Re: [-empyre-] animation and short term memory (was, a long time ago: interpreting datasets, etc)
This may be as much a matter of what is regarded as relevant training as it is to working conditions. If training is primarily begun in mastering very difficult software rather than in art making with the tools being factored in a little later, it is easy for this to happen. Christina Richard Wright wrote: I always liked the quality in the Quay films where time seems to lose all its reference points. Those shots of dust settling or shadows dancing where you are no longer sure whether you are watching in realtime or over the course of hundreds of years. This also made me wonder why certain kinds of narrative and time are almost never used in animation. For instance, why are there no non-linear narrative animations? They are not that uncommon in live action films - I am thinking of Memento that goes backwards in story time (with one b/w stream going forwards), Amores Perros that jumps repeatedly backwards and forwards, The Hours with its parallel storylines running in different historical times periods. The only example of an animated film that has anything like these kinds of narrative structure is Waltz with Bashir with its persistent flashbacks. And that was made by a live action director. I wonder if this has something to do with the way that animators work, concentrating as they do on building up a sequence of actions bit by bit, are they generally less directed towards the larger narrative structures of time? By focusing on the duration of the immediate event, is it as though they assume a sort of short term memory? Richard On 25 Feb 2010, at 03:34, T Goodeve wrote: Hello everyone: Sorry I’ve been so lax as a discussant-generator but here I am with some thoughts and reflections. If it’s okay just an aside first: off the top of my fingertips—many of you make stuff you love and live for, also write about with great passion, and the animated worldscape is still and ever will be one of magic and wonder I hope (you have the romantic here), i.e., endless visual and aural reimagings via its ability, or definition, whether anlogue or digital, to do anything and everything within and beyond the spacetime continuum. But sometimes I miss the basic humor, wonder, and sheer “wow” of the simplicity of animation. I mentioned in a post. The blank page and the dot. We lose track, myself included, analyzing the life out of things sometimes and to do this with animation seems particularly perverse. I realize I set myself up for a bit of ridicule here but alas, someone has to speak up for the puppet doll in /Street of Crocodiles/ who cradles the bare light bulb baby in its arm and brings it back to life with light, or the frayed and earnest bunny who does his best to keep up with the spinning demented ping pong balls and a pair of disembodied knee socks and slippers moving up and down on tip toes in the Quays “Are We Still Married” —up and down, up and down. I think Christopher Sullivan was trying to get at this but not everyone is out to do what he does nor interested in the way I am or the Quays or for that matter, those who use it for visualization, but depending on why you do what you do we are here to discuss the breakthrough insights of theory and technology and animation, but it’s just sometimes I’ve felt we’ve let the technology get away with doing too much of the talking, not that it doesn’t have a lot to say. But a more hardy, if overly general, topic is temporality and time, now-time vs say the way cinema’s capturing, sculpting, control of time was such a huge part of its magic. Siegfried Kracauer describe in an essay how powerful just “having” the wind in the trees —a moment— captured on film is for him. How different from one of my students when I showed some film, perhaps Tarkovsky,” Why does he keep leaving the camera on the trees so long?” Students of cinema are different. We know this: ADD and short digitized attention spans. But how do you see this in your worlds of animation either in terms of resistance or something emerging that is part of this. One thing I thought was very relevant was the post of the shift tilt which is amazing and disturbing in this respect. Lots to say about it: not only the time lapse but the way the world is miniaturized. Here the real profilmic world is literally made into an stop motion animated “cartoon”. One could talk about the Quays work and time – both in terms of period and affect; rhythm and texture of their worlds (/In Absentia/, the film they made with Stockhausen, is in some ways about light/time, metaphorically written all at once over and over (the character n the film) hence no time. Endless time. Speed of light… .) But I do not know what people have seen. I am more interested in hearing you all discuss temporality and animation “today”—both theoretically and examples. These discussions are so energetic. They amaze me.
Re: [-empyre-] animation and short term memory (was, a long time ago: interpreting datasets, etc)
I just saw this advert on another list. I expect they probably don't extend this history of the timeline into the practice of animation and film. Yet it seems logical to suppose such investigations might be relevant to the way we work... Cartographies of Time A history of the Timeline... Image - http://www.finebooksmagazine.com/issue/201001/graphics/ cartographies_time.jpg Daniel Rosenberg , Anthony Grafton ISBN 9781568987637 8.5 x 10.5 inches (21.6 x 26.7 cm), Hardcover , 272 pages 268 color illustrations ; 40 b/w illustrations Available (publication date 5/1/2010) Rights: World; From the most ancient images to the contemporary, the line has served as the central figure in the representation of time. The linear metaphor is ubiquitous in everyday visual representations of time—in almanacs, calendars, charts, and graphs of all sorts. Even our everyday speech is filled with talk of time having a before and an after or being long and short. The timeline is such a familiar part of our mental furniture that it is sometimes hard to remember that we invented it in the first place. And yet, in its modern form, the timeline is not even 250 years old. The story of what came before has never been fully told, until now. Cartographies of Time is the first comprehensive history of graphic representations of time in Europe and the United States from 1450 to the present. Authors Daniel Rosenberg and Anthony Grafton have crafted a lively history featuring fanciful characters and unexpected twists and turns. From medieval manuscripts to websites, Cartographies of Time features a wide variety of timelines that in their own unique ways—curving, crossing, branching—defy conventional thinking about the form. A fifty-four-foot-long timeline from 1753 is mounted on a scroll and encased in a protective box. Another timeline uses the different parts of the human body to show the genealogies of Jesus Christ and the rulers of Saxony. Ladders created by missionaries in eighteenth-century Oregon illustrate Bible stories in a vertical format to convert Native Americans. Also included is the April 1912 Marconi North Atlantic Communication chart, which tracked ships, including the Titanic, at points in time rather than by their geographic location, alongside little-known works by famous figures, including a historical chronology by the mapmaker Gerardus Mercator and a chronological board game patented by Mark Twain. Presented in a lavishly illustrated edition, Cartographies of Time is a revelation to anyone interested in the role visual forms have played in our evolving conception of history. On 26 Feb 2010, at 23:08, Richard Wright wrote: I always liked the quality in the Quay films where time seems to lose all its reference points. Those shots of dust settling or shadows dancing where you are no longer sure whether you are watching in realtime or over the course of hundreds of years. This also made me wonder why certain kinds of narrative and time are almost never used in animation. For instance, why are there no non-linear narrative animations? They are not that uncommon in live action films - I am thinking of Memento that goes backwards in story time (with one b/w stream going forwards), Amores Perros that jumps repeatedly backwards and forwards, The Hours with its parallel storylines running in different historical times periods. The only example of an animated film that has anything like these kinds of narrative structure is Waltz with Bashir with its persistent flashbacks. And that was made by a live action director. I wonder if this has something to do with the way that animators work, concentrating as they do on building up a sequence of actions bit by bit, are they generally less directed towards the larger narrative structures of time? By focusing on the duration of the immediate event, is it as though they assume a sort of short term memory? Richard On 25 Feb 2010, at 03:34, T Goodeve wrote: Hello everyone: Sorry I’ve been so lax as a discussant-generator but here I am with some thoughts and reflections. If it’s okay just an aside first: off the top of my fingertips—many of you make stuff you love and live for, also write about with great passion, and the animated worldscape is still and ever will be one of magic and wonder I hope (you have the romantic here), i.e., endless visual and aural reimagings via its ability, or definition, whether anlogue or digital, to do anything and everything within and beyond the spacetime continuum. But sometimes I miss the basic humor, wonder, and sheer “wow” of the simplicity of animation. I mentioned in a post. The blank page and the dot. We lose track, myself included, analyzing the life out of things sometimes and to do this with animation seems particularly perverse. I realize I set myself up for a bit of ridicule here but alas, someone has to
Re: [-empyre-] animation and short term memory (was, a long time ago: interpreting datasets, etc)
Out of this loong list I would say I am only familiar with the Quays, Simon, Joshua, Jim Duesing, Parn and the Animate people (who commissioned two of my own films). But I can't think of any particular films of theirs that I would describe as non-linear narrative in the sense I was trying to describe. Although most are non-linear in other ways, such as building other kinds of connections of ideas and images. So to take the Quays as an example, I'd say that Benjamenta is probably the closest to a conventional narrative (I haven't seen their new feature). Although the narrative connections are made in very unconventional ways. But the flow of time I remember as being one way, forward, linear. Most of their short films I remember as more non-narrative, or have weaker narrative threads, their structure depending on other things. Maybe there's a difference in the sort of granularity of actions in live action and animation that leads to different kinds of consistency. I think that in order for the kind of narrative I'm talking about to appear, you probably have to start with a fairly conventional linear time based narrative which provides you with a clear enough plot structure so that you can then recognisably chop it up. And I haven't see much of this in animation, short or long, unless its animation made by film makers from other practices. Perhaps non-chronological narrative would be a better way of describing what I'm getting at. Perhaps it's something that's historical and going to change soon and I'm making a big fuss about nothing, I'm not sure... Richard On 27 Feb 2010, at 06:05, christopher sullivan wrote: Hi Richard, there are plenty of non-linear narrative animations, not too many feature ones, but then there are not all that many feature length animations. here are a few animators, off the top of my head, and the Quay's as well; janie Gieser. Lewis Klahr, Nancu Andrews, me Chris Sullivan, Jim Trainor, Simon Pummel, Amy Kravitze, Karen Yasinsky, Lilli Carre, Patrick Smith, Don Hertzfeld, Rose Bond, Joshua Mosely, Jim Duesing, Pritt Parn, Brent Green, Piotr Dumala, and check out the nice work funded by the organization, Animate Projects, great british wonders. have a good night. Chris. Quoting Richard Wright futurenatu...@blueyonder.co.uk: I always liked the quality in the Quay films where time seems to lose all its reference points. Those shots of dust settling or shadows dancing where you are no longer sure whether you are watching in realtime or over the course of hundreds of years. This also made me wonder why certain kinds of narrative and time are almost never used in animation. For instance, why are there no non- linear narrative animations? They are not that uncommon in live action films - I am thinking of Memento that goes backwards in story time (with one b/w stream going forwards), Amores Perros that jumps repeatedly backwards and forwards, The Hours with its parallel storylines running in different historical times periods. The only example of an animated film that has anything like these kinds of narrative structure is Waltz with Bashir with its persistent flashbacks. And that was made by a live action director. I wonder if this has something to do with the way that animators work, concentrating as they do on building up a sequence of actions bit by bit, are they generally less directed towards the larger narrative structures of time? By focusing on the duration of the immediate event, is it as though they assume a sort of short term memory? Richard On 25 Feb 2010, at 03:34, T Goodeve wrote: Hello everyone: Sorry I’ve been so lax as a discussant-generator but here I am with some thoughts and reflections. If it’s okay just an aside first: off the top of my fingertips—many of you make stuff you love and live for, also write about with great passion, and the animated worldscape is still and ever will be one of magic and wonder I hope (you have the romantic here), i.e., endless visual and aural reimagings via its ability, or definition, whether anlogue or digital, to do anything and everything within and beyond the spacetime continuum. But sometimes I miss the basic humor, wonder, and sheer “wow” of the simplicity of animation. I mentioned in a post. The blank page and the dot. We lose track, myself included, analyzing the life out of things sometimes and to do this with animation seems particularly perverse. I realize I set myself up for a bit of ridicule here but alas, someone has to speak up for the puppet doll in Street of Crocodiles who cradles the bare light bulb baby in its arm and brings it back to life with light, or the frayed and earnest bunny who does his best to keep up with the spinning demented ping pong balls and a pair of disembodied knee socks and slippers moving up and down on tip toes in the Quays “Are We Still Married” —up and down, up and
Re: [-empyre-] animation and short term memory (was, a long time ago: interpreting datasets, etc)
Dear Simon, Chris, Suzanne: Simon! How cruel. I want to fly out there this minute (time metaphor there we go). Please do promote such things. Sounds fantastic. (Too good about Chris Speed . I went to a bank teller the other day and the name plate said James Bank I am not a “good eve” though.). A sense organ for time. What a lovely image. Maybe that is what indeed we are in total. I am reading “From Eternity to Here” by Sean Carroll and somehow it makes sense to be reading it and thinking about animation. Animation just seems to be fundamentally about time, or spacetime more so even than cinema. -- I have only just thought this. I think there's something there and maybe I will think about it more at some point, I’d like to. But perhaps it’s why we seem to agree animation now has subsumed (but not “killed” )cinema —and not just because of digital etc or because of the animated feature (and anime) but because , taking on Suzanne’s argument here which I can’t really do justice to, animation as a metaphysical category, a way of defining the moving image NOW “animation studies” offers a more encompassing way of thinking about and discussion these worlds. It’s a historical argumenst as I see it. But. “animation” as a mega-media ontology that cinema, as a historical language and institution, After these three weeks animation is the uber category klein bottle which houses the a four dimensional ZOOB modeling system (see below), for the new species of animated, computation, cinematic moving image objects that are now breeding out there. Until this discussion I never thought about “animation” as an uber category, I think new media was given the hat c/o Lev manovich, but “animation” with its associations has more open ness to time, less constriction *to* media (anything can be animated)—it is movement that animates and time via the repetition and the result is action based in time. Or something like this. Others can follow. These are really ideas that are getting ahead of me. I haven’t had coffee yet. This will take me to answering Suzanne's request re: Michael Joaquin Grey's work. But first to Christopher, (and hardy har har by the way!!!) you were the one who posted the shift tilt you tube that is so interesting and disturbing but relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_1zzPCnyOIfeature=related The stop motion time lapse transforms the world into an animated child's world. Someone somewhere in all these posts discussed the world becoming animated, now here it is all pee wee’s great”big” adventure but it's more complex than that. The shift/tilt format is a form of animated time and it fore shortens real time – even documentary time because the news program leads in saying the artist is making a document about heir city right? It is familiar but toy storied. Pixar uncanny. Unhomey Shift-tilt time. The incredibly miniaturized hyper manic shrinking man Re: Richard and animation and narrative and animation. It’s why animation is so essential isn’t it. It is the place with no laws. Altthough one works within vertical and horizontal axes of Cartesian space , no physical laws need be followed. My love of film and literature in my youth was the avant garde and modernism – anything to bresk from classical models/ anything that played with time and narrative—the more non linear the better. Why Because I wanted to believe time was up for grabs, that it was purely subjective, that it’s all about social construts and things like that—Proust, Renais, Robbe Grillet , parallel time, black holes etc…but Sean Carroll makes the obvious point time has only one direction, even if we can make it go backwards and sideways in avant garde films, life isn’t an avant garde film Time has one direction: forward. You can't reverse a burned house. This is why Martin Amis's “Time's Arrow” is so brilliant – because he writes the actions reversed so the SS officers actions in the death camps, as he lives them become acts of reversals into life. It’s amazing. But Amis is unusual. “Memento” did not work. Everything had to go forward as it went backward so it never went backward. Cinema is so dependent on narrative. I just read Richard’s post. I thought he had said the opposite!—why has animation been so free of non-narrative. But he said the opposite because he was referring to feature animation! I guess I was thinking of smaller and probably more experimental hand drawn animation. Animation and Time: Is this an old saw: La Jetee? The ultimate film about time. But can we bring it into a discussion of time and animation perhaps only because of the amount of time between frames -- 24 frames per second for each length of the shot that equals a still photograph, except for the one moment of movement when the woman blinks and looks at us. But just for purposes of us here in this discussion, can it be included as a kind of cine animation? Is this interesting re: defining animation vs. cinema re: time.? A much bigger discussion
Re: [-empyre-] post
To Renata et all I was with Michael Grey yesterday just by happenstance and I told him I loved this piece (had just been looking at it by happenstance) and he said, You know, it's kind of an animation (It's 2 series: Beginning, MIddle, End; First, Second, Third) http://citroid.com/friedrichwarp_lg.jpg Michael Joaquin Grey Middle, 1993 ALso re: time and animation. I guess this has been written about but, we do say, animate the past or animate the future, not cinemate it. (ow?) I've enjoyed this a lot. Feel like I've made some nice new connections neuronal as well as human. Yours, Thyrza On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 1:09 AM, christopher sullivan csu...@saic.eduwrote: Hi Christina, yes hopefully they are the stuff of all art, but sometimes I feel that animation is not included so I press the point, yes on the graphic novelists who are doing such great work. love Dan Clowes Velvet Glove cast in iron, Tina, is I think one of the most fascinating characters ever created, when she bites her arm I could die. also the wonderfull Fun Home by Alison Buchdel. hopefully we will fight these battles of clarity and poetics until the end, never winning but getting close. good night, Chris. Quoting Christina Spiesel christina.spie...@yale.edu: Christopher, The issues you outline below are, in some lights, at play in all art. What do we show? Tell? And is what we show, do we rely on poetic association or on the head of the nail literal presentation? How do we imagine our audiences? How long does it take to read? How long does it last? What does it have to do with human time? Historical time? Cosmic time? And time and rhythm? I am curious that the name of Scott McCloud hasn't come up. [But maybe I missed it in the wonderful flow of conversation] I think his metacognitive work on the graphic novel (comics in the broadest definition) is very on point for animation. Christina christopher sullivan wrote: Hi Thyrza, when you decide what is hardy and what is not is can always lead to trouble, trouble is good, I go there all the time. Temporality and time are pretty big issues. I think as an animator one of the real challenges is presenting real time images, with silence and stillness. Animation is often thought of as something that should be clear, informational, and when one drifts from that. audiences can be confused. In the new film Country Doctor, by Koji Yamamura , there is a bit of this. the film is beautiful, but sometimes you want it to shut up, visually and audio wise (I would say this about my work too) . but perhaps it is animators trying to respond to audiences desire for clarity. I want Prit Pran who I love, to shut up sometime. But animators feel compelled to clarify and give context, perhaps it is an impulse from animation being a commercial vehicle for humor, for most of it's life. Igor Zovalov, is willing to shut up, which I like(see Milch) very depressing but interesting. by the way, I love the Quays and they are paramount, but I would like to here people talk about some of the other great animators who are out there now. have a good day. Quoting T Goodeve tgood...@gmail.com: Hello everyone: I'm not sure I posted correctly. I sent this last night as a reply. Sorry if I'm confusing anyone. Thyrza Sorry I’ve been so lax as a discussant-generator but here I am with some thoughts and reflections. If it’s okay just an aside first: off the top of my fingertips—many of you make stuff you love and live for, also write about with great passion, and the animated worldscape is still and ever will be one of magic and wonder I hope (you have the romantic here), i.e., endless visual and aural reimagings via its ability, or definition, whether anlogue or digital, to do anything and everything within and beyond the spacetime continuum. But sometimes I miss the basic humor, wonder, and sheer “wow” of the simplicity of animation. I mentioned in a post. The blank page and the dot. We lose track, myself included, analyzing the life out of things sometimes and to do this with animation seems particularly perverse. I realize I set myself up for a bit of ridicule here but alas, someone has to speak up for the puppet doll in *Street of Crocodiles* who cradles the bare light bulb baby in its arm and brings it back to life with light, or the frayed and earnest bunny who does his best to keep up with the spinning demented ping pong balls and a pair of disembodied knee socks and slippers moving up and down on tip toes in the Quays “Are We Still Married” —up and down, up and down. I think Christopher Sullivan was trying to get at this but not evieryone is out to do what he does nor interested in the way I am or the Quays or for that matter, those who use it for
Re: [-empyre-] animation and gender
Dear all, Chris thanks for the list of animators below. There is something that I have been very curious about since we began this whole discussion now about a month ago. I was on a site (and I'm not sure which one it was) that was discussing the lack of female animators in the field. The distinction was that many female animators who are working tend to do more documentary, self help animations. Their observation was that most women artists instead tended to be drawn towards manipulated, experimental cinema and video and not straight animation. (Perhaps we need to extend the whole notion of animation via the fuzziness that Suzanne alluded to early on!) Additionally, Mary Flanagan was here at Cornell a few weeks ago and in a public lecture commented on the overwhelming lack of female gamers in the field as well. Our next empyre discussion will not be beginning until March 8th so for the next couple of days or so I'm hoping that we can all talk openly about this topic. Im fascinated and perhaps misinformed I hope. Maybe the tides are turning and many young female artists will be drawn into the new technologies of animation. When I first started looking for guests for this topic it was difficult to find any women at all to participate but I'm so very happy that we finally were able to get a great and yes diverse mix as Chris pointed out in one of his last posts. Can you all send me your favorite female animators??? Renate PS. We will continue on for the next couple of days on animation and then open things up for a few days of open conversation. Hi Richard, there are plenty of non-linear narrative animations, not too many feature ones, but then there are not all that many feature length animations. here are a few animators, off the top of my head, and the Quay's as well; janie Gieser. Lewis Klahr, Nancu Andrews, me Chris Sullivan, Jim Trainor, Simon Pummel, Amy Kravitze, Karen Yasinsky, Lilli Carre, Patrick Smith, Don Hertzfeld, Rose Bond, Joshua Mosely, Jim Duesing, Pritt Parn, Brent Green, Piotr Dumala, and check out the nice work funded by the organization, Animate Projects, great british wonders. have a good night. Chris. Quoting Richard Wright futurenatu...@blueyonder.co.uk: I always liked the quality in the Quay films where time seems to lose all its reference points. Those shots of dust settling or shadows dancing where you are no longer sure whether you are watching in realtime or over the course of hundreds of years. This also made me wonder why certain kinds of narrative and time are almost never used in animation. For instance, why are there no non- linear narrative animations? They are not that uncommon in live action films - I am thinking of Memento that goes backwards in story time (with one b/w stream going forwards), Amores Perros that jumps repeatedly backwards and forwards, The Hours with its parallel storylines running in different historical times periods. The only example of an animated film that has anything like these kinds of narrative structure is Waltz with Bashir with its persistent flashbacks. And that was made by a live action director. I wonder if this has something to do with the way that animators work, concentrating as they do on building up a sequence of actions bit by bit, are they generally less directed towards the larger narrative structures of time? By focusing on the duration of the immediate event, is it as though they assume a sort of short term memory? Richard On 25 Feb 2010, at 03:34, T Goodeve wrote: Hello everyone: Sorry Ive been so lax as a discussant-generator but here I am with some thoughts and reflections. If its okay just an aside first: off the top of my fingertipsmany of you make stuff you love and live for, also write about with great passion, and the animated worldscape is still and ever will be one of magic and wonder I hope (you have the romantic here), i.e., endless visual and aural reimagings via its ability, or definition, whether anlogue or digital, to do anything and everything within and beyond the spacetime continuum. But sometimes I miss the basic humor, wonder, and sheer wow of the simplicity of animation. I mentioned in a post. The blank page and the dot. We lose track, myself included, analyzing the life out of things sometimes and to do this with animation seems particularly perverse. I realize I set myself up for a bit of ridicule here but alas, someone has to speak up for the puppet doll in Street of Crocodiles who cradles the bare light bulb baby in its arm and brings it back to life with light, or the frayed and earnest bunny who does his best to keep up with the spinning demented ping pong balls and a pair of disembodied knee socks and slippers moving up and down on tip toes in the Quays Are We Still Married up and down, up and down. I think Christopher Sullivan was trying to get at this but not everyone is out to do
Re: [-empyre-] animation and gender
a couple more, Ruth Lingford, Wendy Tilby, Martha Colborn. Kim Colmer, Ariana Gerstine, Orla McHardy, Suzzy templeton, Laura Heit. Lisa Barcy, Susan Pit, Maureen Selwood, Christien Roche. got to go. Chris Quoting Renate Ferro r...@cornell.edu: Dear all, Chris thanks for the list of animators below. There is something that I have been very curious about since we began this whole discussion now about a month ago. I was on a site (and I'm not sure which one it was) that was discussing the lack of female animators in the field. The distinction was that many female animators who are working tend to do more documentary, self help animations. Their observation was that most women artists instead tended to be drawn towards manipulated, experimental cinema and video and not straight animation. (Perhaps we need to extend the whole notion of animation via the fuzziness that Suzanne alluded to early on!) Additionally, Mary Flanagan was here at Cornell a few weeks ago and in a public lecture commented on the overwhelming lack of female gamers in the field as well. Our next empyre discussion will not be beginning until March 8th so for the next couple of days or so I'm hoping that we can all talk openly about this topic. Im fascinated and perhaps misinformed I hope. Maybe the tides are turning and many young female artists will be drawn into the new technologies of animation. When I first started looking for guests for this topic it was difficult to find any women at all to participate but I'm so very happy that we finally were able to get a great and yes diverse mix as Chris pointed out in one of his last posts. Can you all send me your favorite female animators??? Renate PS. We will continue on for the next couple of days on animation and then open things up for a few days of open conversation. Hi Richard, there are plenty of non-linear narrative animations, not too many feature ones, but then there are not all that many feature length animations. here are a few animators, off the top of my head, and the Quay's as well; janie Gieser. Lewis Klahr, Nancu Andrews, me Chris Sullivan, Jim Trainor, Simon Pummel, Amy Kravitze, Karen Yasinsky, Lilli Carre, Patrick Smith, Don Hertzfeld, Rose Bond, Joshua Mosely, Jim Duesing, Pritt Parn, Brent Green, Piotr Dumala, and check out the nice work funded by the organization, Animate Projects, great british wonders. have a good night. Chris. Quoting Richard Wright futurenatu...@blueyonder.co.uk: I always liked the quality in the Quay films where time seems to lose all its reference points. Those shots of dust settling or shadows dancing where you are no longer sure whether you are watching in realtime or over the course of hundreds of years. This also made me wonder why certain kinds of narrative and time are almost never used in animation. For instance, why are there no non- linear narrative animations? They are not that uncommon in live action films - I am thinking of Memento that goes backwards in story time (with one b/w stream going forwards), Amores Perros that jumps repeatedly backwards and forwards, The Hours with its parallel storylines running in different historical times periods. The only example of an animated film that has anything like these kinds of narrative structure is Waltz with Bashir with its persistent flashbacks. And that was made by a live action director. I wonder if this has something to do with the way that animators work, concentrating as they do on building up a sequence of actions bit by bit, are they generally less directed towards the larger narrative structures of time? By focusing on the duration of the immediate event, is it as though they assume a sort of short term memory? Richard On 25 Feb 2010, at 03:34, T Goodeve wrote: Hello everyone: Sorry Ive been so lax as a discussant-generator but here I am with some thoughts and reflections. If its okay just an aside first: off the top of my fingertipsmany of you make stuff you love and live for, also write about with great passion, and the animated worldscape is still and ever will be one of magic and wonder I hope (you have the romantic here), i.e., endless visual and aural reimagings via its ability, or definition, whether anlogue or digital, to do anything and everything within and beyond the spacetime continuum. But sometimes I miss the basic humor, wonder, and sheer wow of the simplicity of animation. I mentioned in a post. The blank page and the dot. We lose track, myself included, analyzing the life out of things sometimes and to do this with animation seems particularly perverse. I realize I set myself up for a bit of ridicule here but alas, someone has to speak up for the puppet doll in Street of Crocodiles who cradles the bare light bulb baby in its arm and brings it back to life with light, or
Re: [-empyre-] animation and short term memory (was, a long time ago: interpreting datasets, etc)
There is the conundrum, that you can be as non chronological as you want, but people will still have to watch the work in forward chronological time. I am always surprised how audiences will organically try to empathize and make causal sense out of what ever is presented to them. Narrative does have some undeniable aspects, it is what nature and geology live on. I recently saw the independent animated feature, Nocturna, despite it's beauty, the narrative just did not hold, something was missing. again I go back to an earlier thought, experimental things usually have something conventionally missing, and narratives are usually missing some experimental twist. I hope for a marriage, but not for everything to be the same. Chris Quoting Richard Wright futurenatu...@blueyonder.co.uk: Out of this loong list I would say I am only familiar with the Quays, Simon, Joshua, Jim Duesing, Parn and the Animate people (who commissioned two of my own films). But I can't think of any particular films of theirs that I would describe as non-linear narrative in the sense I was trying to describe. Although most are non-linear in other ways, such as building other kinds of connections of ideas and images. So to take the Quays as an example, I'd say that Benjamenta is probably the closest to a conventional narrative (I haven't seen their new feature). Although the narrative connections are made in very unconventional ways. But the flow of time I remember as being one way, forward, linear. Most of their short films I remember as more non-narrative, or have weaker narrative threads, their structure depending on other things. Maybe there's a difference in the sort of granularity of actions in live action and animation that leads to different kinds of consistency. I think that in order for the kind of narrative I'm talking about to appear, you probably have to start with a fairly conventional linear time based narrative which provides you with a clear enough plot structure so that you can then recognisably chop it up. And I haven't see much of this in animation, short or long, unless its animation made by film makers from other practices. Perhaps non-chronological narrative would be a better way of describing what I'm getting at. Perhaps it's something that's historical and going to change soon and I'm making a big fuss about nothing, I'm not sure... Richard On 27 Feb 2010, at 06:05, christopher sullivan wrote: Hi Richard, there are plenty of non-linear narrative animations, not too many feature ones, but then there are not all that many feature length animations. here are a few animators, off the top of my head, and the Quay's as well; janie Gieser. Lewis Klahr, Nancu Andrews, me Chris Sullivan, Jim Trainor, Simon Pummel, Amy Kravitze, Karen Yasinsky, Lilli Carre, Patrick Smith, Don Hertzfeld, Rose Bond, Joshua Mosely, Jim Duesing, Pritt Parn, Brent Green, Piotr Dumala, and check out the nice work funded by the organization, Animate Projects, great british wonders. have a good night. Chris. Quoting Richard Wright futurenatu...@blueyonder.co.uk: I always liked the quality in the Quay films where time seems to lose all its reference points. Those shots of dust settling or shadows dancing where you are no longer sure whether you are watching in realtime or over the course of hundreds of years. This also made me wonder why certain kinds of narrative and time are almost never used in animation. For instance, why are there no non- linear narrative animations? They are not that uncommon in live action films - I am thinking of Memento that goes backwards in story time (with one b/w stream going forwards), Amores Perros that jumps repeatedly backwards and forwards, The Hours with its parallel storylines running in different historical times periods. The only example of an animated film that has anything like these kinds of narrative structure is Waltz with Bashir with its persistent flashbacks. And that was made by a live action director. I wonder if this has something to do with the way that animators work, concentrating as they do on building up a sequence of actions bit by bit, are they generally less directed towards the larger narrative structures of time? By focusing on the duration of the immediate event, is it as though they assume a sort of short term memory? Richard On 25 Feb 2010, at 03:34, T Goodeve wrote: Hello everyone: Sorry Ive been so lax as a discussant-generator but here I am with some thoughts and reflections. If its okay just an aside first: off the top of my fingertipsmany of you make stuff you love and live for, also write about with great passion, and the animated worldscape is still and ever will be one of magic and wonder I hope (you have the romantic here), i.e., endless visual and aural reimagings
Re: [-empyre-] animation and gender
Hi, ..on Mon, Mar 01, 2010 at 10:25:20AM -0500, Renate Ferro wrote: Chris thanks for the list of animators below. There is something that I have been very curious about since we began this whole discussion now about a month ago. I was on a site (and I'm not sure which one it was) that was discussing the lack of female animators in the field. The distinction was that many female animators who are working tend to do more documentary, self help animations. Their observation was that most women artists instead tended to be drawn towards manipulated, experimental cinema and video and not straight animation. (Perhaps we need to extend the whole notion of animation via the fuzziness that Suzanne alluded to early on!) Additionally, Mary Flanagan was here at Cornell a few weeks ago and in a public lecture commented on the overwhelming lack of female gamers in the field as well. Mary has forever said this. I wonder if her statistics aren't a little old? According to the ESA, 38% of American videogame players and 48% of gaming parents are women. In other countries such as Korea, statistics show as much as 69.5% of women are playing video games. Even so, women's interests continue to be grossly under-represented, leaving women as single largest untapped market segment in the gaming industry. Link: http://www.womengamers.com/aboutus/ In the case of animation I know many computer-based female animators, albeit at a loose count less than men. It'd be bold to say it's a male oriented field - I've worked closely with animation departments and studios over the years and have seen no evidence of discrimination as such. Correlation is not causation. It would seem however that women are less often encouraged, at an early age, by men and other women to engage in the kind of technical cultures and communities that might lead to a choice to study digital animation. Cheers, -- Julian Oliver home: New Zealand based: Berlin, Germany currently: Berlin, Germany about: http://julianoliver.com Hi Richard, there are plenty of non-linear narrative animations, not too many feature ones, but then there are not all that many feature length animations. here are a few animators, off the top of my head, and the Quay's as well; janie Gieser. Lewis Klahr, Nancu Andrews, me Chris Sullivan, Jim Trainor, Simon Pummel, Amy Kravitze, Karen Yasinsky, Lilli Carre, Patrick Smith, Don Hertzfeld, Rose Bond, Joshua Mosely, Jim Duesing, Pritt Parn, Brent Green, Piotr Dumala, and check out the nice work funded by the organization, Animate Projects, great british wonders. have a good night. Chris. Quoting Richard Wright futurenatu...@blueyonder.co.uk: I always liked the quality in the Quay films where time seems to lose all its reference points. Those shots of dust settling or shadows dancing where you are no longer sure whether you are watching in realtime or over the course of hundreds of years. This also made me wonder why certain kinds of narrative and time are almost never used in animation. For instance, why are there no non- linear narrative animations? They are not that uncommon in live action films - I am thinking of Memento that goes backwards in story time (with one b/w stream going forwards), Amores Perros that jumps repeatedly backwards and forwards, The Hours with its parallel storylines running in different historical times periods. The only example of an animated film that has anything like these kinds of narrative structure is Waltz with Bashir with its persistent flashbacks. And that was made by a live action director. I wonder if this has something to do with the way that animators work, concentrating as they do on building up a sequence of actions bit by bit, are they generally less directed towards the larger narrative structures of time? By focusing on the duration of the immediate event, is it as though they assume a sort of short term memory? Richard On 25 Feb 2010, at 03:34, T Goodeve wrote: Hello everyone: Sorry Ive been so lax as a discussant-generator but here I am with some thoughts and reflections. If its okay just an aside first: off the top of my fingertipsmany of you make stuff you love and live for, also write about with great passion, and the animated worldscape is still and ever will be one of magic and wonder I hope (you have the romantic here), i.e., endless visual and aural reimagings via its ability, or definition, whether anlogue or digital, to do anything and everything within and beyond the spacetime continuum. But sometimes I miss the basic humor, wonder, and sheer wow of the simplicity of animation. I mentioned in a post. The blank page and the dot. We lose track, myself included, analyzing the life out of things sometimes and to do this with animation seems particularly perverse. I realize I set myself up for a bit of ridicule here but alas,
Re: [-empyre-] animation and short term memory (was, a long time ago: interpreting datasets, etc)
Thyrza, the Perpetual ZOOZ piece looks great. I will add that to my data visualisation list. The gallery version is real time generated then (?), but the display is still the spinning planes we see on the web site? I thought for a second that it was literally two video monitors or data projectors tied back to back and suspended. Perhaps that would be a bit too embodied. By the way, I wasn't talking specifically about long form or short form animation or the difference between narrative and non-narrative. The distinction was between different kinds of narrative. But I now realise I wasn't making myself clear enough. Are we at the end of the animation month already? Let's make February animation month every year! Richard On 27 Feb 2010, at 18:05, T Goodeve wrote: Dear Simon, Chris, Suzanne: Simon! How cruel. I want to fly out there this minute (time metaphor there we go). Please do promote such things. Sounds fantastic. (Too good about Chris Speed . I went to a bank teller the other day and the name plate said James Bank I am not a “good eve” though.). A sense organ for time. What a lovely image. Maybe that is what indeed we are in total. I am reading “From Eternity to Here” by Sean Carroll and somehow it makes sense to be reading it and thinking about animation. Animation just seems to be fundamentally about time, or spacetime more so even than cinema. -- I have only just thought this. I think there's something there and maybe I will think about it more at some point, I’d like to. But perhaps it’s why we seem to agree animation now has subsumed (but not “killed” ) cinema —and not just because of digital etc or because of the animated feature (and anime) but because , taking on Suzanne’s argument here which I can’t really do justice to, animation as a metaphysical category, a way of defining the moving image NOW “animation studies” offers a more encompassing way of thinking about and discussion these worlds. It’s a historical argumenst as I see it. But. “animation” as a mega-media ontology that cinema, as a historical language and institution, After these three weeks animation is the uber category klein bottle which houses the a four dimensional ZOOB modeling system (see below), for the new species of animated, computation, cinematic moving image objects that are now breeding out there. Until this discussion I never thought about “animation” as an uber category, I think new media was given the hat c/o Lev manovich, but “animation” with its associations has more open ness to time, less constriction to media (anything can be animated)—it is movement that animates and time via the repetition and the result is action based in time. Or something like this. Others can follow. These are really ideas that are getting ahead of me. I haven’t had coffee yet. This will take me to answering Suzanne's request re: Michael Joaquin Grey's work. But first to Christopher, (and hardy har har by the way!!!) you were the one who posted the shift tilt you tube that is so interesting and disturbing but relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_1zzPCnyOIfeature=related The stop motion time lapse transforms the world into an animated child's world. Someone somewhere in all these posts discussed the world becoming animated, now here it is all pee wee’s great”big” adventure but it's more complex than that. The shift/tilt format is a form of animated time and it fore shortens real time – even documentary time because the news program leads in saying the artist is making a document about heir city right? It is familiar but toy storied. Pixar uncanny. Unhomey Shift-tilt time. The incredibly miniaturized hyper manic shrinking man Re: Richard and animation and narrative and animation. It’s why animation is so essential isn’t it. It is the place with no laws. Altthough one works within vertical and horizontal axes of Cartesian space , no physical laws need be followed. My love of film and literature in my youth was the avant garde and modernism – anything to bresk from classical models/ anything that played with time and narrative—the more non linear the better. Why Because I wanted to believe time was up for grabs, that it was purely subjective, that it’s all about social construts and things like that—Proust, Renais, Robbe Grillet , parallel time, black holes etc… but Sean Carroll makes the obvious point time has only one direction, even if we can make it go backwards and sideways in avant garde films, life isn’t an avant garde film Time has one direction: forward. You can't reverse a burned house. This is why Martin Amis's “Time's Arrow” is so brilliant – because he writes the actions reversed so the SS officers actions in the death camps, as he lives them become acts of reversals into life. It’s amazing. But Amis is unusual. “Memento” did not work. Everything had to go
Re: [-empyre-] animation and gender
Lotte Reiniger? Jayne Pilling has written about this (and done some screening programmes) in Women in Animation. But I don't know if it's still available. She was also at this conference in 2007: http:// gertie.animationstudies.org/index.php? option=contentItemid=10task=viewid=137 R On 1 Mar 2010, at 15:25, Renate Ferro wrote: Dear all, Chris thanks for the list of animators below. There is something that I have been very curious about since we began this whole discussion now about a month ago. I was on a site (and I'm not sure which one it was) that was discussing the lack of female animators in the field. The distinction was that many female animators who are working tend to do more documentary, self help animations. Their observation was that most women artists instead tended to be drawn towards manipulated, experimental cinema and video and not straight animation. (Perhaps we need to extend the whole notion of animation via the fuzziness that Suzanne alluded to early on!) Additionally, Mary Flanagan was here at Cornell a few weeks ago and in a public lecture commented on the overwhelming lack of female gamers in the field as well. Our next empyre discussion will not be beginning until March 8th so for the next couple of days or so I'm hoping that we can all talk openly about this topic. Im fascinated and perhaps misinformed I hope. Maybe the tides are turning and many young female artists will be drawn into the new technologies of animation. When I first started looking for guests for this topic it was difficult to find any women at all to participate but I'm so very happy that we finally were able to get a great and yes diverse mix as Chris pointed out in one of his last posts. Can you all send me your favorite female animators??? Renate PS. We will continue on for the next couple of days on animation and then open things up for a few days of open conversation. Hi Richard, there are plenty of non-linear narrative animations, not too many feature ones, but then there are not all that many feature length animations. here are a few animators, off the top of my head, and the Quay's as well; janie Gieser. Lewis Klahr, Nancu Andrews, me Chris Sullivan, Jim Trainor, Simon Pummel, Amy Kravitze, Karen Yasinsky, Lilli Carre, Patrick Smith, Don Hertzfeld, Rose Bond, Joshua Mosely, Jim Duesing, Pritt Parn, Brent Green, Piotr Dumala, and check out the nice work funded by the organization, Animate Projects, great british wonders. have a good night. Chris. Quoting Richard Wright futurenatu...@blueyonder.co.uk: I always liked the quality in the Quay films where time seems to lose all its reference points. Those shots of dust settling or shadows dancing where you are no longer sure whether you are watching in realtime or over the course of hundreds of years. This also made me wonder why certain kinds of narrative and time are almost never used in animation. For instance, why are there no non- linear narrative animations? They are not that uncommon in live action films - I am thinking of Memento that goes backwards in story time (with one b/w stream going forwards), Amores Perros that jumps repeatedly backwards and forwards, The Hours with its parallel storylines running in different historical times periods. The only example of an animated film that has anything like these kinds of narrative structure is Waltz with Bashir with its persistent flashbacks. And that was made by a live action director. I wonder if this has something to do with the way that animators work, concentrating as they do on building up a sequence of actions bit by bit, are they generally less directed towards the larger narrative structures of time? By focusing on the duration of the immediate event, is it as though they assume a sort of short term memory? Richard On 25 Feb 2010, at 03:34, T Goodeve wrote: Hello everyone: Sorry I’ve been so lax as a discussant-generator but here I am with some thoughts and reflections. If it’s okay just an aside first: off the top of my fingertips—many of you make stuff you love and live for, also write about with great passion, and the animated worldscape is still and ever will be one of magic and wonder I hope (you have the romantic here), i.e., endless visual and aural reimagings via its ability, or definition, whether anlogue or digital, to do anything and everything within and beyond the spacetime continuum. But sometimes I miss the basic humor, wonder, and sheer “wow” of the simplicity of animation. I mentioned in a post. The blank page and the dot. We lose track, myself included, analyzing the life out of things sometimes and to do this with animation seems particularly perverse. I realize I set myself up for a bit of ridicule here but alas, someone has to speak up for the puppet doll in Street of Crocodiles who cradles the bare light
Re: [-empyre-] animation and gender
Hi, ..on Mon, Mar 01, 2010 at 10:25:20AM -0500, Renate Ferro wrote: Chris thanks for the list of animators below. There is something that I have been very curious about since we began this whole discussion now about a month ago. I was on a site (and I'm not sure which one it was) that was discussing the lack of female animators in the field. The distinction was that many female animators who are working tend to do more documentary, self help animations. Their observation was that most women artists instead tended to be drawn towards manipulated, experimental cinema and video and not straight animation. (Perhaps we need to extend the whole notion of animation via the fuzziness that Suzanne alluded to early on!) Additionally, Mary Flanagan was here at Cornell a few weeks ago and in a public lecture commented on the overwhelming lack of female gamers in the field as well. Mary has forever said this. I wonder if her statistics aren't a little old? According to the ESA, 38% of American videogame players and 48% of gaming parents are women. In other countries such as Korea, statistics show as much as 69.5% of women are playing video games. Even so, women's interests continue to be grossly under-represented, leaving women as single largest untapped market segment in the gaming industry. Link: http://www.womengamers.com/aboutus/ In the case of animation I know many computer-based female animators, albeit at a loose count less than men. It'd be bold to say it's a male oriented field - I've worked closely with animation departments and studios over the years and have seen no evidence of discrimination as such. Correlation is not causation. It would seem however that women are less often encouraged, at an early age, by men and other women to engage in the kind of technical cultures and communities that might lead to a choice to study digital animation. Cheers, -- Julian Oliver home: New Zealand based: Berlin, Germany currently: Berlin, Germany about: http://julianoliver.com Hi Richard, there are plenty of non-linear narrative animations, not too many feature ones, but then there are not all that many feature length animations. here are a few animators, off the top of my head, and the Quay's as well; janie Gieser. Lewis Klahr, Nancu Andrews, me Chris Sullivan, Jim Trainor, Simon Pummel, Amy Kravitze, Karen Yasinsky, Lilli Carre, Patrick Smith, Don Hertzfeld, Rose Bond, Joshua Mosely, Jim Duesing, Pritt Parn, Brent Green, Piotr Dumala, and check out the nice work funded by the organization, Animate Projects, great british wonders. have a good night. Chris. Quoting Richard Wright futurenatu...@blueyonder.co.uk: I always liked the quality in the Quay films where time seems to lose all its reference points. Those shots of dust settling or shadows dancing where you are no longer sure whether you are watching in realtime or over the course of hundreds of years. This also made me wonder why certain kinds of narrative and time are almost never used in animation. For instance, why are there no non- linear narrative animations? They are not that uncommon in live action films - I am thinking of Memento that goes backwards in story time (with one b/w stream going forwards), Amores Perros that jumps repeatedly backwards and forwards, The Hours with its parallel storylines running in different historical times periods. The only example of an animated film that has anything like these kinds of narrative structure is Waltz with Bashir with its persistent flashbacks. And that was made by a live action director. I wonder if this has something to do with the way that animators work, concentrating as they do on building up a sequence of actions bit by bit, are they generally less directed towards the larger narrative structures of time? By focusing on the duration of the immediate event, is it as though they assume a sort of short term memory? Richard On 25 Feb 2010, at 03:34, T Goodeve wrote: Hello everyone: Sorry Ive been so lax as a discussant-generator but here I am with some thoughts and reflections. If its okay just an aside first: off the top of my fingertipsmany of you make stuff you love and live for, also write about with great passion, and the animated worldscape is still and ever will be one of magic and wonder I hope (you have the romantic here), i.e., endless visual and aural reimagings via its ability, or definition, whether anlogue or digital, to do anything and everything within and beyond the spacetime continuum. But sometimes I miss the basic humor, wonder, and sheer wow of the simplicity of animation. I mentioned in a post. The blank page and the dot. We lose track, myself included, analyzing the life out of things sometimes and to do this with animation seems particularly perverse. I realize I set myself up for a bit of ridicule here but alas,
Re: [-empyre-] animation and short term memory (was, a long time ago: interpreting datasets, etc)
Thanks Richard. I sent your note into Michael. What a fun idea to make February animation every year. Re: something christopher said about empyre in general about high brow/ low brow of discussion -- I wanted to add what's been so great about being part of this is the variety of voices, the generosity of everyone , the wealth of information and the levels of respect for very different view points. Onto the women... )Which links to that great great question of all: animation and pedagogy. Getting this stuff out. Uding it. Other countries. How you teach or where in classes -- curious re: outreach. Etc.next year.) Sent from my iPhone On Mar 1, 2010, at 11:51 AM, Richard Wright arfuturenatu...@blueyonder.co.uk wrote: Thyrza, the Perpetual ZOOZ piece looks great. I will add that to my data visualisation list. The gallery version is real time generated then (?), but the display is still the spinning planes we see on the web site? I thought for a second that it was literally two video monitors or data projectors tied back to back and suspended. Perhaps that would be a bit too embodied. By the way, I wasn't talking specifically about long form or short form animation or the difference between narrative and non- narrative. The distinction was between different kinds of narrative. But I now realise I wasn't making myself clear enough. Are we at the end of the animation month already? Let's make February animation month every year! Richard On 27 Feb 2010, at 18:05, T Goodeve wrote: Dear Simon, Chris, Suzanne: Simon! How cruel. I want to fly out there this minute (time metaphor there we go). Please do promote such things. Sounds fantastic. (Too good about Chris Speed . I went to a bank teller the other day and the name plate said James Bank I am not a “go od eve” though.). A sense organ for time. What a lovely image. Maybe that is what indeed we are in total. I am reading “From Eternity to Here” by Sean Carroll and somehow it makes sense to be reading it and think ing about animation. Animation just seems to be fundamentally abou t time, or spacetime more so even than cinema. -- I have only just thought this. I think there's something there and maybe I will th ink about it more at some point, I’d like to. But perhaps it’s why we seem to agree animation now has subsumed (but not “killed” )cinema —and not just because of digital etc or because of the animated feature (and anime) but because , taking on Suzanne’s argument here which I can’t really do justice to, animation as a metaphysical category, a way of defining the moving image NOW “animation studies” offers a more encompassing way of thinking about and discussion these worlds. It’s a historical argu menst as I see it. But. “animation” as a mega-media ontology that cinema, as a historical language and institution, After these three weeks anima tion is the uber category klein bottle which houses the a four dim ensional ZOOB modeling system (see below), for the new species of animated, computation, cinematic moving image objects that are now breeding out there. Until this discussion I never thought about “ animation” as an uber category, I think new media was given the ha t c/o Lev manovich, but “animation” with its associations has more open ness to time, less constriction to media (anything can b e animated)—it is movement that animates and time via the repetiti on and the result is action based in time. Or something like this. Others can follow. These are really ideas that are getting ahead of me. I haven’t had coffee yet. This will take me to answering Su zanne's request re: Michael Joaquin Grey's work. But first to Christopher, (and hardy har har by the way!!!) you were the one who posted the shift tilt you tube that is so interesting and disturbing but relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_1zzPCnyOIfeature=related The stop motion time lapse transforms the world into an animated child's world. Someone somewhere in all these posts discussed the world becoming animated, now here it is all pee wee’s great”big” adventure but it's more complex than that. The shift/ tilt format is a form of animated time and it fore shortens real t ime – even documentary time because the news program leads in sayi ng the artist is making a document about heir city right? It is fa miliar but toy storied. Pixar uncanny. Unhomey Shift-tilt time. Th e incredibly miniaturized hyper manic shrinking man Re: Richard and animation and narrative and animation. It’s why an imation is so essential isn’t it. It is the place with no laws. Al tthough one works within vertical and horizontal axes of Cartesian space , no physical laws need be followed. My love of film and l iterature in my youth was the avant garde and modernism – anything to bresk from classical models/ anything that played with time a nd narrative—the more non linear the
Re: [-empyre-] animation and short term memory (was, a long time ago: interpreting datasets, etc)
Hi Simon, perhaps there are degrees of narrative linearity, for me there does not have to be a literal audience manipulation, or chance operation to create experiments in narrative, it is done in literature all the time. taking a film like Jim Duesings Tender bodies, or Nancy Andrews strange work, or lewis klahr, there is I think very interesting stuff going on. did you like the work you saw? that is all that maters for me. Chris Quoting Simon Biggs s.bi...@eca.ac.uk: I think I am little confused about what non-linear means in this context. I assume it to mean a time based artefact that can exist as a number of distinct material timelines. That is, the timeline bifurcates in various ways that allow the viewer to experience distinctly different aspects of the work. In my experience there are only two ways to do this. One is to use a hypermedia approach, such as the World Wide Web is predicated upon, which allows you to select from multiple routes through a number of possibilities. The other is to use generative techniques, where the viewer¹s interaction with the artefact causes it to re-author itself in real-time, the outcome most likely being a novel instance of the work that only that viewer will ever experience (this approach is more common in simulation based computer games). I have googled some of the names Chris suggested but so far as I could see they are making traditional linear animations. Am I missing something? Best Simon Simon Biggs s.bi...@eca.ac.uk si...@littlepig.org.uk Skype: simonbiggsuk http://www.littlepig.org.uk/ Research Professor edinburgh college of art http://www.eca.ac.uk/ Creative Interdisciplinary Research into CoLlaborative Environments http://www.eca.ac.uk/circle/ Electronic Literature as a Model of Creativity and Innovation in Practice http://www.elmcip.net/ From: Eileen Reynolds eyelen...@hotmail.com Reply-To: soft_skinned_space empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au Date: Sat, 27 Feb 2010 11:02:57 -0700 To: empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au, futurenatu...@blueyonder.co.uk Subject: Re: [-empyre-] animation and short term memory (was, a long time ago: interpreting datasets, etc) Hi Chris. Thanks for the list of names. I had not heard of some who I really ought to have known. Rose bond. wonderful. Intra Muros is superb. I recently attended the introduction master class given by Patrick Smith in Singapore and was impressed by Drink and Puppet. The transformation is quite nice. True, there is an endless supply of animated non-linear shorts out there. Lately I've been absorbed in pre cinema tech and toys and also pixilation. In my opinion the visual power of such simple in camera effects can¹t be beat. Yay Melies. Yeah and the tilt shift time lapse you mentioned the other day was another fine example of using limited technology, an older technique, but bringing it one step further into video and creating something fresh. Also I find that the use of physical space in the process of animation is becoming more extravagant... as in stop motion in the urban space (Muto by Blu), or staging larger productions like that sony bravia clay bunny commercial or more involved pixilations like the video Oren Lavie - Her Morning Elegance. The physical act of creation comes to the forefront and in a way makes the animated short that much more impressive. Perhaps the use of space is a reaction against the world of CG animation, which can be quite sedentary. Or perhaps it's just fun. Some random and unrelated films/people I appreciate right now are Kihachiro Kawamoto, Javan Ivey and his stratastencils, and Separation by Robert Morgan. Have a good day. Cheers. Eileen Date: Sat, 27 Feb 2010 00:05:06 -0600 From: csu...@saic.edu To: empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au; futurenatu...@blueyonder.co.uk CC: empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au Subject: Re: [-empyre-] animation and short term memory (was, a long time ago: interpreting datasets, etc) Hi Richard, there are plenty of non-linear narrative animations, not too many feature ones, but then there are not all that many feature length animations. here are a few animators, off the top of my head, and the Quay's as well; janie Gieser. Lewis Klahr, Nancu Andrews, me Chris Sullivan, Jim Trainor, Simon Pummel, Amy Kravitze, Karen Yasinsky, Lilli Carre, Patrick Smith, Don Hertzfeld, Rose Bond, Joshua Mosely, Jim Duesing, Pritt Parn, Brent Green, Piotr Dumala, and check out the nice work funded by the organization, Animate Projects, great british wonders. have a good night. Chris. Quoting Richard Wright futurenatu...@blueyonder.co.uk: I always liked the quality in the Quay films where time seems to lose all its reference points. Those shots of dust settling or shadows dancing where you are no longer sure whether you are watching in realtime or over the course of hundreds of years. This also made me wonder why
Re: [-empyre-] animation and gender
mixing is good, and if you look at my other posts, I missspelled everyone. glad you are in. Chris. Quoting kim collmer kcoll...@yahoo.com: Thanks for including me, Chris, but somehow everyone misspells my name and luckily this time I can catch it! Kim Collmer Though I must admit to mixing animation AND video...as stated in another post. From: christopher sullivan csu...@saic.edu To: soft_skinned_space empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au; Renate Ferro r...@cornell.edu Cc: soft_skinned_space emp...@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au Sent: Mon, March 1, 2010 4:59:50 PM Subject: Re: [-empyre-] animation and gender a couple more, Ruth Lingford, Wendy Tilby, Martha Colborn. Kim Colmer, Ariana Gerstine, Orla McHardy, Suzzy templeton, Laura Heit. Lisa Barcy, Susan Pit, Maureen Selwood, Christien Roche. got to go. Chris Quoting Renate Ferro r...@cornell.edu: Dear all, Chris thanks for the list of animators below. There is something that I have been very curious about since we began this whole discussion now about a month ago. I was on a site (and I'm not sure which one it was) that was discussing the lack of female animators in the field. The distinction was that many female animators who are working tend to do more documentary, self help animations. Their observation was that most women artists instead tended to be drawn towards manipulated, experimental cinema and video and not straight animation. (Perhaps we need to extend the whole notion of animation via the fuzziness that Suzanne alluded to early on!) Additionally, Mary Flanagan was here at Cornell a few weeks ago and in a public lecture commented on the overwhelming lack of female gamers in the field as well. Our next empyre discussion will not be beginning until March 8th so for the next couple of days or so I'm hoping that we can all talk openly about this topic. Im fascinated and perhaps misinformed I hope. Maybe the tides are turning and many young female artists will be drawn into the new technologies of animation. When I first started looking for guests for this topic it was difficult to find any women at all to participate but I'm so very happy that we finally were able to get a great and yes diverse mix as Chris pointed out in one of his last posts. Can you all send me your favorite female animators??? Renate PS. We will continue on for the next couple of days on animation and then open things up for a few days of open conversation. Hi Richard, there are plenty of non-linear narrative animations, not too many feature ones, but then there are not all that many feature length animations. here are a few animators, off the top of my head, and the Quay's as well; janie Gieser. Lewis Klahr, Nancu Andrews, me Chris Sullivan, Jim Trainor, Simon Pummel, Amy Kravitze, Karen Yasinsky, Lilli Carre, Patrick Smith, Don Hertzfeld, Rose Bond, Joshua Mosely, Jim Duesing, Pritt Parn, Brent Green, Piotr Dumala, and check out the nice work funded by the organization, Animate Projects, great british wonders. have a good night. Chris. Quoting Richard Wright futurenatu...@blueyonder.co.uk: I always liked the quality in the Quay films where time seems to lose all its reference points. Those shots of dust settling or shadows dancing where you are no longer sure whether you are watching in realtime or over the course of hundreds of years. This also made me wonder why certain kinds of narrative and time are almost never used in animation. For instance, why are there no non- linear narrative animations? They are not that uncommon in live action films - I am thinking of Memento that goes backwards in story time (with one b/w stream going forwards), Amores Perros that jumps repeatedly backwards and forwards, The Hours with its parallel storylines running in different historical times periods. The only example of an animated film that has anything like these kinds of narrative structure is Waltz with Bashir with its persistent flashbacks. And that was made by a live action director. I wonder if this has something to do with the way that animators work, concentrating as they do on building up a sequence of actions bit by bit, are they generally less directed towards the larger narrative structures of time? By focusing on the duration of the immediate event, is it as though they assume a sort of short term memory? Richard On 25 Feb 2010, at 03:34, T Goodeve wrote: Hello everyone: Sorry Iâve been so lax as a discussant-generator but here I am with some thoughts and reflections. If itâs okay just an aside first: off the top of my fingertipsâmany of you make stuff you love and live for, also write about with great passion, and the animated worldscape is still and ever will be one of magic
Re: [-empyre-] animation and gender
oops that's Miwa Matrayek Quoting christopher sullivan csu...@saic.edu: another name for very strange new media stuff is Miwa Matrakek very poppy, but quite interesting tuff. Chris Quoting Eric Patrick er...@northwestern.edu: Joanne Gratz, Joanna Priestly, Caroline Leaf, etc I actually think the opposite of what Renate says below... at least in terms of independent animation. It always seemed to me that women were dominating independent work with innovation of both form and content (Caroline Leaf and Joan Gratz in the former, Joanna Priestly and Susan Pitt in the later). There's no question that there is a lack of presence in television, film and gaming of women animators (though there's also a lack of general diversity in these areas), with the exception of children's television which has many great people doing things (Jen Oxley, Linda Simensky, and Tracy Paige-Johnson to name a few). Eric On 3/1/10 9:59 AM, christopher sullivan csu...@saic.edu wrote: a couple more, Ruth Lingford, Wendy Tilby, Martha Colborn. Kim Colmer, Ariana Gerstine, Orla McHardy, Suzzy templeton, Laura Heit. Lisa Barcy, Susan Pit, Maureen Selwood, Christien Roche. got to go. Chris Quoting Renate Ferro r...@cornell.edu: Dear all, Chris thanks for the list of animators below. There is something that I have been very curious about since we began this whole discussion now about a month ago. I was on a site (and I'm not sure which one it was) that was discussing the lack of female animators in the field. The distinction was that many female animators who are working tend to do more documentary, self help animations. Their observation was that most women artists instead tended to be drawn towards manipulated, experimental cinema and video and not straight animation. (Perhaps we need to extend the whole notion of animation via the fuzziness that Suzanne alluded to early on!) Additionally, Mary Flanagan was here at Cornell a few weeks ago and in a public lecture commented on the overwhelming lack of female gamers in the field as well. Our next empyre discussion will not be beginning until March 8th so for the next couple of days or so I'm hoping that we can all talk openly about this topic. Im fascinated and perhaps misinformed I hope. Maybe the tides are turning and many young female artists will be drawn into the new technologies of animation. When I first started looking for guests for this topic it was difficult to find any women at all to participate but I'm so very happy that we finally were able to get a great and yes diverse mix as Chris pointed out in one of his last posts. Can you all send me your favorite female animators??? Renate PS. We will continue on for the next couple of days on animation and then open things up for a few days of open conversation. Hi Richard, there are plenty of non-linear narrative animations, not too many feature ones, but then there are not all that many feature length animations. here are a few animators, off the top of my head, and the Quay's as well; janie Gieser. Lewis Klahr, Nancu Andrews, me Chris Sullivan, Jim Trainor, Simon Pummel, Amy Kravitze, Karen Yasinsky, Lilli Carre, Patrick Smith, Don Hertzfeld, Rose Bond, Joshua Mosely, Jim Duesing, Pritt Parn, Brent Green, Piotr Dumala, and check out the nice work funded by the organization, Animate Projects, great british wonders. have a good night. Chris. Quoting Richard Wright futurenatu...@blueyonder.co.uk: I always liked the quality in the Quay films where time seems to lose all its reference points. Those shots of dust settling or shadows dancing where you are no longer sure whether you are watching in realtime or over the course of hundreds of years. This also made me wonder why certain kinds of narrative and time are almost never used in animation. For instance, why are there no non- linear narrative animations? They are not that uncommon in live action films - I am thinking of Memento that goes backwards in story time (with one b/w stream going forwards), Amores Perros that jumps repeatedly backwards and forwards, The Hours with its parallel storylines running in different historical times periods. The only example of an animated film that has anything like these kinds of narrative structure is Waltz with Bashir with its persistent flashbacks. And that was made by a live action director. I wonder if this has something to do with the way that animators work, concentrating as they do on building up a sequence of actions bit by bit, are they generally less directed towards the larger narrative structures of time? By focusing on the duration of the immediate event, is it as though they assume a sort
