[-empyre-] animation and gender

kim collmer kcollmer at yahoo.com
Wed Mar 3 00:34:35 EST 2010 

I think Miwa's work is really wonderful. I forgot to list her. She does animation but also combines it with performing along with the animation (her figure becoming a silhouette). She inspired a few of my former students to try out similar techniques and it brought about interesting conversations and work.



________________________________
From: christophersullivan <csulli at saic.edu>
To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Sent: Tue, March 2, 2010 5:47:43 AM
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] animation and gender

another name for very strange new media stuff is MiwaMatrakek
very poppy, but quite interesting tuff. Chris


Quoting Eric Patrick <ericp at northwestern.edu>:

> Joanne Gratz, Joanna Priestly, Caroline Leaf, etc....
> 
> I actually think the opposite of what Renate says below...  at least in
> terms of independent animation.  It always seemed to me that women were
> dominating independent work with innovation of both form and content
> (Caroline Leaf and Joan Gratz in the former, Joanna Priestly and Susan Pitt
> in the later).
> 
> There's no question that there is a lack of presence in television, film and
> gaming of women animators (though there's also a lack of general diversity
> in these areas), with the exception of children's television which has many
> great people doing things (Jen Oxley, Linda Simensky, and Tracy
> Paige-Johnson to name a few).
> 
> Eric
> 
> 
> On 3/1/10 9:59 AM, "christophersullivan" <csulli at saic.edu> wrote:
> 
> > a couple more, Ruth Lingford, Wendy Tilby, Martha Colborn. Kim Colmer,
> Ariana
> > Gerstine, OrlaMcHardy, Suzzytempleton, Laura Heit. Lisa Barcy, Susan
> Pit,
> > Maureen Selwood, Christien Roche. got to go. Chris
> > 
> > 
> > Quoting Renate Ferro <rtf9 at cornell.edu>:
> > 
> >> 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, PrittParn, 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), AmoresPerros 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 I¹ve been so lax as a discussant-generator but here I am with
> >>>>> some thoughts and reflections. If it¹s 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 ³wow² 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 ³Are
> >>>>> We Still Married² ‹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 it¹s just
> >>>>> sometimes I¹ve felt we¹ve let the technology get away with doing
> >>>>> too much of the talking, not that it doesn¹t have a lot to say.
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> But a more hardy, if overly general, topic is temporality and time,
> >>>>> now-time vs say the way cinema¹s capturing, sculpting, control of
> >>>>> time was such a huge part of its magic. Siegfried Kracauer describe
> >>>>> in an essay how powerful just ³having² 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,² Why does he
> >>>>> keep leaving the camera on the trees so long?² 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 ³cartoon². 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 lightŠ  .) But I do not know what
> >>>>> people have seen. I am more interested in hearing you all discuss
> >>>>> temporality and animation ³today²‹both theoretically and examples.
> >>>>> These discussions are so energetic. They amaze me.
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> Thanks, Thyrza
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 12:39 AM, christophersullivan
> >>>>> <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
> >>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> >>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
> >>> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 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/
> >> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> 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
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> 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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empyre forum
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