[-empyre-] y, and now books
christopher sullivan
csulli at saic.edu
Sat Feb 20 07:00:11 EST 2010
understanding animation well
unsung heroes of animation robinson
sharpest point Rencke
Quoting Richard Wright <futurenatural at blueyonder.co.uk>:
> Hi there,
> thanks for these pointers Eric. I've been doing a lot of broadcast
> documentary graphics in the last year and have become more aware of
> how it is approached from that direction. We often find ourselves
> mixing more strictly information graphics with data visualisation
> techniques, such as for representing certain geological terrains, but
> not entirely because it is a "true" or accurate record - often it is
> for reasons of being technically propitious or being visually
> suggestive in itself. (Tip - Death Valley is useful for virtually any
> kind of landscape purpose).
>
> At the risk of suddenly breezing on, I have another question for
> everyone. Does anyone have any favourite animation theory or
> animation studies books they find particularly useful in the
> classroom? Especially for explaining concepts to or for stimulating
> ideas in practitioners. The last interesting one I read was "The
> Sharpest Point", although as an anthology it did not have to develop
> a single line of argument. And Norman Klein is always a fun read
> (hopefully for students as well!).
>
> Richard
>
> On 18 Feb 2010, at 18:50, Eric Patrick wrote:
>
> > Hi Richard,
> >
> > This is really fascinating stuff... not my area of expertise, but
> > Fernanda Viegas of IBM research in Cambridge is doing some of this
> > sort of work (http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/).
> > Probably what we see more of in our little animation neck of the
> > woods is info-graphics for visualization: http://vimeo.com/
> > 3261363. Perhaps Paul is still around and may have some
> > interesting sources to add.
> > Sorry can't be of more help...
> >
> > ep
> >
> >
> >
> > ==============Original message text===============
> > On Tue, 16 Feb 2010 5:25:13 pm CST Richard Wright wrote:
> >
> > Hi there,
> > I just wanted to respond to a couple of recent posts about animated
> > documentary and those thorny indexicality questions.
> >
> > I once wrote a proposal called "Data Visualisation as the Successor
> > to Documentary Film Making" (thinking actually of animated film
> > making). I wonder if Paul or Erik or anyone else had any thoughts
> > about this possibility of taking data records and animating them?
> > Either directly and algorithmically or using more interpretative or
> > even non-digital techniques? The source of the data and the
> > circumstances in which it was obtained can also create difficult
> > ethical questions, quite apart from questions of veracity (they might
> > have been obtained under torture for example).
> >
> > There are very few film examples of this I can think of, not even my
> > own. One of the few is Aaron Koblin's "Flight Patterns" (http://
> > www.aaronkoblin.com/work/flightpatterns) and another is Jane
> > Marsching's "Rising North" (http://www.flickr.com/photos/
> > efimeravulgata/3496999939 for a view of the installation version of
> > the video). Andrea Polli possibly. Much of it to do with climate
> > change data. I'm not mentioning these specific ones because I
> > particularly like them (the "Rising North" piece, for instance, looks
> > a bit too much to me like deciphering a multimedia interface). But I
> > was struggling to think of any others and I wondered if anyone else
> > knew of any film makers that were moving in this direction...
> >
> > Richard
> >
> > On 15 Feb 2010, at 18:37, Paul Ward wrote:
> >
> >> Hi, it's me again!
> >>
> >> A couple of my main research interests are Animation (quelle
> >> surprise!) and Documentary, and I've been looking into how
> >> animation and nonfiction work together (or not) for some time now.
> >>
> >> See Chapter 5 of my book "Documentary: The Margins of
> >> Reality" (Wallflower, 2005); plus "Animated interactions: animation
> >> aesthetics and the 'interactive' documentary" in S. Buchan (ed.)
> >> with David Surman and Paul Ward (Associate Eds.) Animated
> >> 'Worlds' (John Libbey, 2006). The latter discusses 'Going Equipped'
> >> alongside Bob Sabiston's 1999 short 'Snack and Drink'
> >>
> >> I think the idea of animation as a 'filter' is apposite - it is the
> >> filter through which re-presentations of real people and events are
> >> 'creatively treated' (to echo John Grierson again). This also makes
> >> some interesting possible connections to animation and memory, or
> >> animation and states of mind, and how these areas overlap (or
> >> contrast) with 'documentary'. Animations like 'Waltz with Bashir',
> >> 'Persepolis' or Andy Glynne's short films 'Animated minds' (about
> >> mental health) are all, arguably, sub-types of the animated
> >> documentary category, but approach it in very different ways
> >>
> >> best wishes
> >>
> >> Paul
> >>
> >>
> >> ________________________________
> >>
> >> From: empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au on behalf of
> >> christopher sullivan
> >> Sent: Sun 14/02/2010 18:22
> >> To: soft_skinned_space; Suzanne Buchan
> >> Cc: soft_skinned_space
> >> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] CG and all things fuzzy, and some thoughts
> >> on ethics
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Hi Suzanne, thanks for the generous discussion. As a "practitioner"
> >> I will say
> >> that I am really not too bothered by the issues of representation,
> >> and truth, or
> >> authenticity, I think those are interesting points of discussion,
> >> but nothing
> >> that will ever be cured. but are we really that confused in the
> >> theater? I have
> >> found that children for instance have very clear understandings of
> >> what is real,
> >> what is manipulated, what is fantasy. the idea that media is
> >> continuously lying
> >> to us, can also lead to a lot of political empathy,
> >> I teach an alternative animation history class, and one of
> >> our weeks we
> >> show all non fiction animation.
> >> here is the week.
> >> Reading: Understanding Animation, chapter 3 Narrative strategies.
> >> 68-92
> >>
> >> Week 6 October 19th NON FICTION-
> >> These films all use animations power to manifest images that have
> >> no filmic
> >> record. The result is a curious take on truth and representation..
> >> Is there an
> >> emotional safety in these cartoony depictions, of otherwise
> >> unbearable images?
> >>
> >> Roger Ebert , speaking about Grave of the Fire flies.
> >> John and Faith Hubley. Sample 1960-75 The Dara Dogs. Denise
> >> Topicoff.
> >> -A is for Autism, Tim Web 1998. Champaine by Michael Sporn.
> >> Some Protection, Marjut Rimmenen,1987 -Brother, Adam Benjamin
> >> Elliot 2003-
> >> Going Equipped ,Peter Lords 1989 -Abductees , Paul Vesters 1998
> >> The Fetishist, Jim Trainer 1998- Ryan, Chris Landrithe 2003
> >> A Room Near By, still life with animated dogs, Paul Ferlinger
> >> 2002- 2004
> >>
> >> these films all deal with the strange in between possibilities of
> >> animation as a
> >> filter for truth. I often show Ryan this week also, The students
> >> are always
> >> interested in discussing the inclusion of Chris Landreth in the
> >> film. it is
> >> both interesting and problematic, that his desire to implicate the
> >> documenter,
> >> is also very problematic. does he truly believe that his state of
> >> crisis
> >> parallels Ryan Larkin, in a SRO facility?
> >>
> >> I argue that the real issue of representation through animation is
> >> not nearly so
> >> complicated. and why do we have to create a theoretical censoring
> >> bureau,
> >> just make the work, and let it hit people, all sloppy and imperfect.
> >> do the questions below really need to be brought to some kind of
> >> conclusion?
> >> is it truly a crisis?
> >>
> >>
> >> "The increasing convergence, barrage and resulting pervasiveness of
> >>> manipulated imagery, including traditional and digital animation,
> >>> has
> >>> overwhelmed many of its viewers, and this has pressing philosophical
> >>> and ethical connotations. In terms of the status of indexicality
> >>> and truth
> >>> claims of the visual, in 1998 Elsaesser suggested a crisis was
> >>> evolving:
> >>> "Any technology that materially affects this status, and
> >>> digitization
> >>> would seem to be such a technology, thus puts in crisis deeply-held
> >>> beliefs about representation and visualization, and many of the
> >>> discourses - critical, scientific or aesthetic - based on, or
> >>> formulated
> >>> in the name of the indexical in our culture, need to be re-
> >>> examined."
> >>
> >> as media professors, I think we have to also challenge media
> >> literacy Dogma
> >> which implies that all viewers are completely at the mercy of the
> >> moving image.
> >> once something is digital, sorry Lev, but it means nothing, it is a
> >> technical
> >> expedient.
> >>
> >> Animators have the opportunity to carve out new and wonderful ways
> >> of creating
> >> work and bringing subjects to the screen that were not possible
> >> before.
> >> A true act of political subversion is the recent screening of Don
> >> Hertsfeilds
> >> new films. the audience came to see funny. instead they saw an
> >> amazing maturing
> >> of his work into a dark and beautiful piece that made me weep
> >> several times.
> >> He really seized the moment to talk about something important.
> >>
> >> I say let's focus on content, not media, and get to work making the
> >> films that
> >> we feel must be made. Chris
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Quoting Suzanne Buchan <sbuchan at ucreative.ac.uk>:
> >>
> >>>
> >>> Renate
> >>>
> >>> (I can't turn off HTML on the email I'm suing, so I hope the
> >>> inserted line
> >>> breaks improve reading.)
> >>>
> >>> Many practice-based animation and film programmes - as well as
> >>> photography
> >>> and design -
> >>> are increasingly replacing analogue with digital, with all the
> >>> implications.
> >>> While I'm not a hands-on 'practitioner' per se - I don't teach
> >>> practice - I
> >>> can say that
> >>> my university has two programmes, and both use digital tools but
> >>> foreground
> >>> fine arts-based style, process and students attend life-drawing
> >>> classes.
> >>> There are others who follow the same material-based philosophy,
> >>> including
> >>> Simon's and the RCA' this is not, however, representative of the
> >>> wider
> >>> general
> >>> shift to digital.
> >>>
> >>> With the current disastrous funding cuts at HEIs in the UK, a
> >>> room of
> >>> computers is more sustainable than puppet animation studios and
> >>> art rooms; hence it is becoming digital almost everywhere. This has
> >>> implications on how students learn, speeds up production instead of
> >>> slowing down, the process of drawing, painting and model building
> >>> is very much part of developing narrative, and good analogue films
> >>> need time. Others here in empyre who are practice-based can probably
> >>> answer your question better.
> >>>
> >>> Your question about CGI brings me to another set of thoughts about
> >>> the
> >>> digital and the artefact and some ethical implications that arise
> >>> from the
> >>> use of CGI in animation and film. Since the digital shift, the
> >>> manipulated
> >>> moving image has been the focus of heated debates around
> >>> representation,
> >>> truth values and ethical responsibility of its commissioners,
> >>> makers and
> >>> distributors. The unreliablility of the photographic image as it
> >>> became
> >>> enhanced or altered by digital technologies has had a profound
> >>> effect
> >>> on audiences, a topic thematised by Thomas Elsaesser, Lev Manovich
> >>> and Siegfried Zielinski, ethical philosopher Jane Bennett (The
> >>> Enchantment
> >>> of Modern Life, 2001) and by others who may be on empyre.
> >>>
> >>> The increasing convergence, barrage and resulting pervasiveness of
> >>> manipulated imagery, including traditional and digital animation,
> >>> has
> >>> overwhelmed many of its viewers, and this has pressing philosophical
> >>> and ethical connotations. In terms of the status of indexicality
> >>> and truth
> >>> claims of the visual, in 1998 Elsaesser suggested a crisis was
> >>> evolving:
> >>> "Any technology that materially affects this status, and
> >>> digitisation
> >>> would seem to be such a technology, thus puts in crisis deeply-held
> >>> beliefs about representation and visualization, and many of the
> >>> discourses - critical, scientific or aesthetic - based on, or
> >>> formulated
> >>> in the name of the indexical in our culture, need to be re-
> >>> examined."
> >>> (Elsaesser, Thomas, "Digital Cinema: Delivery, Event, time", in:
> >>> Cinema Futures: Cain, Abel or Cable?,1998. Pp. 201-222)
> >>>
> >>> While following these debates, I became sensitised to one specific i
> >>> mpact of manipulated images during a screening of Roland Emmerich's
> >>> 1994 Independence Day. In the rather naive encounter between the
> >>> American missionaries and the alien Mother ship we witness a brief
> >>> moment, only a few frames, when a fireball engulfs the pilot on
> >>> impact.
> >>>
> >>> Now in itself, this is not an unfamiliar scene, and it has been
> >>> repeated
> >>> in action and war films to excess. My point here is that the image
> >>> manipulation was of the 'invisible' sort, i.e. not 'in-your-face'
> >>> CGI that
> >>> creates spectacle that is highly aware of its difference to so-
> >>> called
> >>> normal perception and representation.
> >>>
> >>> The fireball in the cockpit was created to look like live action.
> >>> So - what's the problem? Well, in that fraction of a second of ID4,
> >>> an image flashed in my mind that, depending on your generation,
> >>> may also be indelibly etched in your own.: this 1963 photo by
> >>> Malcolm Brown
> >>>
> >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Qu?ng_D?c>>
> >>> The mental image of this while watching ID4 was an emotional
> >>> response
> >>> on my part, a response of what could be described as 'negative
> >>> empathy'
> >>> that incited ethical awareness about the inherent 'wrongness' of
> >>> this scene.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> This personal example might illustrate why we need articulated
> >>> critical
> >>> reactions to films like these, to facilitate a sober
> >>> understanding of the
> >>> impact such films are having on our collective sense of ethics.
> >>>
> >>> In light of the inane acceptance of violent images
> >>> just because we are 'used to them' and the role CGI and animation
> >>> has to play in this, addressing the crisis rooted in the loss of
> >>> indexical
> >>> truth could effectively address a re-examination of the discourse
> >>> around
> >>> ethical responsibility in image production. Discussions around
> >>> animation -
> >>> especially the kind we are not supposed to see - have tended to
> >>> focus
> >>> on technical wizardry and the properties of programmes to create
> >>> the
> >>> impossible. It may be part of a new body of work for critical
> >>> investigations
> >>> of spectatorial manipulation in a digital age, a territory that
> >>> needs
> >>> ethical navigation to understand the philosophical consequences of
> >>> this kind of imagery.
> >>>
> >>> The next issue of the ANM journal (5.1) will have an essay by
> >>> philosopher
> >>> and cultural studies scholar Elizabeth Walden that explores just
> >>> these
> >>> issues
> >>> and discusses a puppet animation film; she discusses how
> >>> "elements of
> >>> the narrative structure and the camera work give the materials
> >>> used in the
> >>> character's project a moral standing in the film, which draws
> >>> audience and
> >>> filmmaker as well as the character into an ethical situation
> >>> which is
> >>> significant to our shared moment in the digital era."
> >>>
> >>> So I'll leave this for now, and see if anyone has some thoughts on
> >>> it.
> >>>
> >>> I'm also happy to engage with the Quays' works, if there is
> >>> interest out
> >>> there.
> >>>
> >>> Suzanne
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> -----Original Message-----
> >>> From: empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au on behalf of Renate
> >>> Ferro
> >>> Sent: Sat 2/13/2010 04:37
> >>> To: soft_skinned_space
> >>> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] CG and all things fuzzy
> >>>
> >>> Dear Paul and Suzanne,
> >>>
> >>> Can you both talk about how CG fits into your animation
> >>> programs? At
> >>> Cornell, Computer Graphics and 3D animation is taught by Computing
> >>> faculty. It is in the art department where students, particularly
> >>> recently, have been creating stop action, frame by frame, roto-
> >>> scoping,
> >>> drawing based and a medley of other fuzzies. Whether working from
> >>> photography based or original drawing. their novel, quirky rendering
> >>> styles, interdisciplinary interests and criticality make their
> >>> work fresh
> >>> and innovative.
> >>>
> >>> How does it work in the UK?
> >>>
> >>> Renate
> >>>
> >>> Renate Ferro
> >>> Visiting Assistant Professor
> >>> Department of Art
> >>> Cornell University, Tjaden Hall
> >>> Ithaca, NY 14853
> >>>
> >>> Email: <rtf9 at cornell.edu>
> >>> Website: http://www.renateferro.net <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/>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> 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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> >> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> > ===========End of original message text===========
> >
> >
> >
> > Eric Patrick
> > Assistant Professor
> > Radio/Television/Film
> > School of Communication
> > Northwestern University
> > 1920 Campus Drive
> > Evanston, Illinois 60208
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > 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
>
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
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