1 Disrupting Traditional Cartooning in the Digital Age Eric von Löbbecke z5051459 A thesis in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Fine Art (Research) UNSW ART & DESIGN December 2020 13 January 2021 3 Acknowledgements In undertaking this studio-based research project I would like to thank the following people for their assistance and support: My wife and voice over actor Vicki White, who had the patience and generosity to allow me to focus on my art practice through a pandemic and changing economic circumstances. Professor Ian Howard, for his inspirational guidance through the process of creating a whole new working model for artists, especially with the academic notation of an evolving art practice over the two years of his mentorship. Allan Giddy, my second supervisor, who advised me very early in the process on technical matters and directed the disruptive nature of my project. The editors of The Australian newspaper, especially Tim Douglas, editor of the Review literary section in the weekend edition, whose insistence and perseverance brought the Work-in-Progress model to life in a national newspaper. Greg Parish, Exhibitions Coordinator at MOAD, for his faith in an unpredictable outcome for the Museum of Australian Democracy in Canberra. Stella Downer Fine Art equally; Stella showed a great deal of courage in allowing experimentation to take place over four weeks on the gallery walls, and also staff member Ainsley Wilcock for her patience and valuable feedback. Pat Sheil Gina Wigan, and Louise Mayhew the final editors for this project. And last but not least the generosity from all of my collaborators, who have loyally contributed, week in week out, to my projects in its many forms. Without this continuing support from the public, I would not have been able to make these findings. 4 Contents ABSTRACT 5 Disrupting Traditional Cartooning in the Digital Age 5 1. INTRODUCTION 7 2. LITERATURE, TECHNOLOGY, FILMIC NARRATIVE AND CIVIL CARTOONING REVIEW 12 Literature 12 Technology 14 Filmic Narrative 16 Civil Cartooning 19 3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: Open and Closed Gestalt in a Heuristic Methodology 26 4a. STUDIO RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 1: Experimentation with New Digital Media 31 4b. STUDIO RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 2: Opinion Page Illustration to Work-in-Progress 38 5. CIVIL CARTOONING: A Critique Made in a Civil Manner 48 6. THE WORK-IN-PROGRESS 57 Project 1: Within a Major Mewspaper, The Australian 57 Project 2: Within a Leading Cultural Institution, Museum of Australian Democracy 65 Project 3: Within an Art Gallery, Stella Downer Gallery, Sydney 76 7. CONCLUSION: OUTCOMES 85 APPENDIX 90 BIBLIOGRAPHY 91 5 Abstract DISRUPTING TRADITIONAL CARTOONING IN THE DIGITAL AGE This exegesis identifies the changing nature of political cartooning in the digital age, and specifically the Closed Gestalt confines of contemporary Opinion Page cartooning, a specific discipline that has been my practice for the last 32 years for the national newspaper, The Australian. The daily workload consists of creating a cartoon for a prescribed space on the page. The image coinhabits and illustrates a singular opinion piece of writing. With the advent of new technology, and the availability of improved digital drawing tools, my practice broadened to encompass the use of time-based digital animation. Consequently, to go beyond the limitations of the Opinion Page working model, I proposed to The Australian to experiment with a process described as an Open Gestalt. The project was aptly called Work-in-Progress (W-i-P). My working process was to solicit multiple ideas from readers online, through social media and the newspaper’s website, to grow an expanding collaborative picture based on a chosen weekly theme or topic. In addition, during the course of each week, an animated video would be produced of the growing big picture. This practice-led process attempted to explore the phenomenology of ideas via an Open Gestalt framework, employing new communication technology and utilising innovative digital drawing tools. A necessarily fast- paced heuristic research method was employed to synthesise ideas into images. 6 While experimenting with digital cartooning, using the latest software and hardware, I investigated key artistic precedents and the work of cartoonists that I found to be inspirational. At the same time, there were controversies surrounding the nature and role of political cartooning. I therefore explored the work of Australian cartoonists, Bill Leak and Mark Knight, as well as that of the French, satirical weekly newspaper, Charlie Hebdo. I felt that my evolving concept of collaborative cartooning, incorporating many opinions, might point to a process that would result in a concept of ‘civil cartooning’, even democratic art practice. To explore this process of collaborative picture making further, I set up and carried out tests within a leadership institution: the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House, Canberra, and within a cultural setting: the Stella Downer Fine Art, Sydney. 7 1. Introduction Can a trained mind disrupt traditional cartooning in the digital age? Political cartooning has been my professional practice for over 32 years, and at the beginning of this studio-based research project I asked myself: “Can a trained mind disrupt traditional cartooning in the digital age?” A trained mind in this context refers to my immersion in and development through the professional discipline of political cartooning. Australian art historian, Joan Kerr, calls political cartooning “the most public art.”1 “to have a missionary zeal to show us as we are, warts and all . in ways that we all understand and appreciate”2 More specifically, I produce every day, on the Opinion Page, an illustration for the national daily newspaper, The Australian. My drawing skills are applied within a highly constrained time frame to create political cartoons/illustrations exploiting the character tropes of caricature, satire, distortion, metaphor and allegory. Other constraints upon the artist working in this field are the dictates of ideas and opinions contained within the singular piece of writing, the opinion column of that day, and ensuring that they are being responded to. Drawing therefore becomes the communication device that extrapolates as poignantly as possible the tone and intent of the writer’s word. This form of 1 Kerr, J. (1999). Artists and Cartoonists in Black and White. S.H. Ervin Gallery National Trust, 78. 2 Manning, H, (2009). Australian Review of Public Affairs. Website quoting Kerr, J. Recalling The Past With A Laugh. http://www.australianreview.net/digest/2009/02/manning.html 8 drawing can be characterised as operating in a Closed Gestalt. Gestalt theorist, Max Wertheimer, also termed this way of drawing Re-productive rather than Productive Thinking.3 As a way to think beyond the limitations of the current Opinion Page working model, that is, drawing within a Closed Gestalt, I responded strongly to an inspirational quote from artist, William Kentridge. He said: “Unambiguous messages are always false, they are (hidden) authoritarianism.”4 Therefore, for him, an ambiguous depiction of politics will always be more real. Consequently, I proposed to The Australian that I experiment with a process of drawing that could be described as operating within an Open Gestalt. Instead of the ‘gate keeper’ Opinion Page editor choosing a particular article and its idea for me to respond to,5 I would solicit from readers of the newspaper their ideas on a more open-ended topic, and use these ideas as inspirational building blocks for drawing as a mode of “Democratic Art-working,” as described by Stephen Felmingham in his essay, “Figures of speech: Can conversation be a democratic mode of drawing?”6 Such a drawing would be participatory, engaging members of the public. It would also be interactive, that is, any singular submitted idea would, over the progress of the drawing, influence other contributions provided earlier or later in the process. 3 King, B. D., Viney, W., Douglas Woody, W. (1993). A History of Psychology: Ideas and Context. Routledge. 356–358. 4 Kentridge as cited in Kentridge, W., Farkas, S. O., Cury, L., Gabassi, A., Associação Cultural Videobrasil, Serviço Social do Comércio, & Prince Claus Fund. (2000). Certain doubts of William Kentridge = Certas dùvidas de William Kentridge. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs6GkV4SfWE&t=2252s 5 The idea of gate keeping is taken from: Vultee, F. (2019). Attitudes toward News Content, News practice and Journalism’s Future. Teaching Journalism and Mass Communication, 9(1), (2019), 23–34. https://aejmc.us/spig/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2019/06/Vultee-TJMC-9.1.pdf and; White, D. M. (1950). The "gate keeper": A case study in the selection of news. Journalism Quarterly, 27, 383- 390. 6 Felmingham, S. (2019). Figures of speech: Can conversation be a democratic mode of drawing? Drawing: Research, Theory, Practice, 4(1), 71–80, https://doi.org/10.1386/drtp.4.1.71_1 9 This additional and alternative weekly drawing was accepted by The Australian and through consultation was called Work-in-Progress (W-i-P). The proposed process was to use ideas, submitted by readers, gathered via social media and The Australian’s website, as accumulating commentary over a five-day period, to grow a ‘bigger picture’ drawing. This drawing, it was hoped, would explore, even demonstrate, the nature and viability of a collectively formed and freely interpreted Open Gestalt groupthink. Finally, each completed W-i-P drawing was to be published in the Review section of The Weekend Australian newspaper. The W-i-P drawing process was facilitated and enabled by my experimentation with drawing on digital tablets (iPad Pro) with a stylus (Apple Pencil) using a digital mark-making graphics program (Procreate app). On completion of the drawing process, as well as the finished artwork, there was a sequential record of the drawing’s construction, which could be edited into a time-based animation using digital editing software (iMovie and Final Cut Pro).