While Kafka is not what I am generally calling academic reading, he is a writer who is constantly referenced in film and I have named him numerous times in relation to surrealism. However, I have never actually gone to the text to read him, until now. I recently read "Metamorphosis" as well as few other samples from the book "Metamorphosis and other Stories" newly translated by Michale Hofmann, Penguin Classics, 2007. I think some of the ending portions are different than what I'd gotten from summaries and the graphic novel version. (he goes into his room and dies shortly after his sister declares that they must get rid of him).
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Thursday, June 21, 2012
The Blood Records, book 2
Second book primarily filled with photos and the voice over text from the video. Also contains a summary of the history of TB, and the schedule of the day that was followed.
Interesting quote: "If we are the body politic, what about the carcass politic; the polis cadaverous?"
Interesting quote: "If we are the body politic, what about the carcass politic; the polis cadaverous?"
The Blood Records, book 1
The Blood Records, written and annotated by Steel and Tomczak: Critical Symptoms, Oakville Galleries, 1998.
This is a set of two small books or exhibition catalogs,
"Eyeing the Sublime: Poetic Politics in the Worked of Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak" by Su DItta.
Page 12 "... their decision to form a partnership reflects more than a romantic experiment in shaping artistic practice. Their collaboration is lived evidence of the ideological framework that underpins their understanding of the role of the artist in society."
Page 16: importance of aesthetics for social activism and subversion.
Page 17, the sensuous potential of the beautiful ... has an inherently subversive possibility, one which can engage audiences and challenge viewers to change, rather than assimilate, the world in which they live.
"Mourning Pictures" by Mike Hoolboom
Page 35, "The educational films which comprise this first act have been deftly assembled to rehabilitate the mythologies that underlie the unintended camp kitsch of their original material"
"The Blood Records: Idle Identity" by Johanne Lamoureux
Page 37, "the historical remove" ?
Page 39, sites Susan Sontag on "illness as metaphor".
This is a set of two small books or exhibition catalogs,
"Eyeing the Sublime: Poetic Politics in the Worked of Lisa Steele and Kim Tomczak" by Su DItta.
Page 12 "... their decision to form a partnership reflects more than a romantic experiment in shaping artistic practice. Their collaboration is lived evidence of the ideological framework that underpins their understanding of the role of the artist in society."
Page 16: importance of aesthetics for social activism and subversion.
Page 17, the sensuous potential of the beautiful ... has an inherently subversive possibility, one which can engage audiences and challenge viewers to change, rather than assimilate, the world in which they live.
"Mourning Pictures" by Mike Hoolboom
Page 35, "The educational films which comprise this first act have been deftly assembled to rehabilitate the mythologies that underlie the unintended camp kitsch of their original material"
"The Blood Records: Idle Identity" by Johanne Lamoureux
Page 37, "the historical remove" ?
Page 39, sites Susan Sontag on "illness as metaphor".
Friday, June 15, 2012
Forbidden Animation
Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators in America by Karl F. Cohen, McFarland and Co, North Carolina, 1997.
Overall, this book is great when it is discussing issues and events up to 1980s. However, sections discussing current animation and the possible future directions fails to anticipate the affect of the internet as well as the proliferation of adult animation such as South Park (see note for page 194). These sections therefore seem naive.Also, many suppressed works, even those by Disney, have now been restored and released on DVD.
Notes;
Page 10, interested in new dvd from Disney: does "Alice Solves a Puzzle" contain the removed drinking scenes?
Page 12, What are "first night" scenes?
Page 12-13, Everready Hardon history.
Page 23, Famous Studios, zero Academy nominations n 25 years as oposed to Fleischer Studio of four in a shorter time.
Page 26, Willie Wopper, "Spite Flight", St. Peter gives the finger!?
Page 59-69, "Song of the South" discussion.
Page 69, list of Disney shorts pulled from cataloge.
Page 72, Some Van Beuren studio examples of racism.
Page 74, "all the bad guys speak in foreign accents"
Page 91, "Tarzoon" cut neg and turned optical track upside down to comply with course injunction.
Page 94, Jan Svankmajer history.
Page 96, "She [kotlarz] feels that instead of silencing debate, people would try to understand the context in which the images are used. She suggests that those who try to avoid controversy are preventing animators from engaging the problems of society and from sticking their necks out to speak about these problems."
Page 98, Ben Van Meeder zeppelin - FIND?
Page 132, Juggling chain saws but not knives, machine guns, not regular guns.
Page 149, banned Ren and Stimpy; "Sven Hoek" and "Man's Best Friend".
Page 169-170, list of 10 subtle communist touches in scripts.
Page 174, Tempo Animation Studio?
Page 191, Norman McLaren protected from witch hunt.
Page 194, In regards to Simpsons: "on the subject of scatological humour, it seems that television has probably pushed the envelope as far as possible".
Overall, this book is great when it is discussing issues and events up to 1980s. However, sections discussing current animation and the possible future directions fails to anticipate the affect of the internet as well as the proliferation of adult animation such as South Park (see note for page 194). These sections therefore seem naive.Also, many suppressed works, even those by Disney, have now been restored and released on DVD.
Notes;
Page 10, interested in new dvd from Disney: does "Alice Solves a Puzzle" contain the removed drinking scenes?
Page 12, What are "first night" scenes?
Page 12-13, Everready Hardon history.
Page 23, Famous Studios, zero Academy nominations n 25 years as oposed to Fleischer Studio of four in a shorter time.
Page 26, Willie Wopper, "Spite Flight", St. Peter gives the finger!?
Page 59-69, "Song of the South" discussion.
Page 69, list of Disney shorts pulled from cataloge.
Page 72, Some Van Beuren studio examples of racism.
Page 74, "all the bad guys speak in foreign accents"
Page 91, "Tarzoon" cut neg and turned optical track upside down to comply with course injunction.
Page 94, Jan Svankmajer history.
Page 96, "She [kotlarz] feels that instead of silencing debate, people would try to understand the context in which the images are used. She suggests that those who try to avoid controversy are preventing animators from engaging the problems of society and from sticking their necks out to speak about these problems."
Page 98, Ben Van Meeder zeppelin - FIND?
Page 132, Juggling chain saws but not knives, machine guns, not regular guns.
Page 149, banned Ren and Stimpy; "Sven Hoek" and "Man's Best Friend".
Page 169-170, list of 10 subtle communist touches in scripts.
Page 174, Tempo Animation Studio?
Page 191, Norman McLaren protected from witch hunt.
Page 194, In regards to Simpsons: "on the subject of scatological humour, it seems that television has probably pushed the envelope as far as possible".
Monday, June 11, 2012
Film Manifestos
Read on line article "Be Realistic: demand the impossible, or, A Secret History of Film Manifestos" by Scott MacKenzie (www.incite-online.net/mackenzie.html)
This is rather short, even briefer than the summer I heard him give in person, but was interested in "Peggy Ahwesh, Craig Baldwin, and Keith Sanborn produced works that recycled the detritus images of contemporary culture into found footage films".
This is rather short, even briefer than the summer I heard him give in person, but was interested in "Peggy Ahwesh, Craig Baldwin, and Keith Sanborn produced works that recycled the detritus images of contemporary culture into found footage films".
Friday, June 1, 2012
Phantom Images and Modern Manifestations
In book Fugitive Images; from photography to video, edited by Patrice Petro, University of Wisconsin, 1995. (from UofR Library).
"Phantom Images and Modern Manifestations: Spirit Photography, Magic Theater, Trick Films, and Photography's Uncanny" by Tom Gunning (page 42-71).
Notes:
Page 43, Freud, "unheimlich" = uncanny in translation.
Balzac theory that objects are constantly shedding their image like a skin.
Page 45, "the uncanny effect of repetition"
Page 48, William Mumler, commercial spirit photographer, tried for fraud.
Page 52, rationale for mediums being women.
Page 53, "...Claimed all they did was to hold the sensitive, receptive mediums, one spirited, the other photographic, was sufficient to form a latent image".
Page 56, Katie King (medium) ... "retires into a dark chamber (camera obscura) and produces a double of herself which emerges into the light"
Page 58, ectoplasm: term coined by Dr. Richet.
Page 60, Maskelyn, "Spiritualists ... put on a good show, one that was enthralling visually that it could be presented without serving as evidence for supernatural events".
Page 61, Robert-Houdin, exposed spiritualist, Houdini took name from him, he built a studio but when things got tough, he sold it to MELIES.
Page 64: "For Melies, spirit photography results less in communication with the dead than in an exchange of identities between image and model".
Page 65, Paul Coates, author of the early classic work on spirit photography, Photographing the Invisible, indicated that these spirit forces may actually need to consult existing photographs in order to create thee images. .... to refresh their memory".
"Phantom Images and Modern Manifestations: Spirit Photography, Magic Theater, Trick Films, and Photography's Uncanny" by Tom Gunning (page 42-71).
Notes:
Page 43, Freud, "unheimlich" = uncanny in translation.
Balzac theory that objects are constantly shedding their image like a skin.
Page 45, "the uncanny effect of repetition"
Page 48, William Mumler, commercial spirit photographer, tried for fraud.
Page 52, rationale for mediums being women.
Page 53, "...Claimed all they did was to hold the sensitive, receptive mediums, one spirited, the other photographic, was sufficient to form a latent image".
Page 56, Katie King (medium) ... "retires into a dark chamber (camera obscura) and produces a double of herself which emerges into the light"
Page 58, ectoplasm: term coined by Dr. Richet.
Page 60, Maskelyn, "Spiritualists ... put on a good show, one that was enthralling visually that it could be presented without serving as evidence for supernatural events".
Page 61, Robert-Houdin, exposed spiritualist, Houdini took name from him, he built a studio but when things got tough, he sold it to MELIES.
Page 64: "For Melies, spirit photography results less in communication with the dead than in an exchange of identities between image and model".
Page 65, Paul Coates, author of the early classic work on spirit photography, Photographing the Invisible, indicated that these spirit forces may actually need to consult existing photographs in order to create thee images. .... to refresh their memory".
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Reader in animation studies second half
Finished "A Reader in Animation Studies" (and bought a copy).
Notes:
"The Thief of Buena Vista: Disney's Aladdin and Orientalism" by Leslie Felperin.
Page 138, Edward Said and orientalism notes.
Page 139, "it's conceivable that [Antoine] Galland himself wrote the story [Aladdin], drawing as much from European sources as oriental ones"
page 140, Pathe Freres - first film version, 1906
Page 141, "in many ways, the Aladdin story severs as a trope for the animation process itself... western technology is the genie which Aladdin/the animator commands".
Mr. Magoo / UPA version discussed.
"Animatophilia, cultural production and corporate interests: the case of Ren and Stimpy" by Mark Langer.
Page 145, re cultural capital, [Bordieu] defined capital as 'the set of actually useable resources and powers'. Capital can be either economic, cultural, or social ... thus artists and industrialists can both belong to an upper class ... an artist will have much cultural capital but less economic capital"
Page 145, history of the rise of mainstream animation studios in 60s and 70s.
Page 147, discussion of "hip", "taste", and "culture".
"Francis Bacon and Walt Disney revisited" by Simon Pummell.
(article very anti-Disney)
Page 173, "a careful viewing of much of Disney's work reveals the contrast of a potentially disruptive and problematic dynamism of form then laid over with the sickly colours of a rigid sentimentality.".
"Body consciousness is the films of Jan Svankmajer" by Paul Wells.
Page 177 "The body as the site unto which humankind projects its desires, its fear, and uncertainty".
Michal O'Pray suggests that the level of address is located within further discourses where surrealism conjoins with animation of post Modernism.
Page 178, the four 'R's : reproduction, representation, regulation, and restraint.
Page 184, Mechannibalism: (body as machine feeding other people), "hot the body is reduced to a mechanism".
"Eisenstein and Stokes on Disney: Film animation and omnipotence" by Michael O'Pray.
Page 196, "never been a purer expression of the union of music and movement ... story in Silly Symphonies was quite immaterial" [Borodin].
Len Lye mentioned.
Page 201, Animation is often at its best when we marvel not only at the subject matter, so to speak, but at its means of achievement. We are conscious of technique her in the way that we are often not in mainstream narrative film".
"Towards a post-modern animated discourse, Bakhtin, intertextuality and the cartoon carnival" by Terrance R. Lindvalt and J. Matthew Melton.
Page 204-205, Self reflective comment on filmmaking: -speak to audience, - relationship to creators
Page 205, about filmmaking - McCay's "Little Nemo",. "Starewicz "Revenge of Kinematograph Cameraman", (bugs become voyeurs throuigh watching film), Film Flam Films (1927 Felix), Porky's Preview (1941). Original Movie (Tony Sarg, 1922), Making Em Move (1931), Film Film Film (1969), History of Cinema (1958), Sigmund (1984).
Page 208, Errol Flynn on Bugs, "Cleverly inverts the concepts of reality and illusion by allowing the cartoon to pass judgement on the live action film, even denying its plausibility.".
Page 213, Emile Cohl and "the incoherents", anti-rationalist group.
Page 212-216, live action (animators) and animation mixtures.
Page 217, "Wizard of speed and time"
Mock classical narrative paradigms, but they do affirm personal narratives.
"Restoring the aesthetics of early abstract films" by William Moritz.
Page 221-222, Hans Richter - why he lies about his history.
Page 223, Ruttman's Opus 1 - too complex.
Book of interest: "Viking Eggeling 1880-1925, Artist and filmmaker" by Louise O'Konor.
"Resistance and subversion in animated films of the Nazi era; th ecase of Hans Fischerkoesen" by William Moritz.
Page 230, falsified dates of Nazi-era films. First animated feature "Reynard the Fox".
Page 239, Fischerkoesen postwar mural
http://www.awn.com/mag/issue1.7/articles/moritz1.7.html
"European influences on early Disney feature films" by Robin Allan.
Page 252, choice of Beethoven in Fantasia discussed.
Page 252, "his artists were providing an extended comic strip version with gags appealing t his [Disney's] penchant for anal-erotic jokes and at the same time they were offering the lyrical quality of the flying horses that so touched his aesthetic sense that he wanted this to be matched by appropriate music. Such ambiguities emphasise the difficulty ...."
Page 253, Franz von Stuck (1863-1928) "one of the few artists to depict female centaurs".
"Norm Ferguson and the Latin American films of Walt Disney" by J.B. Kaufman.
Primarily a historical review of the travels of travels in Latin America, home movies that were taken and recordings made. Mexico had music unions so it got more complicated.
Notes:
"The Thief of Buena Vista: Disney's Aladdin and Orientalism" by Leslie Felperin.
Page 138, Edward Said and orientalism notes.
Page 139, "it's conceivable that [Antoine] Galland himself wrote the story [Aladdin], drawing as much from European sources as oriental ones"
page 140, Pathe Freres - first film version, 1906
Page 141, "in many ways, the Aladdin story severs as a trope for the animation process itself... western technology is the genie which Aladdin/the animator commands".
Mr. Magoo / UPA version discussed.
"Animatophilia, cultural production and corporate interests: the case of Ren and Stimpy" by Mark Langer.
Page 145, re cultural capital, [Bordieu] defined capital as 'the set of actually useable resources and powers'. Capital can be either economic, cultural, or social ... thus artists and industrialists can both belong to an upper class ... an artist will have much cultural capital but less economic capital"
Page 145, history of the rise of mainstream animation studios in 60s and 70s.
Page 147, discussion of "hip", "taste", and "culture".
"Francis Bacon and Walt Disney revisited" by Simon Pummell.
(article very anti-Disney)
Page 173, "a careful viewing of much of Disney's work reveals the contrast of a potentially disruptive and problematic dynamism of form then laid over with the sickly colours of a rigid sentimentality.".
"Body consciousness is the films of Jan Svankmajer" by Paul Wells.
Page 177 "The body as the site unto which humankind projects its desires, its fear, and uncertainty".
Michal O'Pray suggests that the level of address is located within further discourses where surrealism conjoins with animation of post Modernism.
Page 178, the four 'R's : reproduction, representation, regulation, and restraint.
Page 184, Mechannibalism: (body as machine feeding other people), "hot the body is reduced to a mechanism".
"Eisenstein and Stokes on Disney: Film animation and omnipotence" by Michael O'Pray.
Page 196, "never been a purer expression of the union of music and movement ... story in Silly Symphonies was quite immaterial" [Borodin].
Len Lye mentioned.
Page 201, Animation is often at its best when we marvel not only at the subject matter, so to speak, but at its means of achievement. We are conscious of technique her in the way that we are often not in mainstream narrative film".
"Towards a post-modern animated discourse, Bakhtin, intertextuality and the cartoon carnival" by Terrance R. Lindvalt and J. Matthew Melton.
Page 204-205, Self reflective comment on filmmaking: -speak to audience, - relationship to creators
Page 205, about filmmaking - McCay's "Little Nemo",. "Starewicz "Revenge of Kinematograph Cameraman", (bugs become voyeurs throuigh watching film), Film Flam Films (1927 Felix), Porky's Preview (1941). Original Movie (Tony Sarg, 1922), Making Em Move (1931), Film Film Film (1969), History of Cinema (1958), Sigmund (1984).
Page 208, Errol Flynn on Bugs, "Cleverly inverts the concepts of reality and illusion by allowing the cartoon to pass judgement on the live action film, even denying its plausibility.".
Page 213, Emile Cohl and "the incoherents", anti-rationalist group.
Page 212-216, live action (animators) and animation mixtures.
Page 217, "Wizard of speed and time"
Mock classical narrative paradigms, but they do affirm personal narratives.
"Restoring the aesthetics of early abstract films" by William Moritz.
Page 221-222, Hans Richter - why he lies about his history.
Page 223, Ruttman's Opus 1 - too complex.
Book of interest: "Viking Eggeling 1880-1925, Artist and filmmaker" by Louise O'Konor.
"Resistance and subversion in animated films of the Nazi era; th ecase of Hans Fischerkoesen" by William Moritz.
Page 230, falsified dates of Nazi-era films. First animated feature "Reynard the Fox".
Page 239, Fischerkoesen postwar mural
http://www.awn.com/mag/issue1.7/articles/moritz1.7.html
"European influences on early Disney feature films" by Robin Allan.
Page 252, choice of Beethoven in Fantasia discussed.
Page 252, "his artists were providing an extended comic strip version with gags appealing t his [Disney's] penchant for anal-erotic jokes and at the same time they were offering the lyrical quality of the flying horses that so touched his aesthetic sense that he wanted this to be matched by appropriate music. Such ambiguities emphasise the difficulty ...."
Page 253, Franz von Stuck (1863-1928) "one of the few artists to depict female centaurs".
"Norm Ferguson and the Latin American films of Walt Disney" by J.B. Kaufman.
Primarily a historical review of the travels of travels in Latin America, home movies that were taken and recordings made. Mexico had music unions so it got more complicated.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Reader in Animation Studies - first half
Have been reading "A Reader in Animation Studies" edited by Jayne Pilling, John Libbey & Co., Sydney, 1997.
Notes:
1. "What is animation and who needs to know" by Philip Kelly Denslow.
Page 4. "Is digital animation only electronic puppetry?"
2. "Reality effects in computer animation" by Lev Manovich.
Page 6. 3D animation supports Bazin's claim of cinema as complete representation of reality.
Page 7. addition/subtraction (Comelli) in that things are added to build realism while others become less important movement and depth gave way to colour and shade or character.
Page 8. Goals of society of motion picture engineers: showmanship, realism, invisibility.(supports realist cinema).
Unbreakable glass as metaphor for the unseen artifice goal of cinema.
3. "Second order realism and post-modern aesthetics in computer animation" by Andy Darley.
Page 21. Photo-realist painting compared with realist agenda in 3D animation.
4. "The Quay brothers' The Epic of Gilgamesh and the 'metaphysics of obscenity'" by Steve Weiner.
Inspired me to shoot my puppets in floor and two opposing wall set like this:
5. "Narrative strategies for resistance and protest in Eastern European Animation" by William Moritz.
Page 40-45, Soviet subversive animation, films of note:
- The Hand
- Tale of Tales
- Dom (Home)
- Dejeuner sur l'herbe
6. "Putting themselves in the pictures: images of women in the work of Joanna Quinn, Candy Guard and Alison de Vere" by Sandra Law.
Page 48-66, introduced context of Laura Mulvey and feminist guided animation to counteract male gaze.
- Films compared to Tex Avery and directly address stereotypes.
Films of note:
- Body Beautiful
- Girls Night Out by Joanna Quinn
-Wishful Thinking
What About Me
Fantastic Person
Moanologue by Candy Guard.
Page 66. "Women are depicted as complicit in their own enslavement by mirrors or by society's expectations of what femaleness represents".
7. An analysis of Susan Pitt's Asparagus and Joanna Priestley's All My Relations" by Sharon Cousin.
Page 72. Windsor McCay ... identify themselves as having magical creative powers"
Page 73. "Feminist art is art which acknowledges the difference of being a woman".
- three motifs: Phallus, faceless woman (magician/mother), objects to self.
Page 80 "Praget further claims that because images remain privately interiorized, while language becomes public, we can never show images to the extent and with subtlety that we can language".
8. "Clay animation comes out of the inkwell: the Fleischer brothers and clay animation"
Page 87-88. Use of clay snake discussed in one film.
Look for film "Modeling" by the Fleischer Brothers. (claymation).
9. "Bartosch's The Idea" by William Moritz
Page 94. electronic instrument used called the Ondes Martinet.
Berthold Bartosch
Page 96. Cites numerous reference from "Berlin, Symphony of a city" to woodcuts by Masereel.
Page 103. "You can do anything with soap".
10. "Norman McLaren and Jules Engel: Post-modernists" by William Moritz.
Page 105. Curtis: "the risk of incomprehensibility is an essential ingredient of all avant-garde work".
Page 106. Post-modernism defined with McLaren as po-mo artist.
Page 108. Grant Wood (American Gothic) also discussed as post modern. He had been "dismissed as a regionalist".
Page 109. "If it's not abstract, it couldn't be great" (Oskar Fischinger).
Page 109-110. "Engel ... challenged the status as 'high art' ... referencing the thaumatrope and such ... toys" (for Geremy).
11. "Disney, Warner Bros. and Japanese animation" by Luca Raffaelli.
Page 113. "Events and modes of behavior occurring in our adult world can be explained by comparing them to the drives, needs and games of our childhood".
Page 120. "Disneyan cinema is like this; animistic and egocentric; like a child".
Page 130-131. Anime uses emotional stills with voiced over internal dialogue rather than complex animation like Disney (due to cost initially) or the constant dialogue with basically unmoving (but for lips and mechanical/repetitive movements) of Hanna Barbara (although both needed economical approaches to tv animation).
Notes:
1. "What is animation and who needs to know" by Philip Kelly Denslow.
Page 4. "Is digital animation only electronic puppetry?"
2. "Reality effects in computer animation" by Lev Manovich.
Page 6. 3D animation supports Bazin's claim of cinema as complete representation of reality.
Page 7. addition/subtraction (Comelli) in that things are added to build realism while others become less important movement and depth gave way to colour and shade or character.
Page 8. Goals of society of motion picture engineers: showmanship, realism, invisibility.(supports realist cinema).
Unbreakable glass as metaphor for the unseen artifice goal of cinema.
3. "Second order realism and post-modern aesthetics in computer animation" by Andy Darley.
Page 21. Photo-realist painting compared with realist agenda in 3D animation.
4. "The Quay brothers' The Epic of Gilgamesh and the 'metaphysics of obscenity'" by Steve Weiner.
Inspired me to shoot my puppets in floor and two opposing wall set like this:
5. "Narrative strategies for resistance and protest in Eastern European Animation" by William Moritz.
Page 40-45, Soviet subversive animation, films of note:
- The Hand
- Tale of Tales
- Dom (Home)
- Dejeuner sur l'herbe
6. "Putting themselves in the pictures: images of women in the work of Joanna Quinn, Candy Guard and Alison de Vere" by Sandra Law.
Page 48-66, introduced context of Laura Mulvey and feminist guided animation to counteract male gaze.
- Films compared to Tex Avery and directly address stereotypes.
Films of note:
- Body Beautiful
- Girls Night Out by Joanna Quinn
-Wishful Thinking
What About Me
Fantastic Person
Moanologue by Candy Guard.
Page 66. "Women are depicted as complicit in their own enslavement by mirrors or by society's expectations of what femaleness represents".
7. An analysis of Susan Pitt's Asparagus and Joanna Priestley's All My Relations" by Sharon Cousin.
Page 72. Windsor McCay ... identify themselves as having magical creative powers"
Page 73. "Feminist art is art which acknowledges the difference of being a woman".
- three motifs: Phallus, faceless woman (magician/mother), objects to self.
Page 80 "Praget further claims that because images remain privately interiorized, while language becomes public, we can never show images to the extent and with subtlety that we can language".
8. "Clay animation comes out of the inkwell: the Fleischer brothers and clay animation"
Page 87-88. Use of clay snake discussed in one film.
Look for film "Modeling" by the Fleischer Brothers. (claymation).
9. "Bartosch's The Idea" by William Moritz
Page 94. electronic instrument used called the Ondes Martinet.
Berthold Bartosch
Page 96. Cites numerous reference from "Berlin, Symphony of a city" to woodcuts by Masereel.
Page 103. "You can do anything with soap".
10. "Norman McLaren and Jules Engel: Post-modernists" by William Moritz.
Page 105. Curtis: "the risk of incomprehensibility is an essential ingredient of all avant-garde work".
Page 106. Post-modernism defined with McLaren as po-mo artist.
Page 108. Grant Wood (American Gothic) also discussed as post modern. He had been "dismissed as a regionalist".
Page 109. "If it's not abstract, it couldn't be great" (Oskar Fischinger).
Page 109-110. "Engel ... challenged the status as 'high art' ... referencing the thaumatrope and such ... toys" (for Geremy).
11. "Disney, Warner Bros. and Japanese animation" by Luca Raffaelli.
Page 113. "Events and modes of behavior occurring in our adult world can be explained by comparing them to the drives, needs and games of our childhood".
Page 120. "Disneyan cinema is like this; animistic and egocentric; like a child".
Page 130-131. Anime uses emotional stills with voiced over internal dialogue rather than complex animation like Disney (due to cost initially) or the constant dialogue with basically unmoving (but for lips and mechanical/repetitive movements) of Hanna Barbara (although both needed economical approaches to tv animation).
Sunday, April 29, 2012
The Magic Box
It is basically a biography of this 19th century Victoria based photographer and her husband who had a commercial portrait studio, did some landscape, and had other contracts such as shooting mug shots. On the side, she did amazing effects shots using foreground or internal camera masks to create multiple exposures as well as using collage and re-photography to build masses of faces. While some of this was often used for promotion, it also contained significant subtext and references to family members, particularly one daughter, who died.
On interest; she created and published images with effects which Georg Melies would only begin to use 5-10 years later. Furthermore, her husband's family business was a shoe store, similar to Melies.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Understanding Animation by Paul Wells
Over past while I`ve been reading Understanding Animation, Paul Wells,Routledge Press, New York, 1998.
Notes:
page 2, Praxiniscope treated as toy, begins tradition of animation association with children.
Emile Reynaud, Theatre Optique, painting on a ribbon.
Page 5, five areas of study, Construction, Distinctive narrative devices, comedy, agenda of representation, and spectator-ship.
Page 9, `See the Brick`Robert Breer says animators darw bricks and tell audience they have hidden bricks. Increases viewer`s observation when they are looking.
Page 10, McClaren quote; `animation is not the art of drawings that move, but rather the art of movements that are drawn. What happens between each frame is is more important than what happens on each frame`.
Page 14, `Blackton`s Haunted Hotel ... south to extend the popularity ... by deliberately mystifying the process`.
Page 19, Reach through phone, `Create the impossible`.
subversive.
Page 21, Felix, unlike American standard convention, no need to wake up from the dream.
Page 23, DisneyéOswallÉAlice, form and content (mechanism) over surrealism.
Page 24, `realism ... attempts to rid itself of obvious cinematic conventions`. Unmediated.
Page 25, Disneyland `Completely real, becomes identified as `completely fake`(Eco).
- list of hyper-realism characteristics.
Page 26, `realist agenda was an abnegation of animation`s capacity to authenticate fantasy`.
Page 31, dot as primal form - list on page 32 and à nimism
Page 38, artist seen in animation disappears with cel development.
Page 43-46, Good defintions of categories of experimental animation, especially see Moritz qhot on Page 44, `True abstraction ,,, why bother`
Page 47, the Nose, Nikoai Gogal story, pinscreen film in 1963.
Page 48, the uncanny.
Page 51, `Animation ... interogates dominant perceptions of reality and the recieved imagery which apparently represnts it`.
Page 57, Placticine invented in 1897. Key clay animators; Nick Park, Will Vinton, Jan Svankmajer, J Stuert Blackton (Chey chew), Willy Plopkins (Miracles in Mud), Helena Smith Dayten.
Page 64, Puppets and models could be used in a more sophisticated way and fulfill their capacity to mediate the `consciousness`of the animator through their metaphoric role as neo-humans.`
Page 89, metaphor, preferred meaning, attendent meanings.
Page 91, Quay listed as American. uncanny discussed again.
Page 92, `Fabrication in animation may, therefore, be understood as the redefinition of materiality and the physical world by the preconscious imperatives of the artist filmmaker. A child`s playroom is this, not merely the location of childhood experience, but the context where all the anxiety and trauma of becoming a human being may be expressed by the artist through the reappropriation of apparently innocent objects.`.
Page 130, Disney, captivation rather than entertaining, resists gags.
Page 133, The literal can become the figurative.
Page 136, signifier-signified. Comic objects ideas.
Page 140, Tex Avery on adult themes.
Page 142, #8 Tex Avery and Bertolt Brecht.
Page 159, in animation, symbols might be of equal status to each other.
Page 170, comic rule of three.
Page 192, spinach is Popeye's talisman.
Page 219, George Pal, crass caricatures of Jasper, regretted.
Page 228, Two spectatoral reactions to animation, empowerment and denial.
Notes:
page 2, Praxiniscope treated as toy, begins tradition of animation association with children.
Emile Reynaud, Theatre Optique, painting on a ribbon.
Page 5, five areas of study, Construction, Distinctive narrative devices, comedy, agenda of representation, and spectator-ship.
Page 9, `See the Brick`Robert Breer says animators darw bricks and tell audience they have hidden bricks. Increases viewer`s observation when they are looking.
Page 10, McClaren quote; `animation is not the art of drawings that move, but rather the art of movements that are drawn. What happens between each frame is is more important than what happens on each frame`.
Page 14, `Blackton`s Haunted Hotel ... south to extend the popularity ... by deliberately mystifying the process`.
Page 19, Reach through phone, `Create the impossible`.
subversive.
Page 21, Felix, unlike American standard convention, no need to wake up from the dream.
Page 23, DisneyéOswallÉAlice, form and content (mechanism) over surrealism.
Page 24, `realism ... attempts to rid itself of obvious cinematic conventions`. Unmediated.
Page 25, Disneyland `Completely real, becomes identified as `completely fake`(Eco).
- list of hyper-realism characteristics.
Page 26, `realist agenda was an abnegation of animation`s capacity to authenticate fantasy`.
Page 31, dot as primal form - list on page 32 and à nimism
Page 38, artist seen in animation disappears with cel development.
Page 43-46, Good defintions of categories of experimental animation, especially see Moritz qhot on Page 44, `True abstraction ,,, why bother`
Page 47, the Nose, Nikoai Gogal story, pinscreen film in 1963.
Page 48, the uncanny.
Page 51, `Animation ... interogates dominant perceptions of reality and the recieved imagery which apparently represnts it`.
Page 57, Placticine invented in 1897. Key clay animators; Nick Park, Will Vinton, Jan Svankmajer, J Stuert Blackton (Chey chew), Willy Plopkins (Miracles in Mud), Helena Smith Dayten.
Page 64, Puppets and models could be used in a more sophisticated way and fulfill their capacity to mediate the `consciousness`of the animator through their metaphoric role as neo-humans.`
Page 89, metaphor, preferred meaning, attendent meanings.
Page 91, Quay listed as American. uncanny discussed again.
Page 92, `Fabrication in animation may, therefore, be understood as the redefinition of materiality and the physical world by the preconscious imperatives of the artist filmmaker. A child`s playroom is this, not merely the location of childhood experience, but the context where all the anxiety and trauma of becoming a human being may be expressed by the artist through the reappropriation of apparently innocent objects.`.
Page 130, Disney, captivation rather than entertaining, resists gags.
Page 133, The literal can become the figurative.
Page 136, signifier-signified. Comic objects ideas.
Page 140, Tex Avery on adult themes.
Page 142, #8 Tex Avery and Bertolt Brecht.
Page 159, in animation, symbols might be of equal status to each other.
Page 170, comic rule of three.
Page 192, spinach is Popeye's talisman.
Page 219, George Pal, crass caricatures of Jasper, regretted.
Page 228, Two spectatoral reactions to animation, empowerment and denial.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Sound by Artists
From the Dunlop Gallery book library, read article from "Sound By Artists", edited by Dan Lander and Micah Lexier, Art Metropole and Walter Phillips Gallery, Toronto/Banff, 1990.
"The Sound of One Line Scanning" by Bill Viola (page 39-54).
Notes
Page 42: "There is something immortal in the echo".
1896, Nikola Tesla shattered windows with resonant frequency aimed into the building and the earth.
Page 45: Video - there are no still frames.
Page 46: radio heard by kids through their braces, thought to be speaking in tongues.
Page 51, Brain researcher A.R. Luria studied subject "S" who had perfect memory, very interesting story.
"The Sound of One Line Scanning" by Bill Viola (page 39-54).
Notes
Page 42: "There is something immortal in the echo".
1896, Nikola Tesla shattered windows with resonant frequency aimed into the building and the earth.
Page 45: Video - there are no still frames.
Page 46: radio heard by kids through their braces, thought to be speaking in tongues.
Page 51, Brain researcher A.R. Luria studied subject "S" who had perfect memory, very interesting story.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
First as tragedy, part 2
Page 88, "if you really do not know what to do, then nobody can tell you".
Page 94, "There are at least four different versions of apocalyptism today: Christian fundamentalism, New AGe spirituality, techno-digital post humanism, and secular ecolgism".
Page 103, the 80% 4ule, that in many patterns, 20% is responsible for 80% (ownership, work on a committee, good peas in pea pods, decisions versus time in meeting).
Page 110, "New words will change the way we think and act"
Page 114, "politically correct self-flagellation an inverted form of clinging to one's superiority. Whenever the west is attacked, its first reaction is not aggressive defense but self probing.".
Page 117, post-post-colonialism, namely a mature independence: to admit the positive effect of colonization, one has to be really free and be able to leave behind its stigma". ie; no longer blame the event of the past but accept them as a possibly positive force that made you who you are today.
Page 139, "Far from being invisible, social relationality in its very fluidity is directly the object of marketing and exchange in "cultural capitalism", one no longer sells (and buys) objects which 'bring' cultural or emotional experiences, one directly sells (and buys) such experiences".
Page 140, "according to the Negrian perspective with today's global interactive media, creative inventiveness is no longer individual, it is immediately collectivized, part of the 'commons,' so that any attempt to privatize it through copy-righting becomes problematic 0 more and more literally, 'property is theft' here.".
Page 144, relationships are commodity, ie: pay psychiatrist instead of talking with a friend, hire a daycare instead of staying home or using family.
Page 147, "The proletariat is thus divided into three, each part being played off against the others: intellectual laborers full of cultural prejudices against 'redneck' workers; workers who display a populist hatred of intellectuals and outcasts; outcasts who are antagonistic to society as such."
Page 151, "This is how Dupuy proposed to confront the disaster: we should first perceive it as our fate, as unavoidable, and then, projecting ourselves into it, adopting its standpoint, we should retroactively insert ourselves into its past (the past of the future) ... We have to accept that, at the level of possibilities, our future is doomed, that the catastrophe will take place, that it is our destiny -- and then, against the background of this acceptance, ..... insert a new possibility into the past. Paradoxically, the only way to prevent the disaster is to accept it as inevitable.".
Page 152, "keep knowledge and the function of the Master as far apart as possible. Even the liberal notion of electing the people most 'qualified' to lead is not sufficient here. ... This is why Kojin Karatani's proposal of combing elections with lotteries is determining who will rule is more traditional than it may at first appear .. 'if universal suffrage by secret ballot, namely, parliamentary democracy, is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the introduction of lottery should be deemed the dictatorship of the proletariat".
Page 154, "We are the ones we are waiting for" (old Hopi saying).
Page 157, suggestion that, just as old Christians return to their faith when they get close to death, that old communists return to communism when they are old.
Page 94, "There are at least four different versions of apocalyptism today: Christian fundamentalism, New AGe spirituality, techno-digital post humanism, and secular ecolgism".
Page 103, the 80% 4ule, that in many patterns, 20% is responsible for 80% (ownership, work on a committee, good peas in pea pods, decisions versus time in meeting).
Page 110, "New words will change the way we think and act"
Page 114, "politically correct self-flagellation an inverted form of clinging to one's superiority. Whenever the west is attacked, its first reaction is not aggressive defense but self probing.".
Page 117, post-post-colonialism, namely a mature independence: to admit the positive effect of colonization, one has to be really free and be able to leave behind its stigma". ie; no longer blame the event of the past but accept them as a possibly positive force that made you who you are today.
Page 139, "Far from being invisible, social relationality in its very fluidity is directly the object of marketing and exchange in "cultural capitalism", one no longer sells (and buys) objects which 'bring' cultural or emotional experiences, one directly sells (and buys) such experiences".
Page 140, "according to the Negrian perspective with today's global interactive media, creative inventiveness is no longer individual, it is immediately collectivized, part of the 'commons,' so that any attempt to privatize it through copy-righting becomes problematic 0 more and more literally, 'property is theft' here.".
Page 144, relationships are commodity, ie: pay psychiatrist instead of talking with a friend, hire a daycare instead of staying home or using family.
Page 147, "The proletariat is thus divided into three, each part being played off against the others: intellectual laborers full of cultural prejudices against 'redneck' workers; workers who display a populist hatred of intellectuals and outcasts; outcasts who are antagonistic to society as such."
Page 151, "This is how Dupuy proposed to confront the disaster: we should first perceive it as our fate, as unavoidable, and then, projecting ourselves into it, adopting its standpoint, we should retroactively insert ourselves into its past (the past of the future) ... We have to accept that, at the level of possibilities, our future is doomed, that the catastrophe will take place, that it is our destiny -- and then, against the background of this acceptance, ..... insert a new possibility into the past. Paradoxically, the only way to prevent the disaster is to accept it as inevitable.".
Page 152, "keep knowledge and the function of the Master as far apart as possible. Even the liberal notion of electing the people most 'qualified' to lead is not sufficient here. ... This is why Kojin Karatani's proposal of combing elections with lotteries is determining who will rule is more traditional than it may at first appear .. 'if universal suffrage by secret ballot, namely, parliamentary democracy, is the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the introduction of lottery should be deemed the dictatorship of the proletariat".
Page 154, "We are the ones we are waiting for" (old Hopi saying).
Page 157, suggestion that, just as old Christians return to their faith when they get close to death, that old communists return to communism when they are old.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
First as Tragedy, Then as Farce part 1
Over past few days I've been reading "First as Tragedy, Then as Farce" by Slavoj Zizek (Verso Books, NY, 2009). It was lent to me by Christina Stojanova.
Notes: page 6: "Truth is partial, accessible only when one takes sides"
Page 13: "in a supreme irony, 'socializing' the banking system is acceptable when it serves to save capitalism. Socialism is bad - except when it serve3s to stabilize capitalism".
Page 20, "the danger is thus that the predominent narrative of the meltdown will be the one which, instead of awakening us from a dream, will enable us to continue dreaming".
Page 21, Marx wrote that bourgeois ideology loves to historicize: every social, religious, an cultural form is historical, contingent, relative -- every form except its own." (reference for Mr. Saul)
Page 25, "Capitalism ... needs no ideological justification because its success is itself sufficient justification. In this regard, capitalism "is the opposite of socialism, which as a manual": "Capitalism is a system which has no philosophical pretensions, which is not in search of happiness". .
"Sorman claims ... that people always need to entertain dreams of impossible perfection"
Page 37, "The contemporary era constantly proclaims itself as post-ideological, but this denial of ideology only provides the ultimate proof that we are more than every embedded in ideology.
Page 44, "... the problematic of false 'humanization' to the very basic collective form of 'telling stories about ourselves' to the symbolic texture which provides the foundation of a community.... identity politics ... the ultimate horizon is that the tolerance and intermingling of such identities ... cuts across the entire field, is rejected as oppressive.
Page 52, "postmodern age defined by post 1968 economic/capitalism
Page 53-54, Starbucks sells you its lifestyle, environmental concerns etc along with its coffee.
Page 54, "happiness studies"
Page 59, "permissions masked as rights, they do not change the distribution of power".
Page 61, "populism is ... re-active ... aversion of the politics of fear".
Notes: page 6: "Truth is partial, accessible only when one takes sides"
Page 13: "in a supreme irony, 'socializing' the banking system is acceptable when it serves to save capitalism. Socialism is bad - except when it serve3s to stabilize capitalism".
Page 20, "the danger is thus that the predominent narrative of the meltdown will be the one which, instead of awakening us from a dream, will enable us to continue dreaming".
Page 21, Marx wrote that bourgeois ideology loves to historicize: every social, religious, an cultural form is historical, contingent, relative -- every form except its own." (reference for Mr. Saul)
Page 25, "Capitalism ... needs no ideological justification because its success is itself sufficient justification. In this regard, capitalism "is the opposite of socialism, which as a manual": "Capitalism is a system which has no philosophical pretensions, which is not in search of happiness". .
"Sorman claims ... that people always need to entertain dreams of impossible perfection"
Page 37, "The contemporary era constantly proclaims itself as post-ideological, but this denial of ideology only provides the ultimate proof that we are more than every embedded in ideology.
Page 44, "... the problematic of false 'humanization' to the very basic collective form of 'telling stories about ourselves' to the symbolic texture which provides the foundation of a community.... identity politics ... the ultimate horizon is that the tolerance and intermingling of such identities ... cuts across the entire field, is rejected as oppressive.
Page 52, "postmodern age defined by post 1968 economic/capitalism
Page 53-54, Starbucks sells you its lifestyle, environmental concerns etc along with its coffee.
Page 54, "happiness studies"
Page 59, "permissions masked as rights, they do not change the distribution of power".
Page 61, "populism is ... re-active ... aversion of the politics of fear".
Friday, March 16, 2012
Hollywood Flatland last chapter
Hollywood Flatland, last chapter:
Page 290, origin of UPA
Page 292, "inconsistency has no logic, indeed is in itself an offense against logic."
Page 296, "middlebrow culture, pleasure without pain".
Page 299, "in 1939, Greenberg had defined kitsch as yesterday's avant-garde diluted. But this was not yesterday's avant-garde. Cartooning was the place where research into flatness and illusion and abstraction was most conscientiously carried out."
Page 290, origin of UPA
Page 292, "inconsistency has no logic, indeed is in itself an offense against logic."
Page 296, "middlebrow culture, pleasure without pain".
Page 299, "in 1939, Greenberg had defined kitsch as yesterday's avant-garde diluted. But this was not yesterday's avant-garde. Cartooning was the place where research into flatness and illusion and abstraction was most conscientiously carried out."
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Hollywood Flatlands 3 chapters
Page 201, "For Kracauer ... the usual order is trivialized and the apparently trivial is pushed centre-stage"
Page 202 (also Kracauer) "The function of cartoons is to mock photographic reality. .... [Dumbo] is the rationalization of the irrational".
Page 204, "Kracauer notes how colour ... in fact intensifies the bad artifice of film".
Page 206, "Familiar everyday images need to be exploded so that images can be montages from their fragments. It is in the fragments that meaning resides."
"Montage .. is the opposite of an ... imitation of nature".
Page 215, "Like Chaplin, Disney avoids bringing fairy tales into alignment with the conventional everyday, electing instead to reveal everyday stories as fairy-tales".
Page 223, Vertov manifesto.
page 224, "Cinemas that show full length films are the most conservative" (Vertov)
Page 227, "The Post Office" film by Mikhail Tsekharsovsky, 1929
Page 230, Eisenstein vs Adorno regarding Disney and nostalgia.
Page 234, "Freedom from logic's fetters and political subjugation can be secured only after having united with the fantastic the alogical, the sensuous order".
Page 242, Berger on pets.
Page 246, Eisenstein lectured the film students on how to make colour break free from the task of representation, in order to express meaning, independent emotional values in connection with precise ideas"
Page 250, The trouble with fantasia and Bambi ... begins when they attempt to be mature, serious, worthy.".
Page 252, Edwin Land (Polaroid) on colour and Goethe colour theory (page 252-257, perhaps have Geremy Logue test this?).
Page 257, "Goethe's science called for a critique of the senses. It was an aesthetic science".
Page 267-8, "Green against red is a fundamental colour pairing ... red is the real ... green the fantastic ... together they evoke desire."
Page 268, "Green and red-polarites of colour, are the colours of myth, memory and desire revamped in modern guise."
Page 271, Goethe:"We must think of science as art".
Page 272, mimisis; I yawn, you yawn.
Page 275-6, rubbing eyes, drug visions, and synaesthesia.
Page 282, Ruttmann; "it seems that for [Ruttmann] nature is unaesthetic, its colours random. The colours in film need to be ordered. They need Gestaultung.
Page 283-4, various colour inventions.
Page 285, Technicolor code/motto or naturalism and keeping colour subordinate to narrative.
Page 202 (also Kracauer) "The function of cartoons is to mock photographic reality. .... [Dumbo] is the rationalization of the irrational".
Page 204, "Kracauer notes how colour ... in fact intensifies the bad artifice of film".
Page 206, "Familiar everyday images need to be exploded so that images can be montages from their fragments. It is in the fragments that meaning resides."
"Montage .. is the opposite of an ... imitation of nature".
Page 215, "Like Chaplin, Disney avoids bringing fairy tales into alignment with the conventional everyday, electing instead to reveal everyday stories as fairy-tales".
Page 223, Vertov manifesto.
page 224, "Cinemas that show full length films are the most conservative" (Vertov)
Page 227, "The Post Office" film by Mikhail Tsekharsovsky, 1929
Page 230, Eisenstein vs Adorno regarding Disney and nostalgia.
Page 234, "Freedom from logic's fetters and political subjugation can be secured only after having united with the fantastic the alogical, the sensuous order".
Page 242, Berger on pets.
Page 246, Eisenstein lectured the film students on how to make colour break free from the task of representation, in order to express meaning, independent emotional values in connection with precise ideas"
Page 250, The trouble with fantasia and Bambi ... begins when they attempt to be mature, serious, worthy.".
Page 252, Edwin Land (Polaroid) on colour and Goethe colour theory (page 252-257, perhaps have Geremy Logue test this?).
Page 257, "Goethe's science called for a critique of the senses. It was an aesthetic science".
Page 267-8, "Green against red is a fundamental colour pairing ... red is the real ... green the fantastic ... together they evoke desire."
Page 268, "Green and red-polarites of colour, are the colours of myth, memory and desire revamped in modern guise."
Page 271, Goethe:"We must think of science as art".
Page 272, mimisis; I yawn, you yawn.
Page 275-6, rubbing eyes, drug visions, and synaesthesia.
Page 282, Ruttmann; "it seems that for [Ruttmann] nature is unaesthetic, its colours random. The colours in film need to be ordered. They need Gestaultung.
Page 283-4, various colour inventions.
Page 285, Technicolor code/motto or naturalism and keeping colour subordinate to narrative.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Hollywood Flatlands Eye Candy chapter
Hollywood Flatlands, Chapter "Eye Candy"
Page 159; Disney art school and comments about Fantasia.
Page 161, Disney "quintessentially middlebrow"
Page 166, "Bold, brash, colourful and affirmative, modernism had become spectacle, its critical edge blunted."
Page 169, "Free to own, which means free to owe, and certainly not free to think, for popular judgement is directed from above"
Page 171, "all [cartoons] do today is to confirm the victory of technological reason over truth".
"Cartoons teach ... the inevitability of violence if the subject acquiesces too slowly to submission"
page 173-174, Adorno quote regarding his preferences for Betty Boop over Mickey Mouse and how people follow restrictive rules willingly "they insist on the very ideology which enslaves them. The misplaced love of the common people for the wrong which is done them is a greater force than the cunning of the authorities."
Page 177, "To insist that film linger in the supernatural so that it may bcome art, is a double crime, fetishizing the ..."
Page 178, Adorno against laughter, "worst bourgeois sadism".
Page 180, "Hollywood film sound had brought about vulgarization and enchantment through sound. Music was the vanguard of this process of making audiences immature and dependent".
"Through mass music's technique of the 'hook', its lulling into deconcentated listening, and its ubiquity, because of an extensive machinery of distribution, listeners are remoulded as acquiescent purchasers, and kept retarded as children. The vicious circle spins, like a long-playing record. These easy listeners demand again and again the same dish, the one they have forgotten might be exertable. In Composing for the Films, Adorno and Eisler suggest that this effect is redoubled in film music soundtracks. The recording procedures 'neutralize' the music, flattening it out, losing its colour intensity and spacial depth.. ... and even the most advanced music is 'divested' of its aggressiveness".
Page 181, notes to discuss with Eric Hill regarding wasteful nature of cultural products. "in this advance industrial age the masses are compelled to seek relaxation and rest, in order to restore the labor power that has been spent inthe alienated process of labor; and this need is the mass basis of mass culture. On it there has arisen the powerful amusement industry, whichconstantly produces, satisfies, and reproduces new needs"
"All art, as a means of filling out leisure time, has become entertainment, although it absorbs materials and forms of traditional autonomous art as part of the so-called 'cultural heritage'".
Page 182, "music is a transmission belt of standardization"
Page 184, re synaesthetics (matching picture and sound), Eisenstein writes "even if they exist in nature, that does not make them in themselves worthy elements of 'art'"
Page 187-192, Fischinger's history from Germany to the USA.
Page 194, Adorno on silliness, "Silliness in art is set against organized fun".
Page 195-196, Chaplin and Hitler compared.
Page 159; Disney art school and comments about Fantasia.
Page 161, Disney "quintessentially middlebrow"
Page 166, "Bold, brash, colourful and affirmative, modernism had become spectacle, its critical edge blunted."
Page 169, "Free to own, which means free to owe, and certainly not free to think, for popular judgement is directed from above"
Page 171, "all [cartoons] do today is to confirm the victory of technological reason over truth".
"Cartoons teach ... the inevitability of violence if the subject acquiesces too slowly to submission"
page 173-174, Adorno quote regarding his preferences for Betty Boop over Mickey Mouse and how people follow restrictive rules willingly "they insist on the very ideology which enslaves them. The misplaced love of the common people for the wrong which is done them is a greater force than the cunning of the authorities."
Page 177, "To insist that film linger in the supernatural so that it may bcome art, is a double crime, fetishizing the ..."
Page 178, Adorno against laughter, "worst bourgeois sadism".
Page 180, "Hollywood film sound had brought about vulgarization and enchantment through sound. Music was the vanguard of this process of making audiences immature and dependent".
"Through mass music's technique of the 'hook', its lulling into deconcentated listening, and its ubiquity, because of an extensive machinery of distribution, listeners are remoulded as acquiescent purchasers, and kept retarded as children. The vicious circle spins, like a long-playing record. These easy listeners demand again and again the same dish, the one they have forgotten might be exertable. In Composing for the Films, Adorno and Eisler suggest that this effect is redoubled in film music soundtracks. The recording procedures 'neutralize' the music, flattening it out, losing its colour intensity and spacial depth.. ... and even the most advanced music is 'divested' of its aggressiveness".
Page 181, notes to discuss with Eric Hill regarding wasteful nature of cultural products. "in this advance industrial age the masses are compelled to seek relaxation and rest, in order to restore the labor power that has been spent inthe alienated process of labor; and this need is the mass basis of mass culture. On it there has arisen the powerful amusement industry, whichconstantly produces, satisfies, and reproduces new needs"
"All art, as a means of filling out leisure time, has become entertainment, although it absorbs materials and forms of traditional autonomous art as part of the so-called 'cultural heritage'".
Page 182, "music is a transmission belt of standardization"
Page 184, re synaesthetics (matching picture and sound), Eisenstein writes "even if they exist in nature, that does not make them in themselves worthy elements of 'art'"
Page 187-192, Fischinger's history from Germany to the USA.
Page 194, Adorno on silliness, "Silliness in art is set against organized fun".
Page 195-196, Chaplin and Hitler compared.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Hollywood Flatlands chapter 4
Page 132-133, Clement Greenberg on kitsch, especially "Snow White", Nazis, and Soviets.
Page 133, "monopoly turns culture into industry"
quoting Adorno/Horkheimer "Under monopoly all mass culture is identical ... The people at the top are no longer so interested in concealing monopoly: as its violence becomes more open, so its power grows. Movies and radio need no longer pretend to be art ... They call themselves industries..."
Page 136, Disney and Riefenstahl ... "not development of technology but is progression in technique".
Page 137, "Manipulated emotion is the currency in Hollywood and at the Reichsfilmkammer alike".
Page 138, Adorno on sports.
Page 139, "the battle over beauty in the 1930s was a battle between the surreal and the ideal"
Page 140, "The cult of the perfect body is a cult of death".
Page 143, "once political dissatisfaction develops, the common man feels able to criticize culture, because he resents it."
page 145, "At the core of revived classicism is the cult of the body.
"Riefenstahl refuses the avant-garde term 'montage' in favour of the seemingly organic term 'forming' (Formung). Film was formed as a total work of art for a totalitarian society."
Page 153, Trying to find Aryan origin for Walt Disney.
German animation to look at: Kurt Stordel.
page 155, "Der Arme Hansi" by Leberecht
Page 133, "monopoly turns culture into industry"
quoting Adorno/Horkheimer "Under monopoly all mass culture is identical ... The people at the top are no longer so interested in concealing monopoly: as its violence becomes more open, so its power grows. Movies and radio need no longer pretend to be art ... They call themselves industries..."
Page 136, Disney and Riefenstahl ... "not development of technology but is progression in technique".
Page 137, "Manipulated emotion is the currency in Hollywood and at the Reichsfilmkammer alike".
Page 138, Adorno on sports.
Page 139, "the battle over beauty in the 1930s was a battle between the surreal and the ideal"
Page 140, "The cult of the perfect body is a cult of death".
Page 143, "once political dissatisfaction develops, the common man feels able to criticize culture, because he resents it."
page 145, "At the core of revived classicism is the cult of the body.
"Riefenstahl refuses the avant-garde term 'montage' in favour of the seemingly organic term 'forming' (Formung). Film was formed as a total work of art for a totalitarian society."
Page 153, Trying to find Aryan origin for Walt Disney.
German animation to look at: Kurt Stordel.
page 155, "Der Arme Hansi" by Leberecht
Friday, March 2, 2012
Hollywood Flatlands chapter 3
In Hollywood Flatlands, finished chapter 3.
Notes:
Page 97, discussed caricature as art, the discussed Mickey Mouse as caricature.
Page 103: "Fetishized 'collective consciousness' ... specifically dreams about technological and social utopias, is cracked open and grasped only by the proletariat with its distinct relationship to technology and techniques"
Page 106: Benjamin: "Those who are awake share the world, while those asleep each possess a world for themselves".
Page 108, "Despite (Trotsky's) suspicion that photography was a non-dialectical form, a form that stripped things from their interrelationship".
Page 112, Benjamin: "What film needs is a tendency".
Page 114, Disney distribution with the Nazis and changes to the credits.
Page 117, "(Adorno) cautioned Benjamin against using concepts like the collective dream or collective unconscious, which he perceived to be derived from the irrationalist, and fascist-tinged, world of Carl Jung".
Page 118, "Adorno distrusts the laughter of the funnies' audience, finding in it elements of the worst sadism and brutalism."
Page 120, Benjamin removes Mickey Mouse from his 3rd edition of book.
Page 122, re: the evolution of animation into features such as Snow White, "If the narrative drama was a pathetic outcome for filmic possibility, then the drawn version of the same was an even more ridiculous concoction."
Notes:
Page 97, discussed caricature as art, the discussed Mickey Mouse as caricature.
Page 103: "Fetishized 'collective consciousness' ... specifically dreams about technological and social utopias, is cracked open and grasped only by the proletariat with its distinct relationship to technology and techniques"
Page 106: Benjamin: "Those who are awake share the world, while those asleep each possess a world for themselves".
Page 108, "Despite (Trotsky's) suspicion that photography was a non-dialectical form, a form that stripped things from their interrelationship".
Page 112, Benjamin: "What film needs is a tendency".
Page 114, Disney distribution with the Nazis and changes to the credits.
Page 117, "(Adorno) cautioned Benjamin against using concepts like the collective dream or collective unconscious, which he perceived to be derived from the irrationalist, and fascist-tinged, world of Carl Jung".
Page 118, "Adorno distrusts the laughter of the funnies' audience, finding in it elements of the worst sadism and brutalism."
Page 120, Benjamin removes Mickey Mouse from his 3rd edition of book.
Page 122, re: the evolution of animation into features such as Snow White, "If the narrative drama was a pathetic outcome for filmic possibility, then the drawn version of the same was an even more ridiculous concoction."
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Hollywood Flatlands, first 2.5 chapters
On my vacation, I plucked slowly away at the first 90 pages of "Hollywood Flatlands; animation, critical theory and the avant-garde" by Esther Leslie, Verso, New York, 2002.
Notes:
Chapter 1, Preclusion: experi-mental
Page 3, pre-cinema devices discussed.
page 5: earliest exposures of 1/1000 second.
Page 16, eccentrism art movement
page 29, 1929 screening in Londone of Battleship Potemkin along with Mickey Mouse.
Chapter 2; Zeros, dots and dashes.
Page 33, endless deletion ... leads not to nothingness but to movement.
Page 36, Hans Richter, "The copy was the original"
Page 37, "While some saw the move of art into film as anit-art, others saw it as art's fulfillment".
Page 47, Ruttmann gels, and Raty.
Page 48-49, Fischinger wax cutter film.
Page 50, Prince Achmed, "What's this got to do with 1923?"
Page 52, Rodchenko on supreme LINE.
Page 53, Radical artists' Group manifesto.
Page 56, Eggeling alphabet or lexicon of visual forms...
Page 61, Frued and magic writing pads
Page 63 (Benjamin) "history ... decays into images, not stories".
Page 66-69, "WEEKEND" by Ruttman, optical soundtrack with scratched film.
Page 75, "Man with a movie camera" vs "Berlin symphony of a city".
"The animated exchanges between Vertov, Ruttman and all the rest, and the claims and counter-claims took place between members of an artistic community who knew that the modern city could only be represented by harnessing and interrogating its latest technologies, photography, film, montage and the reanimation of reality.".
Chapter 3: Mickey Mouse, utopia and Walter Benjamin
Page 82, the destructive character.
Page 83, Benjamin on Mickey Mouse and alienation.
Page 86, "(Mickey Mouse) films turn technical invention back into a fact of nature. In doing so they oblige audiences to confront how technology rules over them as a second nature."
Page 89-90, Man/machine discussion.
Page 91: "(Brecht) thought the with to awaken life in petrified things was the impulse of children. ... a sign of children's proximity to utopia." Also notes on children, detritus, and fairy tales.
Notes:
Chapter 1, Preclusion: experi-mental
Page 3, pre-cinema devices discussed.
page 5: earliest exposures of 1/1000 second.
Page 16, eccentrism art movement
page 29, 1929 screening in Londone of Battleship Potemkin along with Mickey Mouse.
Chapter 2; Zeros, dots and dashes.
Page 33, endless deletion ... leads not to nothingness but to movement.
Page 36, Hans Richter, "The copy was the original"
Page 37, "While some saw the move of art into film as anit-art, others saw it as art's fulfillment".
Page 47, Ruttmann gels, and Raty.
Page 48-49, Fischinger wax cutter film.
Page 50, Prince Achmed, "What's this got to do with 1923?"
Page 52, Rodchenko on supreme LINE.
Page 53, Radical artists' Group manifesto.
Page 56, Eggeling alphabet or lexicon of visual forms...
Page 61, Frued and magic writing pads
Page 63 (Benjamin) "history ... decays into images, not stories".
Page 66-69, "WEEKEND" by Ruttman, optical soundtrack with scratched film.
Page 75, "Man with a movie camera" vs "Berlin symphony of a city".
"The animated exchanges between Vertov, Ruttman and all the rest, and the claims and counter-claims took place between members of an artistic community who knew that the modern city could only be represented by harnessing and interrogating its latest technologies, photography, film, montage and the reanimation of reality.".
Chapter 3: Mickey Mouse, utopia and Walter Benjamin
Page 82, the destructive character.
Page 83, Benjamin on Mickey Mouse and alienation.
Page 86, "(Mickey Mouse) films turn technical invention back into a fact of nature. In doing so they oblige audiences to confront how technology rules over them as a second nature."
Page 89-90, Man/machine discussion.
Page 91: "(Brecht) thought the with to awaken life in petrified things was the impulse of children. ... a sign of children's proximity to utopia." Also notes on children, detritus, and fairy tales.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
trickster chapter 4
P 96; "His aimlessness makes him an embodiment of uncertainty".
"The Poetic Edda" (book on Norse myths)
P 100; "the shape shifting mind pesters the distinction between accident and essence and remakes the world out of whatever happens" (other important parts on this page).
"accidents happen in time, essences reside in eternity"
"The Poetic Edda" (book on Norse myths)
P 100; "the shape shifting mind pesters the distinction between accident and essence and remakes the world out of whatever happens" (other important parts on this page).
"accidents happen in time, essences reside in eternity"
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Monday, February 20, 2012
Trickster chapter 3
Page 63; "if the trickster were free of all appetite, he would no longer be trickster"
P. 65; "nothing is significant until it's portable".
P69; Wherever travelers carry stories from place to place, there will be re imaginings, translations, appropriation, and impurities".
P.72; "his (Krishna's) lies subvert what seemed so clear a truth just moments ago".
P. 75-76; inventor of language
P77; "Truth are illusions about which it has been forgotten that they are illusions" (Nietzsche.
P. 78 (a trickster) "can debunk an illusion.
P. 65; "nothing is significant until it's portable".
P69; Wherever travelers carry stories from place to place, there will be re imaginings, translations, appropriation, and impurities".
P.72; "his (Krishna's) lies subvert what seemed so clear a truth just moments ago".
P. 75-76; inventor of language
P77; "Truth are illusions about which it has been forgotten that they are illusions" (Nietzsche.
P. 78 (a trickster) "can debunk an illusion.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Trickster chapter 2
Trickster Makes this World
Page 28: Killing the magic cow, reminds me of the ribbon around neck story, note to Rob H.
Page 46, "opportunity" is an entrance or passage through
Page 49: exploit and frustrate opportunity.
Page 51: multiple meanings, disguised meanings, contextual meanings, ambiguity.
Page 52: "present a different aspect of yourself to each of your friends ... cleverness is more valuable than inflexibility".
Page 28: Killing the magic cow, reminds me of the ribbon around neck story, note to Rob H.
Page 46, "opportunity" is an entrance or passage through
Page 49: exploit and frustrate opportunity.
Page 51: multiple meanings, disguised meanings, contextual meanings, ambiguity.
Page 52: "present a different aspect of yourself to each of your friends ... cleverness is more valuable than inflexibility".
Kurt Vonnegus; the last interview
Have been reading "Kurt Vonnegus, the last interview and other conversations" edited by Tom McCartan on and off. Finished it today (it is short and not really a critical reading book). Just a couple notes to remember/refer to:
Page 130: separating people as different based on whether they grew up on coast or continent.
Page 154-5, "becoming".
Page 130: separating people as different based on whether they grew up on coast or continent.
Page 154-5, "becoming".
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Horror International - Stojanova
From Horror International, read Christina Stojanova's "Beyond Dracula and Ceausesca: phenomenology of horror in Romanian cinema".
Notes:
page 221: Eastern Europe as shadow or "other" of west.
Page 227: audio/visual leitmotif (dark stairways, sounds of elevators...).
Notes:
page 221: Eastern Europe as shadow or "other" of west.
Page 227: audio/visual leitmotif (dark stairways, sounds of elevators...).
Friday, February 17, 2012
Horror International - Mathijs
Read from "Horror International" ed. Steven Jay Schneider and Tony Williams, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 2005.
"Man Bites Dog and the Critical Reception of Belgian Horror (in) Cinema" by Ernest Mathijs
Notes: tradition of magic realism citing Franz Roh in 1925 which adhered to surrealism.
Films to find: "Daughters of Darkness" and "The Devil's Nightmare".
Page 329: Suggests that documentary realism and stretched time turns into magic realism.
"Man Bites Dog and the Critical Reception of Belgian Horror (in) Cinema" by Ernest Mathijs
Notes: tradition of magic realism citing Franz Roh in 1925 which adhered to surrealism.
Films to find: "Daughters of Darkness" and "The Devil's Nightmare".
Page 329: Suggests that documentary realism and stretched time turns into magic realism.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Alternative Europe - Stojanova
Read Christina Stojanova's article "Mise-en-Scenes of the impossible: Soviet and Russian Horror Films" in Alternative Europe.
Page 92: interesting notion of Kitezh-Grad, a Russian Atlantis.
page 93
Would like to see "Novi Gulliver (New Gulliver), an animated feature from 1935 by Ptushk.
Also interested in "Vyi (Spirit of Evil), a 1967 Baba Yaga film.
Page 99: "necrorealist", interested in naturalistic-nihalistic aesthetics.
Page 92: interesting notion of Kitezh-Grad, a Russian Atlantis.
page 93
Would like to see "Novi Gulliver (New Gulliver), an animated feature from 1935 by Ptushk.
Also interested in "Vyi (Spirit of Evil), a 1967 Baba Yaga film.
Page 99: "necrorealist", interested in naturalistic-nihalistic aesthetics.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Altrnative Europe - Mathijs
Borrowed "Alternative Europe: Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema since 1945" from Christina Stojanova. Today I read "Alternative Belgian Cinema and Cultural Identity: S. and the Affaire Dutroux" by Ernest Mathijs.
Notes: page 67, describes film S. as having abundant "film fluids of all kinds (snow, tears, slime, blood, wine, melting butter, water and sperm) abound".
Page 69 "Belgian film critics have always tried to exclude social commentary from their interpretations, focusing instead on film as film, and trying to draw aesthetic comparisons instead of cultural ones, even if this implies a retreat from a position as public intellectual. It is an attitude typically occurring at moments when criticism fails to find a suitable frame of reference to place a cultural representation in.".
Pge 72, "Movies from New York to Belgium and vice versa are suggested through miniatures in glass bowls, sealed off from the outside world".
Page 74, "order is threatened .... by imperfect body" (citing Laura Mulvey).
Notes: page 67, describes film S. as having abundant "film fluids of all kinds (snow, tears, slime, blood, wine, melting butter, water and sperm) abound".
Page 69 "Belgian film critics have always tried to exclude social commentary from their interpretations, focusing instead on film as film, and trying to draw aesthetic comparisons instead of cultural ones, even if this implies a retreat from a position as public intellectual. It is an attitude typically occurring at moments when criticism fails to find a suitable frame of reference to place a cultural representation in.".
Pge 72, "Movies from New York to Belgium and vice versa are suggested through miniatures in glass bowls, sealed off from the outside world".
Page 74, "order is threatened .... by imperfect body" (citing Laura Mulvey).
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Trickster book intro
I began reading "Trickster Makes This World; mischief, myth, and art" by Lewis Hyde.
Mostly I just read the introduction and a few other pages today. May inspire some storytelling ideas. Interesting to note how trickster breaks the rules except when all the rules are being broken and then he creates the boundaries. Also, the idea that one needs to travel to break the boundaries of society so tricksters becomes protectors of the travelers.
Mostly I just read the introduction and a few other pages today. May inspire some storytelling ideas. Interesting to note how trickster breaks the rules except when all the rules are being broken and then he creates the boundaries. Also, the idea that one needs to travel to break the boundaries of society so tricksters becomes protectors of the travelers.
Monday, February 13, 2012
the end of Frank Cole (4 reading days)
Over the past four days I finished reading the Cinema of Frank Cole.
Notes:
"Placebo Singers of Howard Stone" by John Greyson
Page 93 "The camera did not observe, it stored"
Page 95: history of the placebo.
Makes final film sound very homo-erotic.
"Call me Dr. Death" interview by Gary Nichol
"To Live or Not To Live" by Peter Mettler
Page 119, "Frank abhored decay and transformation, disappearance, loss of control".
Page 120, "I believe filmmakers make variations of the same film over and over again".
Postcards to Rick Taylor
Page 127: Sadness.
"Reading the Desert" by Deirdre Logue
Page 135 "Back home, the pictures show the difference between signs pointing in the right direction and signs pointing in the only direction.".
"Sahara Journal" by Cole
Page 136, "I could prove it symbolically, not scientifically, because I am an artist, not a doctor".
"A sending without any Recipient" by Yann Beauvais
"Why should these wells be marked on his map? ... Everything conforms to what is written".
"Regarding Frank Cole" by Ben Vandoorne
Page 156, "In the desert there are roads and paths. But the crossing does not truly begin until these roads and paths disappear. From then on, you are not crossing the desert, you are part of it. The desert is an ideal observation point for seeing ourselves more clearly. It is the heart of the world."
"Life without Life (the camels are more human)" by Steve Reinke
Page 159, "film is fetishism; video, narcissism"
"I'm always disturbed by the use of foleyed audio in otherwise documentary film. I wish it were inverted; I wish we listened to the world and made up whatever images we wished."
Page 161, "This grotesque foley betrays a comically sadistic view of reproduction".
"I come here for the rites of your unworlding" by Mike Cartmell
Page 169, "The story has a structural and necessary lack in it, a fundamental incompleteness."
Page 174, "moments of unwatchability..."
"Life without" by Julie Murray
Page 177; physicals/metaphor of sand.
Notes:
"Placebo Singers of Howard Stone" by John Greyson
Page 93 "The camera did not observe, it stored"
Page 95: history of the placebo.
Makes final film sound very homo-erotic.
"Call me Dr. Death" interview by Gary Nichol
"To Live or Not To Live" by Peter Mettler
Page 119, "Frank abhored decay and transformation, disappearance, loss of control".
Page 120, "I believe filmmakers make variations of the same film over and over again".
Postcards to Rick Taylor
Page 127: Sadness.
"Reading the Desert" by Deirdre Logue
Page 135 "Back home, the pictures show the difference between signs pointing in the right direction and signs pointing in the only direction.".
"Sahara Journal" by Cole
Page 136, "I could prove it symbolically, not scientifically, because I am an artist, not a doctor".
"A sending without any Recipient" by Yann Beauvais
"Why should these wells be marked on his map? ... Everything conforms to what is written".
"Regarding Frank Cole" by Ben Vandoorne
Page 156, "In the desert there are roads and paths. But the crossing does not truly begin until these roads and paths disappear. From then on, you are not crossing the desert, you are part of it. The desert is an ideal observation point for seeing ourselves more clearly. It is the heart of the world."
"Life without Life (the camels are more human)" by Steve Reinke
Page 159, "film is fetishism; video, narcissism"
"I'm always disturbed by the use of foleyed audio in otherwise documentary film. I wish it were inverted; I wish we listened to the world and made up whatever images we wished."
Page 161, "This grotesque foley betrays a comically sadistic view of reproduction".
"I come here for the rites of your unworlding" by Mike Cartmell
Page 169, "The story has a structural and necessary lack in it, a fundamental incompleteness."
Page 174, "moments of unwatchability..."
"Life without" by Julie Murray
Page 177; physicals/metaphor of sand.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Frank Cole again
Read a few more articles from Frank Cole:
"Candid Camera" by Frank Cole
Page 77: "The final sound in the desert is flies" (reminds me of the grasshoppers in WS)
"A Strange Couple" by Fred Pelon
"he mistakenly sees the body as fundimental for surviving"
"Dead Serious" by Geoff Pevere
"look at dancing as a way of transporting the body to another realm. And Frank, who was possibly the most unnervingly able-bodied person I'd ever met was always trying to drive his body somewhere else".
"walking away ... exodus from responsibility"
"losing oneself in the wilderness ... defining Canadian themes"
"Frontiers ... open on vast expanses of nothingness".
"In the Theatre" by Mike Hoolboom
Page 92: The only way to make the films that cinemea require wa to live them first"
"Candid Camera" by Frank Cole
Page 77: "The final sound in the desert is flies" (reminds me of the grasshoppers in WS)
"A Strange Couple" by Fred Pelon
"he mistakenly sees the body as fundimental for surviving"
"Dead Serious" by Geoff Pevere
"look at dancing as a way of transporting the body to another realm. And Frank, who was possibly the most unnervingly able-bodied person I'd ever met was always trying to drive his body somewhere else".
"walking away ... exodus from responsibility"
"losing oneself in the wilderness ... defining Canadian themes"
"Frontiers ... open on vast expanses of nothingness".
"In the Theatre" by Mike Hoolboom
Page 92: The only way to make the films that cinemea require wa to live them first"
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Frank Cole
Read four chapters on the Frank Cole book.
"Whatever Remains" by Tom McSorley.
Page 46-47, rare description of the importance of film co-op movement in Canada.
"How" by Frank Cole
(Travel diary from test journey)
"Engravings" by Mike Hoolboom and Jean Perret
Page 60: "He invents true histories that are his alone to see..."
Page 61: "The cinema offers us a trace of what was once a glimpse of the ghosts we are becoming".
"Wrecked Cars and Affection" by Laurie Monsebraaten
Two reviews, one from when the film came out, the other a current update with new insights.
"Nothing to do with You" by Mike Hoolboom
Page 68: "The director, always off screen, never hesitates to become part of the scene. He understands there is no way to be neutral and underlines his complicity with rehearsed, straight man banter.
"Whatever Remains" by Tom McSorley.
Page 46-47, rare description of the importance of film co-op movement in Canada.
"How" by Frank Cole
(Travel diary from test journey)
"Engravings" by Mike Hoolboom and Jean Perret
Page 60: "He invents true histories that are his alone to see..."
Page 61: "The cinema offers us a trace of what was once a glimpse of the ghosts we are becoming".
"Wrecked Cars and Affection" by Laurie Monsebraaten
Two reviews, one from when the film came out, the other a current update with new insights.
"Nothing to do with You" by Mike Hoolboom
Page 68: "The director, always off screen, never hesitates to become part of the scene. He understands there is no way to be neutral and underlines his complicity with rehearsed, straight man banter.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Life Without Death, the cinema of Frank Cole
Began reading "Life Without Death, the Cinema of Frank Cole" edited by Mike Hoolboom and Ton McSorley, Canadian Film Institute, 2009.
"Life During Wartime, an interview with Charles Cole" by Korbett Matthews.
Biographical details from his father. What would my father say about my life?
"Saltwater Road to the Sahara" by Richard Taylor
Notes: page 28: "he imagined himself traveling to various places in the world, without leaving tghe confines of his jail cell" (evocative idea to explore).
Page 29: "Depressing films seemed to buoy him up with hope".
"Life During Wartime, an interview with Charles Cole" by Korbett Matthews.
Biographical details from his father. What would my father say about my life?
"Saltwater Road to the Sahara" by Richard Taylor
Notes: page 28: "he imagined himself traveling to various places in the world, without leaving tghe confines of his jail cell" (evocative idea to explore).
Page 29: "Depressing films seemed to buoy him up with hope".
Monday, February 6, 2012
Original Copy conclusion
Page 185: The tension between animate object and inanimate female form lies at the crux of many of Man Ray's photographs".
Page 186: "Man Ray transforms a classical nude into an object that can be played".
"L'amour fou, the surrealist concept of mad, obsessional love".
Page 187: "wearing probed the idea of difference ... people who share the same heritage ... she impersonated members of her family, recreating photographs of them".
Page 219: Marcel Duchamp begins body art. (around 1921)
"The idea that the artist can stand in for the artwork proved instrumental in broadening the definition of sculptural practice."
Page 186: "Man Ray transforms a classical nude into an object that can be played".
"L'amour fou, the surrealist concept of mad, obsessional love".
Page 187: "wearing probed the idea of difference ... people who share the same heritage ... she impersonated members of her family, recreating photographs of them".
Page 219: Marcel Duchamp begins body art. (around 1921)
"The idea that the artist can stand in for the artwork proved instrumental in broadening the definition of sculptural practice."
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Surrealism in Collage as well...
Collage book.
"A conversation with John Stezaker" by David Lillington.
Notes: page 22, "Connection between childhood and collagist practice ... collage is a realm of play"
"(collage is) a way of living with available images by a process of making them one's own."
Page 27: "For 'nostalgic' read: reactionary, backward looking... it is a way of living with loss ... about the impossibility of return; a condition of exile."
Page 28: "collage is about the bringing together abstraction and particularity".
Page 31: (collage has) "a desire to expose and hold on to the seams whereas, in montage, the seam is hidden and universal".
Page 32: "What unifies all these practices is not just the literal ... gain significance."
(collage) "allows for interactions that he world around us has not yet performed."
"Where Does One Thing End and the Next Begin?" by Ian Monroe.
Page 35: Chimera as collage. "It is only when they are merged into a single body that the creature takes on a truly horrific character" Page 36: ergonomics, "modern manufacturing to melt seamlessly into the human body".
Page 39: Prosthetics and fetish discussed.
Page 41: "Edges provide us with an entry point with which to pry apart the illusion, a literal and metaphoric edge to lever against.".
"There are also illusions that attempt to obfuscate the edge, to erase its existence altogether".
Page 42: corrosive edges. "This is the general tendency of collage; to mix and merge elements, and to erode their 'individuality'"
City as collage discussed.
Construction/Abstraction
Page 47: intro to abstraction at the turn of the century. "Abstract art was ... an attempt to respond to the seismic changes of the time..."
Surrealism/Fantasy
Page 81: "Collage offers a retreat from logic and reason, transforming the familiar into the strange and the fantastic".
"Cheung's schizophrenic landscapes hint at an apocalyptic future of clashing realities and colliding dreamworlds".
Popular Culture/Mass Media
Page 105: claims 19th century ads are true beginning of collage.
"lay an ultimately arbitrary gesture; that of associating a product to a concept totally unrelated to the intrinsic qualities of the object in order to increase the appearance of exchange value".
re subversion: "For the Soviets ... collage played a vital role in the severcie of class struggle".
Situationists discussed.
Body/Identity
Page 153: "Constant adaptation and deferral".
"Represent the self as fractured"
"Alternate identities"
"Critique of the possibilities of gender and sexuality .. as modes of identification".
"notion of place"
Environment/Geography
Page 185: "Concerned ... with spacio-temporal activity, involved with the possibility of choreography and displacing collections of things in themselves".
"Collage resists any attempts to classify and categorize ... we might, then, see collage as a metaphor of construction that is also always an act of deconstruction".
"A conversation with John Stezaker" by David Lillington.
Notes: page 22, "Connection between childhood and collagist practice ... collage is a realm of play"
"(collage is) a way of living with available images by a process of making them one's own."
Page 27: "For 'nostalgic' read: reactionary, backward looking... it is a way of living with loss ... about the impossibility of return; a condition of exile."
Page 28: "collage is about the bringing together abstraction and particularity".
Page 31: (collage has) "a desire to expose and hold on to the seams whereas, in montage, the seam is hidden and universal".
Page 32: "What unifies all these practices is not just the literal ... gain significance."
(collage) "allows for interactions that he world around us has not yet performed."
"Where Does One Thing End and the Next Begin?" by Ian Monroe.
Page 35: Chimera as collage. "It is only when they are merged into a single body that the creature takes on a truly horrific character" Page 36: ergonomics, "modern manufacturing to melt seamlessly into the human body".
Page 39: Prosthetics and fetish discussed.
Page 41: "Edges provide us with an entry point with which to pry apart the illusion, a literal and metaphoric edge to lever against.".
"There are also illusions that attempt to obfuscate the edge, to erase its existence altogether".
Page 42: corrosive edges. "This is the general tendency of collage; to mix and merge elements, and to erode their 'individuality'"
City as collage discussed.
Construction/Abstraction
Page 47: intro to abstraction at the turn of the century. "Abstract art was ... an attempt to respond to the seismic changes of the time..."
Surrealism/Fantasy
Page 81: "Collage offers a retreat from logic and reason, transforming the familiar into the strange and the fantastic".
"Cheung's schizophrenic landscapes hint at an apocalyptic future of clashing realities and colliding dreamworlds".
Popular Culture/Mass Media
Page 105: claims 19th century ads are true beginning of collage.
"lay an ultimately arbitrary gesture; that of associating a product to a concept totally unrelated to the intrinsic qualities of the object in order to increase the appearance of exchange value".
re subversion: "For the Soviets ... collage played a vital role in the severcie of class struggle".
Situationists discussed.
Body/Identity
Page 153: "Constant adaptation and deferral".
"Represent the self as fractured"
"Alternate identities"
"Critique of the possibilities of gender and sexuality .. as modes of identification".
"notion of place"
Environment/Geography
Page 185: "Concerned ... with spacio-temporal activity, involved with the possibility of choreography and displacing collections of things in themselves".
"Collage resists any attempts to classify and categorize ... we might, then, see collage as a metaphor of construction that is also always an act of deconstruction".
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Original copy starts getting surreal
Original Copy, chapter vi. Cultural and Political icons.
Page 127: Monumnets discussed, Robert Frank's "The Americans" compared to Eisenstein's "October". Page 129: "Even as monuments continue to be commissioned, debate over how to probe the past from critical perspectives have produced more active modes of memory telling".
Chapter VII: The Studio Without Walls: Sculpture in the Expanded Field". Camera use in 60s for site specific art. Quoting Smithson "it appears that abstraction and nature are merging in art and that the synthesizer is the camera".
Page 154: dissecting building and dissecting 35mm film (both literally).
Christo unrealized anti-Berlin wall work described.
Page 167: early Man Ray readymades/photography described.
Page 167-8: Automatism and bits of scrap paper; "sculptures in volontaires": try this with students?
Page 169: "To produce sculpture ... is sometimes merely to notice it, to find it".
Page 178-179: look at the titles of these photos.
Page 127: Monumnets discussed, Robert Frank's "The Americans" compared to Eisenstein's "October". Page 129: "Even as monuments continue to be commissioned, debate over how to probe the past from critical perspectives have produced more active modes of memory telling".
Chapter VII: The Studio Without Walls: Sculpture in the Expanded Field". Camera use in 60s for site specific art. Quoting Smithson "it appears that abstraction and nature are merging in art and that the synthesizer is the camera".
Page 154: dissecting building and dissecting 35mm film (both literally).
Christo unrealized anti-Berlin wall work described.
Page 167: early Man Ray readymades/photography described.
Page 167-8: Automatism and bits of scrap paper; "sculptures in volontaires": try this with students?
Page 169: "To produce sculpture ... is sometimes merely to notice it, to find it".
Page 178-179: look at the titles of these photos.
Friday, February 3, 2012
Collage
Started reading "Collage: Assembling Contemporary Art", Ed. Blanche Craig, Black Dog Publishing, London, UK, 2008.
Chapter 1: "Collage: Diversions, Contradictions and Anomalies" by Sally O'Reilly.
Notes: page 12, "suspicion that absurdity was itself part of the bourgeois malaise, an excuse for inaction ... it is from here that the indexical relationship between collage and empowerment - a dissent - stems".
page 15: "splice - saturates films of the Lettrists" ???
Page 17: (re: shredded and reassembled text) "the cloak of anonymity became the bade of the anti-establishment".
Page 19: meaning is proven to be neither universal nor fixed, but fathomed afresh with each reconfiguration of context.".
Chapter 1: "Collage: Diversions, Contradictions and Anomalies" by Sally O'Reilly.
Notes: page 12, "suspicion that absurdity was itself part of the bourgeois malaise, an excuse for inaction ... it is from here that the indexical relationship between collage and empowerment - a dissent - stems".
page 15: "splice - saturates films of the Lettrists" ???
Page 17: (re: shredded and reassembled text) "the cloak of anonymity became the bade of the anti-establishment".
Page 19: meaning is proven to be neither universal nor fixed, but fathomed afresh with each reconfiguration of context.".
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Original Copy: Duchamp
Read "Contstantin Brancusi: The Studio as Groupe Mobile and the Photos Radieuses" in Original Copy
Notes: Page 85, Rodin never took photos but collected them and had his progress documented.
Page 86: Reverse left/right image with two images printed together. Time exposures at night.
Page 98: Brancusi Studio is like a sculpture.
"Why write? Why not just show photographs?".
Page 98: "Highly composed, his pictures make visible that which is not immediately perceptible".
Also "Marcel Duchamp's Box in a Valise: The Readymade as Reproduction".
Notes: Page 116 shows the Stieglitz photo from which all reproductions of "The Fountain" were made.
Page 115: Dawn Ades observes "simultaneously recognizing the fundamental change that photography made to the work of art, now endlessly repeatable and thus bereft of its 'aura' of unique presence.
Notes: Page 85, Rodin never took photos but collected them and had his progress documented.
Page 86: Reverse left/right image with two images printed together. Time exposures at night.
Page 98: Brancusi Studio is like a sculpture.
"Why write? Why not just show photographs?".
Page 98: "Highly composed, his pictures make visible that which is not immediately perceptible".
Also "Marcel Duchamp's Box in a Valise: The Readymade as Reproduction".
Notes: Page 116 shows the Stieglitz photo from which all reproductions of "The Fountain" were made.
Page 115: Dawn Ades observes "simultaneously recognizing the fundamental change that photography made to the work of art, now endlessly repeatable and thus bereft of its 'aura' of unique presence.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Ways of Seeing: last chapter
Ways of Seeing
Notes:
130: "(publicity) images belong to the mement but speak of the future."
131 :"the state of being envied is what constitutes glamour".
138: list of devices used in publicity, borrowed/parallel to painting.
139 "you are what you have".
publicity is nosalgia, selling the past to the future.
142: Publicity is to make the spectator dissatisfied with present life.
146-148: Glamour is new invention.
149: Publicity turns consumption into a substitute for democracy."
Notes:
130: "(publicity) images belong to the mement but speak of the future."
131 :"the state of being envied is what constitutes glamour".
138: list of devices used in publicity, borrowed/parallel to painting.
139 "you are what you have".
publicity is nosalgia, selling the past to the future.
142: Publicity is to make the spectator dissatisfied with present life.
146-148: Glamour is new invention.
149: Publicity turns consumption into a substitute for democracy."
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Ways of seeing
Over past two days, have been continuing poking through "Ways of Seeing".
Notes: page 18: camera demonstrates that there is no centre to the world.
Page 23: "If the image is no longer unique and exclusive, the art object, the thing, must be made mysteriously so". (after age of reproduction).
Page 24: information carries no special authority.
Page 27-28: Effect of words on the meaning of an image.
Page 47: men versus women and how they present selves and are seen (old idea but useful for first year class discussion).
Page 54: naked vs nude
Page 60: Why 'naked' is transformed into 'nude' by painter.
Page 88: exceptional work vs average discussed.
Page 84: oil painting allows ownership of content.
Page 88: Hack work created due to rise of market.
Page 104: poor people represented smiling with teeth, unlike the rich, so they are seen to be ingratiating themselves to the rich.
Notes: page 18: camera demonstrates that there is no centre to the world.
Page 23: "If the image is no longer unique and exclusive, the art object, the thing, must be made mysteriously so". (after age of reproduction).
Page 24: information carries no special authority.
Page 27-28: Effect of words on the meaning of an image.
Page 47: men versus women and how they present selves and are seen (old idea but useful for first year class discussion).
Page 54: naked vs nude
Page 60: Why 'naked' is transformed into 'nude' by painter.
Page 88: exceptional work vs average discussed.
Page 84: oil painting allows ownership of content.
Page 88: Hack work created due to rise of market.
Page 104: poor people represented smiling with teeth, unlike the rich, so they are seen to be ingratiating themselves to the rich.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Ways of Seeing
Began reading Ways of Seeing by John Berger (1973). Not much reading time but on page 10 I like the idea of image making being linked to individuality during the Renaissance. Page 11 reads "The past is never there waiting to be discovered, to be recognized for exactly what it is. History always constitutes the relation between a present and its past. Consequently fear of the present leads to mystification of the past." Page 16 discusses the European idea that reality and perspective come from the individual, from a single eye. Page 17 has a good Vertov quote which is a part of a manifesto.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Sharpest Point: finished remainder
Finished reading "The Sharpest Point" which entailed reading a handful of short articles, some of which were scripts from films rather than essays.
Notes:"Change/Translate/Represent" by Oliver Hockenhall, page 268: re computer animation,"when (code) ... are both subject and object of attention, the message of anthrapamorphic representation is undermined". Page 269: source code link.
Page 271, interest point regarding Point of View.
Notes:"Change/Translate/Represent" by Oliver Hockenhall, page 268: re computer animation,"when (code) ... are both subject and object of attention, the message of anthrapamorphic representation is undermined". Page 269: source code link.
Page 271, interest point regarding Point of View.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Sharpest Point: Chris Gehman
Read Gehman's article on Janie Geiser and her puppet and animation films. Notes: page 251, interesting observations about using foreground images as "composite or laminate space". Page 255: "mediated version of 'live action' also creates an additional composite temporality...."
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Sharpest Point: Wrik Mead
Read "Wrik Mead: animating the jitter and tilt of erotic anguish" by Bart Testa. Good overview of Mead's body of work. He discusses the psychodrama in context to Mead's films, which is not new to me as I also discussed that in my MFA thesis, but the reminder gives me a potential starting point to work with William in this style sometime soon (this is a 4 hour project which will require some bribing).
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Sharpest Point, 4 articles
Read "Our Town" by Libby Hague. Mostly the script for the film, a good example of diary film writing. Also, like the idea about faux 3D described on page 227 (influenced today's film, "Canister vs the Other Guy in 3D".)
"red Buffalo Skydive" by Jude Norrisd: the script, I'm not sure I understand why this was published, it is interesting to see this text but doesn't illuminate anything about this film, let alone animation in general.
"A Clarification" by Lewis Klahr. On page 234 he defines works at defining himself and his work as not animator/animation but rather as collage artist and eventually as a "re-animator", pointing out that not every filmmaker who makes work one frame at a time is animating.
"Eric Henry: the thing that doesn't seem tasty" by Daniel Cockburn describes the work of Eric Henry which may be important to study for my Rerun project.
"red Buffalo Skydive" by Jude Norrisd: the script, I'm not sure I understand why this was published, it is interesting to see this text but doesn't illuminate anything about this film, let alone animation in general.
"A Clarification" by Lewis Klahr. On page 234 he defines works at defining himself and his work as not animator/animation but rather as collage artist and eventually as a "re-animator", pointing out that not every filmmaker who makes work one frame at a time is animating.
"Eric Henry: the thing that doesn't seem tasty" by Daniel Cockburn describes the work of Eric Henry which may be important to study for my Rerun project.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Sharpest Point: 2 articles
Read "Animated Image, Animated Music" by Staphanie Maxwell and Alan Schindler. Page 202 describes their rephotography of their 35mm film (all direct animation techniques).
Read "Demoscene and Digital Culture" by John Sobol, which describes live video on line and its history, video art which began with digital tags marking the pirate of cracked games. I'd like to look at some of the examples described on page 207, in particular "Poem to a horse" and others at www.farb-rausch.com .
Read "Demoscene and Digital Culture" by John Sobol, which describes live video on line and its history, video art which began with digital tags marking the pirate of cracked games. I'd like to look at some of the examples described on page 207, in particular "Poem to a horse" and others at www.farb-rausch.com .
Monday, January 23, 2012
sharpest point: Tom Sherman
Read Tom Sherman's "Video/Intermedia/Animation" in The Sharpest Point. Basically a video-supremacist, claiming that video fills all gaps and is the all encompassing art form. Bit tiresome.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Sharpest Point: Cinema, Animation, and the other arts
Read "Cinema, Animation, and the Other Arts" by Pierre Hebert in Sharpest Point. Notes, points out that live action cinema uses camera as a black box so that filmmakers do not need to know how it works but "on the contrary, animation is constantly reopening the technical black box..." (page 183). On page 187, "The expression 'relationship between different arts or disciplines' doesn't really fit what I'm interested in. Formal relationships between arts are a speculative varnish that cover what is really important: relationships between artists, that is relationships between people, which are always problematic.".
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Sharpest: Direct animation
Read "Meticulously, Recklessly WOrked Upon: Direct Animation, the Auratic and the Index" by Tess Takahashi from Sharpest Point. Great in depth analysis of drawn of film, photogram, and other cameraless film techniques. Page 166: "Direct" defined. Page 168, digital described as a threat. Page 172: suggests that direct filmmaking guarantees meaning. and that hand drawn film "index the process of their production". Page 173, "guarantee of authenticity". Page 174, examples of blood and the body use in direct films. Page 176, problem of direct film being categorized only as form in contemporary reviews.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Tom Sasaki
Read catalog "Good Intentions" with three essays on the work of Tom Sasaki whose video performance works we saw last year at Neutral Ground (and is forthcoming to the Dunlop). The essays by Ann MacDonald, Crystal Mowry, and Ben Portis seemed primarily descriptive but had some interesting notes on slapstick (see my reaction video today), chance, luck, and fate.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Sharpest Point: Jeremy Blake
Read "Jeremy Blake: I blacked out and had some very vivid dreams" by Lia Gangiatano.
Interesting metaphors about vampires on top of page 156:
Interesting metaphors about vampires on top of page 156:
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Sharpest Point: David Clark
Read "The Discrete Charm of the Digital Image; animation and new media" by David Clark in "The Sharpest Point". Much discussion of time, things slowed down or sped up, time laps, altered time, etc.
Notes: page 140. claims 7-12 seconds is time for images to move from short to long term memory. Then describes animation as dead or undead, as opposed to "live" film. Page 142, Muybridge presented rotoscopes of his photos instead of the photos when in moving devices. Page 143, "Truth is now a pixels and code". Pages 143-149 describe numerous interactive web animators to check out.
Notes: page 140. claims 7-12 seconds is time for images to move from short to long term memory. Then describes animation as dead or undead, as opposed to "live" film. Page 142, Muybridge presented rotoscopes of his photos instead of the photos when in moving devices. Page 143, "Truth is now a pixels and code". Pages 143-149 describe numerous interactive web animators to check out.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Sharpest Point: Laura Marks on Brothers Quay
Read essay by Laura Marks "Institute Benjamenta: an olfactory view", a discussion of how the Brothers Quay presented the sense of smell through their live action film.
Interesting notes: page 131, "...haptic images have the effect of overwhelming vision and spilling into other sense perceptions." Page 132, interesting notes on perfume. Page 136, entire last paragraph discusses the brothers in terms of how they practice subjectivity and links this to their disavowal of authorship and refusal to be analyzed as being identical twin.
Interesting notes: page 131, "...haptic images have the effect of overwhelming vision and spilling into other sense perceptions." Page 132, interesting notes on perfume. Page 136, entire last paragraph discusses the brothers in terms of how they practice subjectivity and links this to their disavowal of authorship and refusal to be analyzed as being identical twin.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Sharpest Point: "The Rock": William Kentridge
Read essay "The Rock": William Kentridge's Drawings for Projection by Rosalind Krauss in The Sharpest Point.
Notes: quote from Kentridge "There was no feeling of what a good idea I had had, rather, relief at not having overlooked what was in front of me. " (Page 101)
"Fortuna" and automatisms discussed throughout.
Quoting Cavell "In calling such things automatisms, I do not mean that they automatically ensure artistic success or depth, but that in mastering a tradition one masters a range of automatisms upon which the tradition maintains itself.". (page 103)
Page 104-105 discusses implosion of Modernism.
Page 110 compares time exposures to snap shots as metaphor.
Palimpsest being animated/revealed through destructive animation style (erasure) described. (page 112).
Notes: quote from Kentridge "There was no feeling of what a good idea I had had, rather, relief at not having overlooked what was in front of me. " (Page 101)
"Fortuna" and automatisms discussed throughout.
Quoting Cavell "In calling such things automatisms, I do not mean that they automatically ensure artistic success or depth, but that in mastering a tradition one masters a range of automatisms upon which the tradition maintains itself.". (page 103)
Page 104-105 discusses implosion of Modernism.
Page 110 compares time exposures to snap shots as metaphor.
Palimpsest being animated/revealed through destructive animation style (erasure) described. (page 112).
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Original Copy - Eugene Atget
Read short chapter in Original Copy, "Eugene Atget: the marvelous in the everyday". Discusses 1905-1925 photographer who shot 8500 photos documenting sculptures and architecture in France and was touted as a Surrealist by Man Ray and others, even though he denied the connection. Page 72: "Atget's photography dissolved the line between seeing and knowing". Between this one and yesterdays on the ordinary, I was inspired to create this Mr. Saul work as he documents his life for insurance.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Sharpest Point: Pain of Ordinariness
From Sharpest Point, read "The Pain of Ordinariness: The Art of Tabaimo" by Morishita Akihiko. Notes: interesting discussion of being ordinary (page 86). On page 92, "We tend to push whatever we are not interested in away from our consciousness. Things that actually exist are made transparent and invisible."This is why we cannot perceive ordinary things as they are."
On page 93, creates correlation between presentation of "ordinary" and of "horror".
On page 93, creates correlation between presentation of "ordinary" and of "horror".
Friday, January 13, 2012
Sharpest Point - Beloff
Read essay "An Ersatz of Life: The Dream LIfe of Technology" by Zoe Beloff in Sharpest Point book.
Interest: page 74 -opens with a two paragraph artist statement which would be a good example to teach from. Mostly discussions of panorama images, quick time movies, and chronicling different projects personally done.
P75, describes work as "toys" rather than "machines" because "machine suggests something altogether too functional".
P80: "the first films were initially shown with a still frame up on the screen that would suddenly come to life".
Interest: page 74 -opens with a two paragraph artist statement which would be a good example to teach from. Mostly discussions of panorama images, quick time movies, and chronicling different projects personally done.
P75, describes work as "toys" rather than "machines" because "machine suggests something altogether too functional".
P80: "the first films were initially shown with a still frame up on the screen that would suddenly come to life".
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Sharpest Point: compositing
From Sharpest Point, read "Compositing: From image streams to modular media" by Lev Manovich. He suggests that digital compositing is replacing montage as the cornerstone of media communication, that montage is used to fake reality (page 61-2) and "compositing is key operation of postmodernism" (page 54). Some artists to look up: Barbara Kruger, Richard Prince (page 55), and especially Rybczynki for his films "Steps" and "Tango" and Zeman for his "Baron Prasil", a 1961 version of Baron Munchhausen. His metaphor on page 68 about rows of brinks relating to time and montage is good too.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Sharpest Point 2
Read "Animation as Baroque: Freischer Morphs Harlem; Tangos to Crocodiles" by Norman M. Klein in Sharpest Point. Interesting points: "animation never required a fourth wall" (28), discussion of "Land without Bread" (29), animation has an "uneasy alliance between special effects and drama" (29), "Metamorphosis is far more lyrical than a pyramid of gags" (30), discussion of x-men (32), pointing out Disney's complete avoidance of metamorphosis (33), and a discussion of difference between a puppet and a doll (43). Much of the essay talked about animation allowing things to morph from one state to another. This inspired today's film "Old Man Winter Awakens".
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
The Sharpest Point
Started reading article by Steve Reinke in "The Sharpest Point: animation at the end of cinema" (ed. Chris Gehman and Steve Reinke, YYZ Books, Toronto, 2005). While I have not had enough quiet time today to immerse, I was excited by ideas of animation reclaiming it's 19th century birthright through computer based cinema which doesn't rely on capturing reality. "If we move from lens to a computer based production of images, can there still be representation of the world? No.". (page 16). This has inspired my video of the day, "Big Cock on Parliament Hill" which takes animated walking shot during a workshop a few months ago with a rooster sock puppet (made my Margaret Bessai in the late 90s, puppetteered my me today), and a photo I took while traveling last year. Animation and effects completely negates representation, like collage. I'll be working more with these ideas with my "Rerun" project.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Frankenstein chapter 10
Chapter 10 and the epilogue of Frankenstein cultural history details the comparisons made between cloning and the monster as well as some of the laws allowing family to copyright an actor's image after they die (such as Karloff's Frankenstein and Lugosi's Dracula).
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Frankenstein cultural chapter 9
Chapter 9 of the Frankenstein Cultural History discusses Hammer and the camp versions such as Munsters, Young Frankenstein, Rocky Horror, and cartoons. The only thing I've not seen was "Frankenstein meets the Space Monster" which inadvertently started the camp trend. I was confused by her assertion at the end of the chapter about Alice Cooper "disappeared from the music scene for more than a decade after his 1971 hit record Love it to Death". This just isn't so. I'm not familiar enough to know if he stopped doing his infamous concerts for a time, but he released an album at least every second year for that entire period.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Sculpture in the age of photography
Saturday, William got me busy in morning and didn't get my reading time in.
Looked at one short essay in Moma "Original Copy" book: chapter 1, Sculpture in the age of photography" by Roxana Marcoci. Notes: Interesting image of artist/filmmaker Leger's studio (page 40). Also notes on critic Ruskin advocacy to photograph every sculpture and brick of momuments before they become lost, contrary to the drive for artistic capturing of select angles or moments of such places.
Page 21 reiterates some ideas of Egypt photography as support of colonization by saying the photos taken with purposeful omission of humans are "rendered ... with the authority of a conqueror".
Looked at one short essay in Moma "Original Copy" book: chapter 1, Sculpture in the age of photography" by Roxana Marcoci. Notes: Interesting image of artist/filmmaker Leger's studio (page 40). Also notes on critic Ruskin advocacy to photograph every sculpture and brick of momuments before they become lost, contrary to the drive for artistic capturing of select angles or moments of such places.
Page 21 reiterates some ideas of Egypt photography as support of colonization by saying the photos taken with purposeful omission of humans are "rendered ... with the authority of a conqueror".
Friday, January 6, 2012
Pinhole and more sculpture and Frankenstein
Read first portion of "Pin Hole Cameras, a do-it-yourself guide" by Chris Keeney, (Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2011). So far it is a personal account of interest plus great technical advice. I like his note "we are human and imperfect" as a means to situate non-perfect art practices. Some important notes on paper iso on page 27-28. I used pinhole to create my video today. http://vimeo.com/34692634
Frankenstein Cultural History, chapter 8 has interesting notes on the Hammer films which I love but have not read about or studied in depth. I especially like the idea that the novel was ignored when writing the first movie, the only thing necessary was that it not resemble the Universal in the least.
Essay in "The Original Copy": "From Sculpture in Photography to Photography as Plastic Art" by Tobia Bezzola. Of interest: I'm interested in the writings of Heinrich Wolffin from 1896 on his very limited view of how to photograph sculpture based on there being one definitive angle corresponding to the artist's conception. His views are compared to Baudelaire and his hypothesis of the viewer finding infinite entry points into art (page 29). Page 30 cites Artschwarger "it is pointless to compete with God or NASA". Discusses 2 photo approaches to sculpture: to display or to create sculptuer that exists only in the photograph. Page 31 declares that the best surrealist sculptures are photographs. Page 32 says that objects surpass paintings and gain "semantic autonomy" due to photography's influence. The Surreal, Bahaus, and Straight photographers are compared. Tropes of modernism listed on page 33. Yesterday's video included a sculpture which I shot due to things in this book: http://vimeo.com/34643878
Frankenstein Cultural History, chapter 8 has interesting notes on the Hammer films which I love but have not read about or studied in depth. I especially like the idea that the novel was ignored when writing the first movie, the only thing necessary was that it not resemble the Universal in the least.
Essay in "The Original Copy": "From Sculpture in Photography to Photography as Plastic Art" by Tobia Bezzola. Of interest: I'm interested in the writings of Heinrich Wolffin from 1896 on his very limited view of how to photograph sculpture based on there being one definitive angle corresponding to the artist's conception. His views are compared to Baudelaire and his hypothesis of the viewer finding infinite entry points into art (page 29). Page 30 cites Artschwarger "it is pointless to compete with God or NASA". Discusses 2 photo approaches to sculpture: to display or to create sculptuer that exists only in the photograph. Page 31 declares that the best surrealist sculptures are photographs. Page 32 says that objects surpass paintings and gain "semantic autonomy" due to photography's influence. The Surreal, Bahaus, and Straight photographers are compared. Tropes of modernism listed on page 33. Yesterday's video included a sculpture which I shot due to things in this book: http://vimeo.com/34643878
Thursday, January 5, 2012
An Almost Unlimited Variety: photography and sculpture in the 19th century
I read "An Almost Unlimited Variety: photography and sculpture in the 19th century", an essay by Geoffrey Batchen in the book "The Original Copy" (previously cited). He writes at length about a couple of photographers who shot daguerreotypes of their collections of art and sculptures. The later half of the essay got more interesting as he shifted the discussion to ways that photography changed the context of the work such as showing an angel atop Notre Dame Cathedral which would have been place there for none but god to see (page 25). On page 20 he makes an odd correlation between the binaries art/science, true/false, nature/artificial, connections which could not hold up to significant scrutiny. Interesting points: that early 19th century French used art and history to reinforce the sense of nationalism. That the use of reproductions (molds or photos) turned art production into capitalism (pages 21-22). That Egypt was presented in photos as ruins with no infrastructure or people caring for the crumbling artifacts as a means to pave public opinion to extend European colonization into Egypt (page 24-25).
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Frankenstein culture chapter 7 and Hockney documentary
Just a light reading day today; chapter 7 of the Frankenstein book. Again, mostly history but I would like to follow up on an illustrator who did one of the versions of the book in the 30s and who is described as working on early graphic novels: Lynd Ward.
I watched a documentary about David Hockney (A Bigger Picture from 2009). I liked the idea that he was creating a painting per day for a three year period (Margaret points out that he had two assistants and I don't). He also said "We always see with memory" and I think that this is important to all the identity and diary work I do.
I watched a documentary about David Hockney (A Bigger Picture from 2009). I liked the idea that he was creating a painting per day for a three year period (Margaret points out that he had two assistants and I don't). He also said "We always see with memory" and I think that this is important to all the identity and diary work I do.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Frankenstein and intro to "Original Copy"
In chapter 6 of the Frankenstein culture book, the 1931 Karloff film was the primary discussion topic. There were a couple of points of trivia I'd not heard before but overall it was an unchallenging read. I picked up "The Original Copy: photography of sculpture, 1839 to today", which is a large hard covered 2010 MOMA catalog Margaret gave me last year but that I'd not spent any quality time with. I read the introduction essay by the editor, Roxana Marcoci. I generally don't like reading introductions; they always cover too much, list too many names, and say too little. This one was no exception. The basic idea of the book is to chronicle how photography and sculpture are tied together in current study, stating quite bluntly that the study of art is "the child of photography" (quoting Donald Preziosi, page 12). On page 18, she discusses how "the idea that the camera can at once extend a sculptural activity into performance and a performance into sculpture" I did find the explanation of the root of montage to be intriguing, that the word comes from the German montieren which means "to engineer" (page 16).
Monday, January 2, 2012
Frankenstein chapter 5
This morning I continued reading the same Frankenstein book. This chapter was primarily about the 1910 Edison film adaptation of the story, the first Frankenstein film ever made. It was thought lost but then a copy was discovered to be in a man's collection but he refused to archive it, showing it publicly for money for many years. He eventually released it to DVD and he died in 2005. The film has Frankenstein create the monster in a huge vat and the filmmkaer used reverse fire to create the effect of chemical construction. It is available now on Youtube. I watched it today (it is only 10 minutes) and felt inspired to try out this effect. I created my daily film; "Thomas Edison and the Stitchpunk Frankenstein Monster". It took me much of the day.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Frankenstein a cultural history chapters 3-4
I read chapters three and four of "Frankenstein, a cultural history" (Susan Tyler Hitchcock, W.W. Norton, New York, 2007) (one chapter yesterday, one before I go to bed this evening, less than two hours into this sabbatical). This book is not highly critical but contains numerous interesting things to consider regarding Frankenstein, the book, the mythology, and the treatment of it over time. I am interested in re-engaging with Frankenstein over the next couple of years as its bicentennial is approaching. I was intreaged by the idea that the monster developed more as a theatre performance than a novel in its early years with the monster having long hair and blue skin. I'm also amazed that a satire calling him Frankenstitch had already emerged by 1823 in "Another Piece of Presumption" by Richard Peake (page 87). Chapter 4 focuses more on how Frankenstein began to be altered and used as a metaphor for changes and fears of changes within the 19th century. An early interpretation of the monster as a machine came in 1924 with Frank-in-steam (page 101). An 1854 political cartoon by Tenniel shows the monster as made from munition parts as representing the Russian army (page 110). It mentions scientific advancements such as Leyden jars which I'd like to follow up on.
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