[-empyre-] animation and short term memory (was, a long time ago: interpreting datasets, etc)

[Richard Wright]

Out of this loooooong 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 <futurenatural at 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 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.
>>>
>>> Thanks, Thyrza
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 12:39 AM, christopher sullivan
>>> <csulli at saic.edu> wrote:
>>> Hi Richard, I am the guy that wants animations about love, hate,
>>> birth, sex, and
>>> death.(not necessarily in that order)
>>> your rules of engagement leave me a little cold. why would this be
>>> a goal?
>>>
>>> "greatest possible distance between
>>>  human senses and computer code that is achievable through the
>>>  simplest material means"
>>>
>>> what part of the human condition would make this a mandate?
>>> why would this be effective, or rather effective at doing what?
>>> I know I am being a little aggressive here, but this is coming from
>>> someone who does not think Data means anything, nor does emulsion.
>>>
>>> chris.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
> 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