[-empyre-] chris sullivan p.S.

Tue Feb 16 11:52:00 EST 2010

or ...  to take a look at  Pat's interactive rendition/ DVD-ROM  of   
Tracing the Decay of Fiction  that was created and produced in  
collaboration with Marsha Kinder and Rosemary Comella of the Labyrinth  
Project at USC...." is more like a supernova colliding with a black  
hole: the convergence of two extraordinary phenomena in a single  
moment – a nearly inconceivable occurrence from a man who thinks  
nothing of waiting an entire year to photograph a ray of sunlight  
shining through a window at a particular angle."
Published in Release Print September 2002

Chris

On Feb 15, 2010, at 4:41 PM, christopher sullivan wrote:

> by the way, I show power and water in my "not quite animation" day  
> in my
> alternative animation history class. It is a wonderful film. you  
> should all try
> to get Pat out to show The Decay OF Fiction, his amazing film, that
> unfortunately he does not like, but I sure do. Chris.
>
>
> Quoting christopher sullivan <csulli at saic.edu>:
>
>>
>> Hi Eric, I do think that certain technologies or circumstances  
>> dictate trends
>> in
>> work. For instance the non verbal history of independent art films  
>> in the
>> 70's
>> and 80's, was directly related to issues of french versus English  
>> in Canada,
>> and the fact that the Netherlands, Italy, Yugoslavia,  
>> Czechoslovakia, where
>> important places that could not count on language to engage a wider  
>> world.
>>
>> And for that matter the frame by frame process does break down time  
>> and lead
>> to
>> different ways of looking at the world. But I am questioning  
>> starting with
>> formal notions of Code, or digital culture as subjects. I guess it  
>> gets back
>> to
>> notions of modernist painting, which is about putting color on a flat
>> surface.
>> All of the great works that I am attracted to in animation, have  
>> something
>> inherently frame by frame about them, but there is an underlying  
>> content
>> that
>> is being negotiated.
>>
>> I think that animation because of it's labor, tends to give birth  
>> to the
>> wondering pilgrim, the emptied city, the lone figure in a minimal  
>> world,
>> because you just can't draw fifty people, CGI is changing this, but  
>> these
>> limits are good too. They are like the limits of independent  
>> theater, no
>> dance
>> numbers, no effects, just words and a few bodies. I also think that  
>> the
>> limits
>> of animation, create a need to condense time, in ways that live  
>> action does
>> not.
>> and this leads to it's odd sense of time, I hope you have all seen  
>> Cat Soup,
>> amazing time play in that film.
>>
>>
>> Quoting Eric Patrick <ericp at northwestern.edu>:
>>
>>> Hello All,
>>>
>>> Eric Patrick here.  Rather than repeat my bio, I'll just jump right
>>> in...  I've been making animated films now for twenty years, and  
>>> the one
>>> thing I've become convinced of is that animation is a ritual act.   
>>> My
>>> own work underscores this in it's experiments with narrative  
>>> without the
>>> confines of character development or plot...  rather, I often find
>>> myself creating associative connections over causal ones.  I'm  
>>> certainly
>>> not the first that has noticed this, but perhaps all animators  
>>> find it
>>> on their own terms...  small repetitive acts, done over long  
>>> periods of
>>> time...  a withdrawal from day to day life.  The very act seems  
>>> like a
>>> description of an alchemist's chamber, saying a rosary, kabuki  
>>> theatre.
>>>
>>> In my particular case, I choose a technique that in some way  
>>> comments on
>>> the ideas embedded in my work.  This is one of those things that I  
>>> find
>>> to be unique about animation (though I would argue that new media  
>>> has
>>> this ability too): the ability to orchestrate the concept into the  
>>> very
>>> fabric of the image through the technique that is utilized.  It's  
>>> that
>>> relationship between form and content that makes animation quite so
>>> unique.  That these techniques involve increasingly preoccupied  
>>> states
>>> of consciousness only adds to the ritual effect of animation.   
>>> It's no
>>> wonder then that we can see such a wide interest in metaphysics
>>> throughout animation history.
>>>
>>> As an animator stepping into a group dedicated to new media, I'm
>>> interested in finding where my experience may cross over with yours.
>>> Perhaps we can also weave with Chris Sullivan's intro, because, as  
>>> he
>>> states that technology is a tool but not a subject, I am almost
>>> inferring that the process can become a subject.  I have shown Pat
>>> O'Neil's work "Water and Power" to students, and interestingly, they
>>> told me that it completely changed their relationship to after  
>>> effects.
>>> O'Neil's work somehow seems like it could only be conceived and  
>>> executed
>>> on an optical printer, though it can obviously very easily be  
>>> created
>>> with something like after effects.  While I agree that technology  
>>> is a
>>> tool, do certain tools not engender certain kinds of work?
>>>
>>> best,
>>>
>>> Eric
>>>
>>
>>
>> Christopher Sullivan
>> Dept. of Film/Video/New Media
>> School of the Art Institute of Chicago
>> 112 so michigan
>> Chicago Ill 60603
>> csulli at saic.edu
>> 312-345-3802
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>
>
>
> Christopher Sullivan
> Dept. of Film/Video/New Media
> School of the Art Institute of Chicago
> 112 so michigan
> Chicago Ill 60603
> csulli at saic.edu
> 312-345-3802
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre

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