Zemni Moving Image

Author: Linda Mayoux

  • Research 5.5: Performance, expanded cinema and animation

    TASK
    Find examples of animation that challenge the role of the audience. Reflect on how the audience have been included in the performance or presentation of the animation, and how this challenges ideas of audience, participation, cinema or animation.

    Tip: Writing a gallery proposal
    When working with galleries, whether you are making work to be shown inside or out, as a standalone piece or a performance you need to develop a gallery proposal. This short document sets out the nature of the work being proposed and practical aspects of installing it. Any proposal should contain a description of the work itself, its content or concept, scale and duration, any technical information or installation requirements, and proposed audience.

    As a starting point, consider the following performances:
    ● Man Ray, White Ball (1930):
    All party guests were dressed in white, Man Ray and Lee Miller projected
    tinted films by Georges Méliès on them while they danced.
    ● Giovanni Martedi, Matérialisme Dialectique l’art (series)(1978):
    Its action consisted of projecting the beam of a projector loaded with any
    film- “found in a trash can” or “ready made”– onto a rotating circular
    mirror attached to a drill. The mirror thus reflected the images all over the
    space by flashes and fragments. This performance took its inspiration
    from Valie Export’s Abstract Film Number One (1967-68).
    ● Maurice Lemaître, Montage (1978-1990):
    A performance made with aleatory found footage projected onto a screen
    made with newspapers, while the audience reads imaginary scripts
    distributed by Lemaître himself.
    ● Roland Sabatier, Look Somewhere Else (1971):
    “The audience is invited not to look at the work or at its execution.”

  • Research 5.4: Animations outside the gallery or cinema

    TASK
    Do some research to identify three different examples of showing work using the internet or mobile platforms or setting up animations as an installation outside of gallery or cinema spaces. Reflect on how these approaches engages an audience that might be different to conventional approaches to art or cinema.

    As a starting point, look at:
    ● LUX online: https://lux.org.uk/online-exhibition
    ● Matt’s Gallery: https://possessions-inc.mattsgallery.org/
    ● Animate Projects: http://animateprojects.org/

  • Research 5.3: Gallery Installations

    TASK
    Review photographic and other documentation of animations that have been
    included in gallery installations. Make notes on how the artist has chosen to
    install their work, thinking about the format, frame, atmosphere, and audience.
    Think about the practical issues of these installations in terms of the equipment
    and other objects that were needed, and the duration of the screenings.
    Compare the differences in presentation and reflect on how you might apply
    these approaches to your own animations.

    You can find your own artists or look at the artists suggested, below:
    ● Benedict Drew (Whitechapel Gallery Exhibit)
    ● Sondra Perry (Serpentine Gallery Exhibit)
    ● Jeff Keen (Tate Modern Gallery Exhibit)
    ● Ryan Trecartin (Moma PS1 Exhibit)
    ● Harun Farocki (Whitechapel Gallery Exhibit)

  • Research 5.2: Viewing different scales and durations

    TASK: Choose three different films or video with animated content that you have seen recently: one in the cinema and another on a phone, laptop or tablet.
    ● Write about the difference between these three viewing experiences.
    ● Do you think the scale of the screen affected how you understood the film and your ability to concentrate?
    ● If so, in what ways was this so and what were the factors that differed in each case? (such as duration, context, sound, quality, format).
    Briefly write up your thoughts in your learning log. Is certain subject matter that you think is better suited to a particular scale or duration?

  • Research 5.1: optical devices

    TASK
    Search online for other examples of using phénakistoscopes, optical devices, flipbooks or Arduino or Raspberry Pi software.
    You can watch footage of T. McLean’s optical illusions or magic panorama (1833) by performing a quick google search.
    Find and name a range of optical toys and devices either from the 19th and 20th century, or later if you are interested in software related devices. Reference images, names, and any related animations for each device in your learning log with a short description.

  • Research 4.10: social media

    TASK
    Artists Ryan Trecartin and Emma Calder both make use of social media as the source for their animation and video work. Each ask how cameras, social media, and reality TV have changed the way we engage with the world and with one another. Watch the videos made by both artists as a starting point to reflect on your own experience of social media.

    Emma Calder, Everyone is waiting for Something to Happen (2016):

    Ryan Trecartin, Tommy Chat Just Emailed Me (2006)

    http://www.ubuweb.com/film/trecartin_tommy.html

  • Research 4.9: Video Games and Corporate Video

    Of all the digital animation that is produced, corporate videos and video games are possibly the most numerous form. The various visual styles of this non-advertisement based graphic content can be a rich source of material for artists.
    Explore either video games or corporate video as your focus. Research several kinds of contemporary corporate video online that make use of animated elements or find examples of video games throughout history.
    Make notes of the stylistic choices taken in each and the dates that these were made. Look at the composition of frame and narrative arc of the video as well as aesthetic choices of the graphics and animated elements. Using your chosen clips compile a video timeline of visual styles that develop from the 90s to the present.

  • Research 4.8: Something is missing

    TASK
    Undertake research into absence and representation in moving image and build
    up your own argument about whether ‘something is missing’ in digital
    representation. For example;
    ● In what ways can representation be defined by an absence?
    ● Why is this particular to animation and the digital world?
    ● What will the future be like?
    Your argument can be in written, recorded audio or video form. Remember to
    cite your sources.

    Is something missing in contemporary visual culture? by filling the world with images are we attempting to hide, erase or obscure something?

    question from course text.

    “I don’t really know how to make work that doesn’t first deal with loss, or speak of loss. Because I guess I felt that loss, or insufficiency, or
    inability and failure and negation generally are the absolute bedrock of making things. Which sounds perverse because obviously you are
    generating something; you are creating something out of nothing. But actually…Representation, I feel like it is defined by an absence.”

    Ed Atkins, Ed Atkins interview: Something is Missing (2017) Louisiana Channel.

    “ Hyperlinks or It Didn’t Happen is narrated by the failed CGI rendering of a recently deceased actor, PHIL, and follows a group of digital
    beings—render ghosts, spam bots, holograms—as they search for meaning. Multiple storylines and materials collapse and converge to
    raise questions about what it means to be materially conscious today and the rights of the personal data we release.”

    Cecile B Evans, Hyperlinks or it Didn’t Happen (2014) Vdrome.org.
    Paul Pfeiffer

    Artist Paul Pfeiffer repurposes this ‘digital tinkering’ and puts the animated
    technique of erasure to the purpose of refocusing the attention of his audience.
    In The Long Count: Thrilla Manila (2000-2001), Pfeiffer used film images of
    Muhammad Ali’s title fights against Sonny Liston, George Foreman and Joe
    Frazier. He reduced the film frames to single photographs and then reassembled
    them into new films by digitally removing the fighters from the scene so that only
    audience and the boxing ring remained. What remains is ghostly, schematic
    flitting about the ring; the boxers are not seen, just an uncanny shadow as if the
    boxers have suddenly become invisible. What becomes visible when the fighters
    are removed is another form of violence that is otherwise less evident: the faces
    of the – mostly white – viewers who are watching the black boxers.
    “As always in Paul Pfeiffer’s work, the erasure of the protagonists in
    the Long Count leads directly to the traumatic backrooms of the
    American Dream .”

    Ed Atkins and Naheed Raza, Tomorrow Never Knows (2013)
    first video cuts out sound bites. Making it edgy and nervy to listen to. You never know how much you are going to understand and when you will be cut off.
    Cecile B. Evans, Hyperlinks or It Didn’t Happen (2014)

    Hyperlinks or It Didn’t Happen follows a group of digital entities as they search for meaning and an understanding of their own condition. Narrated by the failed CGI rendering of a recently deceased actor, PHIL,  he introduces these digital agents—render ghosts, spam bots, holograms—as they appear across various settings, genres, and modes of representation. Multiple hyperlinked storylines build, converge, and collapse around overarching ideas of existence beyond anatomy: the ways in which we live and work within the machine. Throughout, questions are raised about what it means to be materially conscious today and the rights of the personal data we release.

    Hyperlinks or It Didn’t Happen

    http://dismagazine.com/dystopia/74959/hyperlinks-or-it-didnt-happen-cecile-b-evans/ Gives a list of the different allusions and surces.

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  • Research 4.7: Image quality

    TASK:
    Identify animations that uses good and/or bad image quality in interesting ways. Write a short piece (written, audio or animated) that draws together your research and viewpoints on image quality    . Your essay can be presented in written, audio or video form (Approximately 1500 words, 3 minutes audio or 1 minute video).

    Reflect on these animations in relation to Steyerl’s quotes above and look up and
    read her essay, In Defence of the Poor Image .Illustrate with images if needed.

    https://www.e-flux.com/journal/10/61362/in-defense-of-the-poor-image/


    . For additional context, you may want to review Alan Warburton’s videos Spectacle, Speculation, Spam and Goodbye Uncanny Valley from the previous exercise.

    Compression or data compression is a digital process in which image or moving image information is reduced to make file sizes more manageable. Compression reduces file size by eliminating unused digital elements (lossless) or reducing less important information (lossy), such as subtle tones. Too much lossy compression can negatively affect image quality.

    Image quality

    “The poor image is a copy in motion. Its quality is bad, its resolution substandard. As it accelerates, it deteriorates. It is a ghost of an image, a preview, a thumbnail, an errant idea, an itinerant image distributed for free, squeezed through slow digital connections, compressed, reproduced, ripped, remixed, as well as copied and pasted into other channels of distribution.
    Obviously, a high-resolution image looks more brilliant and impressive, more mimetic and magic, more scary and seductive than a poor one. It is more rich, so to speak.”
    Hito Steyerl, In Defense of the Poor Image (2009)

    https://vimeo.com/194963450
    https://vimeo.com/alanwarburton/goodbyeuncannyvalley
    Fairytales of Motion by Alan Warburton | Tate Exchange

  • Research 4.6: More Real

    TASK:
    Do you agree with Peter Jackson that high frame rates allow an audience to see more reality?
    If so, do you think this is desirable? If not, what other motivation do film-makers and animators have in pushing for such high frame rates?
    Use OCA’s discuss forums to share your thoughts and any animation references.