[-empyre-] animetic machines

Sun Feb 7 08:23:20 EST 2010

Hello tim and rene all -- just a quick post as I am new to empyre and  
have been reading this dialogue but haven't really found a way in but  
mention of the quays made me feel i should make a stab. The discussion  
of deleuze and the animetic is fascinating. I hope we gi further with  
that. But I don't understand in the discussion so far Is the way  
cinema has to be subsumed completely by animation rather than looking  
for their connections through the emergence of the digital. (there was  
talk at the beginning of the problems of periodizing yet there seems  
to be a reliance on it. Btw: i think it's impossible not to  
periodize). Also continuity is one model not all of of the film theory  
past and I know you all know this. And what about the polish and  
eastern europen animators? And more in depth discussions of actual  
examples or moments or poetics turned into philosophy? ( if that makes  
sense? Like Pasolini on the long take -- I know that's film from the  
20 th century). These questions are probably too specific at this  
point as you are all building from conversations based on bodies of  
scholarship that make assumptions about cinema and animation I'm not  
as schooled in so apologize but I do know some of lev's work. Your   
point about the design interface of sets of variables  (via software  
design)as opposed to the static image of analogue  animation is  
crucial. But is it just "good" or  when "formalist jackstraws" And  
where brilliant new aesthetics? We all have students drunk on the  
technology with norhing to say. I taught a course on storytelling  
oral, book, cinema to digital
At nyu's ITP department and for their projects the students all asked  
me "but what should we make stories about?"
And the quays -- since that is why Rene asked me in, we can talk about  
their work down the line since the whole issue of "animation" /cinema  
and other boundaries but it'd be along other lines.But the deleuzian  
machine model could be great.
I'm writing this on my iPhone mid latte so excuse me if it is not well  
thought out.
Best to all
Thyrza
Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 6, 2010, at 11:37 AM, Timothy Murray <tcm1 at cornell.edu> wrote:

>> Gerry,
>
> Perhaps I could have been more nuanced by indicating that I was
> referring to as a somewhat limiting focus of 70-80s film theory on
> the conventions of "continuity"-- I would include my own work in this
> critique.  My remark was meant less as blame and more as admission.
>
> It's a shame that you understand cinema, and I guess new media, to
> have been involved in a systematic degradation of the image.  Renate
> and I spent last week in the company of the  Quay Brothers whose
> quirky 35mm animations seemed to us to exemplify the thoughtful
> splendor of what Tom calls the continuous variation of animation.
> Although of a structure and quality that is very different from the
> anime informing Tom's project,  they are splendid on the sticky (?)
> screens of today.
>
> My understanding is that with each passing generation the
> cinematic/screenic image has become further "complexified,"
> particularly given the exemplary contributions of so many independent
> screen artists as their work has extended the material horizons
> offered by the development of ever sophisticated soft and hardware
> machines.
>
> Best,
>
> Tim
>
>
>> I wonder.
>>
>> Is the readiness to blame cinematic studies not another way of
>> ingorning how animation (like cinema, and probably all media), is a
>> shadow of its former self? Oh certainly, animation cicra 1960 was
>> pretty bad, but how much better it was than the drivel which aheres
>> to the sticky screens of today. With each passing generation the
>> image is further degraded and, simultaneously, a new geneation of
>> theorists gather to ignore its decline.
>>
>> My best
>>
>> Gerry
>>
>>
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> From: empyre-bounces at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> [empyre-bounces at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au] On Behalf Of Timothy Murray
>> [tcm1 at cornell.edu]
>> Sent: February 6, 2010 10:20 AM
>> To: soft_skinned_space
>> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] animetic machines
>>
>> Hi, Tom,
>>
>> Thanks ever so much for your stimulating post on  "animetic
>> machines."   I think you're really onto something important in
>> stressing the flow and force of the "continuous variation" of framing
>> and imaging as it traverses the interrelated histories of cinema,
>> animation, and new media.
>>
>> Indeed, the legacy of film studies has shackled us with a rather
>> deadening sense of the economy of "continuity" to such an extent that
>> I suspect that the theoretical and artistic communities could well
>> have shied away from embracing the "continuous" given its confusions
>> with the "continuity" so important to the conventional editing of the
>> Hollywood legacy.
>>
>> It's in a similar vein that I've been interested in "enfolding" into
>> the hegemony of the perspective machine  the concept, flow, and force
>> of the "fold" as a space/field/concept of continuous machinic
>> variation.   While I've tended to foreground the more baroque and
>> cinematic aspects of the fold in my  writing, your post and recent
>> book sensitize me to the fact that much greater attention should be
>> paid to the role played by the  legacy and conceptuality of animation
>> in the development of the digital fold, particularly within the space
>> of cinema.
>>
>> Thanks ever so much for such a cogent summary of the very complex
>> argument you launch in The Anime Machine.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Tim
>> --
>> Timothy Murray
>> Director, Society for the Humanities
>> http://www.arts.cornell.edu/sochum/
>> Curator, The Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art, Cornell Library
>> http://goldsen.library.cornell.edu
>> Professor of Comparative Literature and English
>> A. D. White House
>> Cornell University
>> Ithaca, New York 14853
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
>
> -- 
> Timothy Murray
> Director, Society for the Humanities
> http://www.arts.cornell.edu/sochum/
> Curator, The Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art, Cornell Library
> http://goldsen.library.cornell.edu
> Professor of Comparative Literature and English
> A. D. White House
> Cornell University
> Ithaca, New York 14853
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre