Re: [-empyre-] y, and now books
This is a bit of a late response to the post about books for teaching. As a student in the 90s, I combed (and continue to do so still) the Film Studies and other libraries at the University of Zurich for anything on animation there was very little published on animation studies then and found hundreds of chapters, essays and articles. The case remains today that there aren't many 'good' rigorous books on animation (yet), but the increase in PhD students is promising as they will make solid contributions, as Eric points out. As it stand I don't use many of the books on animation that are published, as I find them too broad, their corpi too narrow, or simply not rigorous enough. Animators need to be aware of the contexts of film studies, fine art practice, philosophy, and critical theory, and I teach them how to locate themselves within this wider framework of moving image practice. To the list of journals you could add the relatively new animation: an interdisciplinary journal (http://anm.sagepub.com/) published 3x year since 2006. The journal's scope is very comprehensive, yet its focus is clear and simple. It addresses all animation made using all known (and yet to be developed) techniques - from 16th century optical devices to contemporary digital media - revealing its implications on other forms of time-based media expression past, present and future. It is also exploring the boundaries that Simon queried in his post about qestioning Cartesian space. It 'does what it says on the tin' and addresses interdisciplinarity in arts-based, non- commercial animation and tries to break the hedgemonies of western production and the rather limited canons that are usually the focus of most writing (MacLaren, Aardman, Disney, Pixar,, etc etc). It is also deeply engaging with practice, and many of its authors are filmmakers and artists. fFr instance, it has published on Jeremy Blake, animation biomimetic architecture, Robert Seidel's _grau, Thorsten Fleisch, art installations, etc. The next issue is a pecial Issue on Stan Vanderbeek,and it pushes the boundaries of definitions of animation in pure and digital formats. While I tend to use film and critical theory texts to teach students as they are filmmakers, after all, there are some useful books that focus specifically on animation. I've included a few of the titles I've used over the years, in teaching animation history, theory and aesthetics: Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Transl. Maria Jolas, 1964. 1958. Boston: Beacon Press, 1994. Bordwell, David and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction. (4th edition) New York etc: McGraw Hill, Inc., 1993. Chion, Michel. Audio-Vision. Sound on Screen. Transl. Claudia Gorbman. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Crafton, Donald. Before Mickey. The Animated Film 1898-1928. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1984, pgs 35-58. (whole book invaluable for Pre-sound animation) Buchan, Suzanne (ed) . Animated 'Worlds', Eastleigh: John Libbey, 2006. Furniss, Maureen. Art in Motion. Animation Aesthetics. London: John Libbey, 1998 Halas, John Roger Manvell, The Technique of Film Animation, London: Focal Press, 1978. Goodman, Nelson. Languages of Art. [1961]. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2nd Edition, 1976. Hames, Peter (ed.). Dark Alchemy. The Films of Jan Svankmajer. London: Flicks Books, 1995. Hans Richter by Hans Richter. Cleve Gray (Ed.). London: Thames and Hudson, 1971 Kahn, Douglas. Noise Water Meat. A History of Sound in the Arts. (1999) London and Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1999. Pbk. 2001 Lawder, Standish. The Cubist Cinema, New York: 1975, pgs. 35-64 Mendelson, Lois. Robert Breer, A Study of his Work in the Context of the Modernist Tradition. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1981. Pp 55-105. Wees, William. Light Moving in Time. Oxford etc: University of California Press, 1992. pp. 123-153. Sobchack, Vivian, Meta-Morphing. Visual Transformation and the Culture of Quick-Change. Vivian Sobchack (ed.). Miinneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000.. Klein, N,. 7 Minutes. The Life and Death of the American Animated Cartoon. London and New York: Verso, 1993 Manovich. Lev. Digital Cinema and the History of a Moving Image. In: ibid. The Language of New Media, Cambridge and London: The MIT Press, 2001. Pgs 293-308. Russett, Robert Cecile Starr. Experimental Animation. New York: Reinhold 1976, pgs.57-71 Walt in wonderland : the silent films of Walt Disney = Nel paese delle meraviglie / Russell Merritt, J. B. Kaufman ; [trad. di Piera Patat]. [Pordenone] : Le Giornate del Cinema Muto [etc.], © 1992. Before Mickey : the animated film 18981928 / Donald Crafton ; [forew. by Otto Messmer ]. Cambridge, Massachusetts [etc.] : MIT Press, © 1982 Zelinski, Siegfried. Deep Time of the Media. Towards an Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means. Translated by Gloria Custance. Cambridge and London: The MIT
[-empyre-] Introduction to week 4 and BLENDO
I can't believe that we are into week 4 of empyre's discussion on Theorizing Animation: Content and Context. A sincere thank you to Christopher, Eric, and Melanie for being our guests this past week. I'd like to introduce Thyrza Goodeve who has made a number of posts already this month. I met Thyrza at the Quay Brothers exhibition here at Cornell and she so graciously agreed to be our guest this month. Also, Richard Wright has also made posts especially this past week. We are also most grateful for his participation. Welcome to Eileen Reynolds from Singapore who will join in on this weeks discussion as well. I have attached their biographies below. We will be continuing our discussion through Monday, the 28h of February. I'm hoping that all of our subscribers who have been lurking this month will feel free to make posts as well. I just got back from USC in Southern California and noticed that this week they are hosting an exhibition entitled BLENDO: A hybrid approach to moving image art - combining 2D / 3D animation, Photography, Motion Graphics, Text, Green Screen, or other elements. Anyone else heard of the term BLENDO used to characterize manipulated moving imagery. Anyone know where it comes from? Thanks to all of you once again. Renate Week 4:Thyrza Nichols Goodeve (US) , Richard Wright (UK), Eileen Reynolds (SG) Thyrza Nichols Goodeve, PhD is an art writer and Adjunct Professor at The School of Visual Arts in New York City who teaches in the film, art history, and MFA Art Criticism and Writing departments. She has known The Brothers Quays since 1996 when she interviewed them for *Artforum* in conjunction with the premiere of *Institute Benjamenta*. Most recently she has followed the Quays foray into the exhibition space with their traveling exhibition DORMITORIUM (curated by Ed Waisnis), a rare selection of vitrines of original puppet theaters f such as *Street of Crocodiles* or *The Cabinet of Jan Svankmeyer.* Last week she was with the Quays as they installed the exhibition at the invitation of The College of Architecture, Art and Planning at Cornell University where the Quay Brothers work was featured. Richard Wright is a visual artist working in animated media who made several pioneering computer animated films and interactive pieces. Heliocentrum (1995), an animation about Louis XIV, was described by writer Hari Kunzru as an amazingly effective way of showing how a sovereign manipulated power and The Bank of Time was nominated for a BAFTA in 2001. His last short film was Foreplay (2004), described as a porn film without the sex . Richard helped set up the MA in Digital Art and Animation at London Metropolitan University and was postproduction and animation tutor at the National Film and Television School for three years. He has a PhD in the aesthetics of digital film making and has published forty book chapters, articles and reviews. From 2004 to 2009 he collaborated with Graham Harwood and Matsuko Yokokoji, initially as Mongrel. Their last project 'Tantalum Memorial' won the transmediale.09 award. Current projects include a public video work called decorative surveillance, researching a book about contemporary animation practice, the narrativising of new media and data visualisation as the successor to documentary film making. Eileen Anastasia Reynolds is an experimental media artist working with painting, photography, and stop motion animation. She is interested in the visceral responses that stop motion animation creates, using tactility to explore levels of emotional impact. Her current work, is an experimental animated documentary that attempts to bridge illusion and reality while embracing the magical realism of stop motion. Her ultimate goal is to preserve the integrity of stop motion which, she feels, is the perfect mix of art; including but not limited to sculpture, painting, photography, lighting, performing, writing, and music. Eileen continues to exhibit her personal artwork, consisting of painting, photography, and stop-motion animation. As an Asst Prof at the School of Art, Design, and Media at Nanyang Technological University since 2005, she has taught stop motion animation, animation seminar, and animation history. Her research interests include bioethics and emerging technologies, which raise scientific, social, and ethical concerns. Her most recent project embarked on a journey with 33 EEE students from NTU who helped in the creation of an animated film series called Synchronicity Series. They performed, choreographed and animated their bodies using the stop motion technique called pixilation. Renate Ferro Visiting Assistant Professor Department of Art Cornell University, Tjaden Hall Ithaca, NY 14853 Email: r...@cornell.edu Website: http://www.renateferro.net Co-moderator of _empyre soft skinned space http://www.subtle.net/empyre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empyre Art Editor, diacritics http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/dia/
