[-empyre-] animation and gender

Tue Mar 2 04:04:22 EST 2010

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=content&Itemid=10&task=view&id=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.  I"m 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 <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
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
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>>
>
>
> 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
>
>
> 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/
>
>
>
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