or ... to take a look at Pat's interactive rendition/ DVD-ROM of
Tracing the Decay of Fiction that was created and produced in
collaboration with Marsha Kinder and Rosemary Comella of the Labyrinth
Project at USC...." is more like a supernova colliding with a black
hole: the convergence of two extraordinary phenomena in a single
moment – a nearly inconceivable occurrence from a man who thinks
nothing of waiting an entire year to photograph a ray of sunlight
shining through a window at a particular angle."
Published in Release Print September 2002
Chris
On Feb 15, 2010, at 4:41 PM, christopher sullivan wrote:
by the way, I show power and water in my "not quite animation" day
in my
alternative animation history class. It is a wonderful film. you
should all try
to get Pat out to show The Decay OF Fiction, his amazing film, that
unfortunately he does not like, but I sure do. Chris.
Quoting christopher sullivan <csu...@saic.edu>:
Hi Eric, I do think that certain technologies or circumstances
dictate trends
in
work. For instance the non verbal history of independent art films
in the
70's
and 80's, was directly related to issues of french versus English
in Canada,
and the fact that the Netherlands, Italy, Yugoslavia,
Czechoslovakia, where
important places that could not count on language to engage a wider
world.
And for that matter the frame by frame process does break down time
and lead
to
different ways of looking at the world. But I am questioning
starting with
formal notions of Code, or digital culture as subjects. I guess it
gets back
to
notions of modernist painting, which is about putting color on a flat
surface.
All of the great works that I am attracted to in animation, have
something
inherently frame by frame about them, but there is an underlying
content
that
is being negotiated.
I think that animation because of it's labor, tends to give birth
to the
wondering pilgrim, the emptied city, the lone figure in a minimal
world,
because you just can't draw fifty people, CGI is changing this, but
these
limits are good too. They are like the limits of independent
theater, no
dance
numbers, no effects, just words and a few bodies. I also think that
the
limits
of animation, create a need to condense time, in ways that live
action does
not.
and this leads to it's odd sense of time, I hope you have all seen
Cat Soup,
amazing time play in that film.
Quoting Eric Patrick <er...@northwestern.edu>:
Hello All,
Eric Patrick here. Rather than repeat my bio, I'll just jump right
in... I've been making animated films now for twenty years, and
the one
thing I've become convinced of is that animation is a ritual act.
My
own work underscores this in it's experiments with narrative
without the
confines of character development or plot... rather, I often find
myself creating associative connections over causal ones. I'm
certainly
not the first that has noticed this, but perhaps all animators
find it
on their own terms... small repetitive acts, done over long
periods of
time... a withdrawal from day to day life. The very act seems
like a
description of an alchemist's chamber, saying a rosary, kabuki
theatre.
In my particular case, I choose a technique that in some way
comments on
the ideas embedded in my work. This is one of those things that I
find
to be unique about animation (though I would argue that new media
has
this ability too): the ability to orchestrate the concept into the
very
fabric of the image through the technique that is utilized. It's
that
relationship between form and content that makes animation quite so
unique. That these techniques involve increasingly preoccupied
states
of consciousness only adds to the ritual effect of animation.
It's no
wonder then that we can see such a wide interest in metaphysics
throughout animation history.
As an animator stepping into a group dedicated to new media, I'm
interested in finding where my experience may cross over with yours.
Perhaps we can also weave with Chris Sullivan's intro, because, as
he
states that technology is a tool but not a subject, I am almost
inferring that the process can become a subject. I have shown Pat
O'Neil's work "Water and Power" to students, and interestingly, they
told me that it completely changed their relationship to after
effects.
O'Neil's work somehow seems like it could only be conceived and
executed
on an optical printer, though it can obviously very easily be
created
with something like after effects. While I agree that technology
is a
tool, do certain tools not engender certain kinds of work?
best,
Eric
Christopher Sullivan
Dept. of Film/Video/New Media
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
112 so michigan
Chicago Ill 60603
csu...@saic.edu
312-345-3802
_______________________________________________
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Christopher Sullivan
Dept. of Film/Video/New Media
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
112 so michigan
Chicago Ill 60603
csu...@saic.edu
312-345-3802
_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
http://www.subtle.net/empyre
_______________________________________________
empyre forum
empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
http://www.subtle.net/empyre
