artbymer

[artbymer]

Proposal 3: I Am Not a Robot

I care about how our methods of constructing and defining personal identity in the digital age can be understood through artificial intelligence.

Precedents:

“Requiem for a Robot,” Christoph Rainer, short film, 2013

"The Nostalgist," Giacomo Cimini, short film, 2016

"Forever," Mitch McGlocklin, animated short, 2020

“Zima Blue,” Gabriele Pennacchioli and Robert Valley, animated short, 2019

“Best Friend,” Nicholas Oliveri, Shen Yi, Juliana De Lucca, and varun Nair, animated short, 2018

“Lovestreams,” Sean Buckelew, animated short, 2016

“Avatar Days,” Gavin Kelly, live action and animated short, 2010

Critical Question: How can animation and found digital materials be combined within the sci-fi genre to visualize the experience of constructing/destructing identity within the digital age? (Material-driven)

[artbymer]

Proposal 2: From What I Remember

I care about finding ways of documenting family history beyond portraiture.

Precedents:

“A Family Portrait,” Joseph Pierce, animated short, 2009

“My Dead Dad’s Porno Tapes,” Charlie Tyrell, animated short, 2018

“Three Red Sweaters,” Martha Gregory, found footage film, 2016

“Helicopter,” Ari Gold, mixed-media short film, 2001

“A Journey Across Grandmother,” Meghana Bisineer, hand-drawn animated short film, 2021

“One Nice Family Photo,” Tom Senior, animated short, 2008

“Double Exposed,” Julie Buck, found footage short, 2021

Critical Question: How can I combine documentary photographs, animation, and auditory interviews to recapture the memories in my family’s lost home videos? (Material-driven)

[artbymer]

Proposal 1: What’s Left Behind

I care about what ghost stories can reveal about the storyteller’s internal experiences within a space.

Precedents:

A Ghost Story, David Lowry, feature film, 2017 

Haunted Houses, Corinne May Botz, photographs and audio recordings, 2010-2012

Hereditary, Ari Aster, feature film, 2018 

Winchester, Jeremy Blake, mixed-media animation, 2005 

Spirit Drawings, Georgiana Houghton 

The House, Emma De Swaef, Paloma Baeza, and Marc James Roels, stop-motion anthology film, 2022 

“Mon Ami Gui Brille Dans La Nuit (My Friend Who Shines in the Night)”, Gregoire de Bernouis, Jawed Boudaoud, Simon Cadilhac, and Helene Ledevin, digitally animated short, 2020

“Tsunami,” Sofie Nørgaard Kampmark, digitally animted short, 2015

Critical Question - How can the genre conventions of film and animation be utilized and subverted to metaphorically capture the experience of growing up in and passing on a domestic space? (Material-driven)

[artbymer]

Proposal 3 Precedents

MEDIA-DRIVEN - Film and Animation

"Requiem for a Robot," Christopher Rainer, short film, 2013

"The Nostalgist," Giacomo Cimini, short film, 2016

"Forever," Mitch McGlocklin, animated short, 2020

“Zima Blue,” Gabriele Pennacchioli and Robert Valley, animated short, 2019

“Best Friend,” Nicholas Oliveri, Shen Yi, Juliana De Lucca, and Varun Nair, animated short, 2018

“Lovestreams,” Sean Buckelew, animated short, 2016

“Avatar Days,” Gavin Kelly, live action and animated short, 2010

[artbymer]

Proposal 2 Precedents

METHOD-BASED - Documentation

“A Family Portrait,” Joseph Pierce, animated short, 2009

“My Dead Dad’s Porno Tapes,” Charlie Tyrell, animated short, 2018

“Three Red Sweaters,” Martha Gregory, found footage film, 2016

“Helicopter,” Ari Gold, mixed-media short film, 2001

“A Journey Across Grandmother,” Meghana Bisineer, hand-drawn animated short film, 2021

“One Nice Family Photo,” Tom Senior, animated short, 2011

“Double Exposed,” Julie Buck, found footage short, 2021

[artbymer]

Proposal 1 Precedents

METHOD-DRIVEN: narrative

A Ghost Story, David Lowry, film, 2017

Haunted Houses, Corinne May Botz, photographs and audio recordings, 2010-2012

Hereditary, Ari Aster, feature film, 2018

"Winchester," Jeremy Blake, mixed-media animation, 2005

The House, Emma De Swaef, Paloma Baeza, and Marc James Roels, stop-motion anthology film, 2022

"Mon Ami Gui Brille Dans La Nuit (My Friend Who Shines in the Night)," Gregoire de Bernouis,Jawed Boudaoud, Simon Cadilhac, and Helene Ledevin, digitally animated short, 2020

"Tsunami," Sofie Nørgaard Kampmark, digitally animated short, 2015

[artbymer]

Thoughts on "A Journey Across Grandmother"

“A Journey Across Grandmother,” Meghana Bisineer, hand-drawn animated short film, 2021

Recounting summers spent with her grandmother, Meghana Bisineer’s “A Journey Across Grandmother” makes use of surreal imagery to capture the experience of cuddling with her grandmother. Through this use of surrealism, Bisineer documents the internal rather than material side of this experience.

[artbymer]

Thoughts on "Helicopter"

“Helicopter,” Ari Gold, mixed-media short film, 2001

Through “Helicopter,” Ari Gold makes use of several mediums to conceptualize and heal from his mother’s death. What I find most interesting about this piece is Gold’s mixture of found and self-constructed materials. The use of voicemails sent between him and his mom over the reenactments grounds the staged materials.

[artbymer]

Thoughts on "Three Red Sweaters"

“Three Red Sweaters,” Martha Gregory, found footage film, 2016

Martha Gregory’s “Three Red Sweaters” combines personal found family footage with audio recordings of Gregory and her family members discussing topics such as the relationship between memory and self-documentation, changes in self-documentation over time, and the process of editing self-documentation. The film poses an interesting contrast between captured moments of the past, and current verbal reflections from the subjects.

[artbymer]

Thoughts on "Avatar Days"

“Avatar Days,” Gavin Kelly, live action and animated short, 2010

Gavin Kelly’s “Avatar Days” explores the relationship between real people and their online avatars. Though they exist in fantasy worlds online, the interviewees view their avatars as similar to themselves. Kelly digitally places these avatars in videos of real world scenes, visualizing the internal experiences of the interviewees. Contrasting the digital alter egos with the everyday real world scenarios of their counterparts, Kelly explores the ways the digital world allows people to explore and expand upon their identities in ways otherwise not possible.

[artbymer]

Thoughts on "Lovestreams"

“Lovestreams,” Sean Buckelew, animated short, 2016

Sean Buckelew’s “Lovestreams” explores the ways in which we build identity and relationships using the internet. Throughout the fantasy sequence, the characters’ physical appearances continuously shift, switching between a variety of digital personas adopted from the media they consume. Eventually, the main character realizes that none of these alter egos are real, and they don’t truly know each other. Though their online avatars are a representation of themselves, their presence online can never fully encapsulate their identity. Online you are able to be anyone except your true self. 

An aspect of this short that I really enjoyed is how it meshed real-looking screen content and drawn animation. I am unsure if this content was filmed or drawn, which aligns with the themes of blurred lines between the real and fake.

[artbymer]

Thoughts on "Best Friend"

“Best Friend,” Nicholas Oliveri, Shen Yi, Juliana De Lucca, and Varun Nair, animated short, 2018

Though set in a dystopian future, the world of Nicholas Oliveri, Shen Yi, Juliana De Lucca, and Varun Nair's “Best Friend” (like all good sci-fi) highlights current day technological habits. Although we don’t all have access to technology that allows us to construct illusions of friends and fun, in my experience many people use the internet to construct a false representation of their lives, tricking their followers and sometimes themselves into perceiving their lives as something it is not. Through the internet, we see representations of what our lives “should” look like, and work to construct a digital footprint that aligns with this ideal.

[artbymer]

Thoughts on "Double Exposed"

“Double Exposed,” Julie Buck, found footage short, 2021

Julie Buck’s “Double Exposed” provides a more direct exploration of the contrast between photographic/video family documentation and reality. As Buck herself reflects on the home videos shown, she discusses how the videos provide a stark contrast to the abuse the depicted family members endured and perpetrated at the time. For Buck and her family, the surface-level joyous videos function as a tool of convincing themselves that that period of their lives wasn’t as awful as they remember. Buck, and the viewer, is left to grapple with whether a documentation or memory of an event is more faithful, and to whom. Since this project involves a direct display of contrasting photographic and auditory historic materials, I would classify this piece as media-driven.

[artbymer]

Thoughts on "One Nice Family Photo"

“One Nice Family Photo,” Tom Senior, animated short, 2008

Though similar in concept to Joseph Pierce’s “A Family Portrait,” Tom Senior’s “One Nice Family Photo'' provides an interesting contrast in the dynamics it captures. While the family depicted in Senior’s piece struggles to gather themselves to take a good photograph as well, this family gets lost in joyful conversation with one another rather than resent and frustration. Senior’s piece captures the lively and sporadic energy of this family unit, a quality further captured in the fleeting, vibrating visuals. As this project feels mainly driven by the desire to capture the sensory experience of this gathering through animation, I would classify this piece as media-driven.

[artbymer]

Thoughts on "My Dead Dad's Porno Tapes"

“My Dead Dad’s Porno Tapes,” Charlie Tyrell, animated short, 2018

My favorite aspect of Charlie Tyrell’s “My Dead Dad’s Porno Tapes” is his use of found objects. As a way of visualizing the story of his deceased father, Tyrell makes use of replacement animation with objects that belonged to his father. Through this method, Tyrell visualizes the emotions and memories these objects hold to him, his family, and his father. Since this project appears mainly driven by Tyrell’s desire to discover more about his father through his belongings, I would classify this project as method-based, though an argument could be made for motive-based.

[artbymer]

Thoughts on "A Family Portrait"

“A Family Portrait,” Joseph Pierce, animated short, 2009

While researching art that tackles family documentation beyond portraiture, Joseph Pierce’s “A Family Portrait” immediately stuck out to me. Though set within a family’s portrait photography session, non diegetic surreal visual elements begin to appear, visualizing the internal experiences of the characters. As the family struggles to suppress these uncomfortable emotions in an effort to take a nice photograph, they persist to the surface, creating strange unaddressed distortions. Through this use of surreal visual elements, Pierce captures the uncomfortable reality of this family that would have likely been unseen in the resultant family photo. As the artist explores ways of capturing family dynamics through surreal visuals, I would classify this project as method-driven.

[artbymer]

Thoughts on "Zima Blue"

“Zima Blue,” Gabriele Pennacchioli and Robert Valley, animated short, 2019

The animated short "Zima Blue" from the Netflix anthology series Love, Death & Robots provides an excellent exploration of the construction and deconstruction of self in relation to AI. In the story, Zima, a world famous artist understood to be a human turned cyborg, prepare for his final piece. In an interview, and later in the performance, he reveals that he has never truly been human, and developed from a simple pool cleaning machine. With the gradual modifications made by previous owners and himself, and his entry into the art world, Zima began to be perceived as human. I find it fascinating that through acting and presenting as a human, people identified him as human. Though, is the pool cleaner version of Zima we're left with, essentially his core, the same Zima?

Given that this project appears to be driven mainly by the questions it raises regarding the definition of humanity, rather than the media or method it was made with, I would classify it as motive-based.

image credit: @sylvainsarrailh