. “Oskar Fischinger’s Synthetic Sound Machine,” Oskar Fischinger exhibited internationally and featured in publications, including The New York 1900–1967: Experiments in Cinematic Abstraction. Netherlands, EYE Times, The New York Post, The Huffington Post, and Dossier Journal. DeYoung Filmmuseum, 2013. is appointed Assistant Professor of Electronic and Time-Based Media at Kaprow, Allan. Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life. Berkeley: University of Carnegie Mellon University. From 2008–2018 he taught courses in animation California Press, 1993. and moving-image production at Yale University School of Art, where he was Lotto, Beau. Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently. United Kingdom: appointed Senior Critic and Director of the Center for Collaborative Arts and Hachette Books, 2017. Media, and at the Yale School of Drama, where he was appointed Lecturer in Design. He is co-founder of the quarterly arts journal Lookie-Lookie. He has McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. United served on the New Foundations Board of Study for time-based media at Kingdom: Routledge, 2001. Purchase College, State University of New York; the Lyme Academy College Pikkov, Ülo. Animasophy: Theoretical Writings on the Animated Film. Estonia: of Fine Arts Contemporary Art Council; and Pennsylvania Academy of the Estonian Academy of Arts, 2010. Fine Arts, as Digital Literacy Consultant. At Yale, he also served as Principal Rose, Frank. The Art of Immersion: How the Digital Generation is Remaking Investigator for the Blended Reality immersive media research program. Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the Way We Tell Stories. New York: W.W. He received his MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. Norton & Company. 2011 Snibbe, Scott and Golan Levin. “Interactive Dynamic Abstraction,” France: ACM Proceedings of Non photorealistic Animation and Rendering (NPAR 2000), 2000. Stark, Lawrence and David Noton. “Eye Movements and Visual Perception,” Scientific American , Vol. 224, No. 6 (June 1971), pp. 34-43 Torre, Dan. Animation—Process, Cognition and Actuality. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. 2017 VanDerBeek, Stan. “‘Culture: Intercom’ and Expanded Cinema: A Proposal and Manifesto,” The Tulane Drama Review, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Autumn, 1966), pp. 38–48 Ward, Paul. “Some Thoughts on Theory—Practice Relationship in Animation Studies,” Animation Studies Reader. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. 2019 Wingfield, Nick and Brian Stelter. “How Netflix Lost 800,000 Members, and Good Will.” The New York Times. Oct 24, 2011

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