#Willam Kentridge

[paulasanimationba3]

Seeking Further Definitions on Experimental Animation

Here, I have compiled a number of excerpts from essays by Paul Taberham that explore what sets experimental and commercial animation apart. These will be useful when exploring the approach and creative identity to corporate animation.

With previous definitions and distinctions in mind, a series of tendencies that pertain to the field of experimental animation may be detailed. Like Well’s and Furniss’ models, i hasten to add that these are not essential characteristics but rather tendencies:

First the context of distribution and production may be outlined in the following way:

-It may be created by a single person or a small collective.

-The film will be self-financed or funded by a small grant from an arts’ institution, without expectation to make a profit. 

-Instead of undergoing commercial distribution, experimental films are normally distributed independently online, or through film co-operatives to be exhibited by film societies, universities and galleries.

Second the aesthetics of experimental animation may be characterised thus:

-They evoke more than they tell, and don’t offer a single unambiguous ‘message’. (Jordan Belson recreates his inner vision from his meditation in his films. Allures (1961) is an abstract work that defies interpretation in it’s use of abstract shapes. Belson says that his films ‘are not meant to be explained analysed or understood. They are more experimental, more like listening to music’ (P.27)

-Surface detail typically plays a more significant role in the experience of the film than the content. (This is true for Willam Kentridge’s work that intentionally features both the gesture of his charcoal markings and their subsequent erasure as part of the overall aesthetic effect.)

-The materials of animation may be consciously employed in a way that calls attention to the medium. (David O’Reilly’s CG animated Black Lake (2013) pulls the viewer through an uncanny hallucinatory, underwater landscape with rocks, fish, a house and other objects. After minute and a half, the same objects are seen in wire frame form, exposing the way in which they were digitally generated) (P.32)

- Psychologically defined characters with discernible motivations and goals do not feature. (David Theobald produces animation that uses minimal onscreen movement( challenging the assumption that an animated film needs to be full of movement.)) With this, Theobald explores refuses to cater  to conventional narrative expectations, denying spectators their attendant gratifications, serves to remind them that everything is not always selfishly,  antrophocentrically, for us. The world, in other words continues whether we are paying attention to it or not. (P.31)

Third the role of artist may also be considered:

-the personal style and preoccupations of the artist will be readily discernible.

-the artist may try to express which cannot be articulated by spoken word, such as abstract feelings or atmospheres. In a sense, they they try to express the inexpressible by calling upon their non-rational intuitions.

-Instead of pre-planning the film and then and then executing that plan in the same manner as the commercial film, the entire act of creation may be a process of discovery. (P.24)

Harris, M., Husbands, L. and Taberman, P. (2019). Experimental Animation From Analogue to Digital. 1st ed. Abingdon: Routledge.

[306586-blog]

Week Three

Charcoal drawing and animation

Laura Adams

The mindscape

An Artist who specializes in charcoal drawing and animation. My work is a continuous exploration of the more sinister side to life. I am currently interested in exploring a pessimistic minds-cape, in which I am able to create and construct the interiors of a dark and ominous building.

Very beautiful drawing. Starting from the dark, she gradually buildup the image and events.  

link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAV47jFlh_8

William Kentridge 

Automatic Writing

Willam Kentridge’s charcoal stone age films also inspire me. 

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmvK7A84dlk

[kvb227]

This work is very simple, mainly playing around with angles. Focusing upon getting materials ready for a particular artwork. It is about the mechanical process of getting out the paint for an artwork. but not necessarily paint  but any artwork, having to go out and get what you need to prepare yourself beforehand before you get started on the actual making of a work. This work was also used as an experimentation of trying a certain camera angle and trying to make a work that is vacant of my personal body. Partially influenced by the ideas given to me by Willam kentridge’s animation works, where you just see lines of charcoal randomly appear and slowly make up a picture and change and move along with his animations

[djohnhopper]

ART as FILM: Artist: Lee Campbell​ Title: Peer (2020).

Peer in the present to peer back to the past... Peer (2020) aims to capture the strangeness of the British seaside using a telescope that operates like a blinking voyeuristic eye. What is 'seen through' the telescope combines slapstick, a play on words (peer, pier etc.) through a range of media including black and white drawings reminiscent of the work of artists Willam Kentridge and Tacita Dean that speak of a dark narrative through their nostalgia intercut with snapshots of human activity that pick up the vibes of the seaside. The telescope eye used as a mask throughout the whole film is constantly trying to focus. When’s the word 'peer' going to disappear you may ask as it comes and goes all the time. Through its excessive repetition, after a certain amount of time of seeing it on screen, it suddenly stops meaning what it means and the viewer starts doubting what it means.   Peer was made with sound and moving image recordings made on a Sony Ericsson Cybershoot K800i mobile phone between 2005-2007, stills taken on a Nokia 95 phone in 2010, pencil drawings made on the backs of postcards and seashells in 2010, performance documentation from 2006-2008, and audio and moving image recording made on an iPhone in 2020. Creative green screen usage in films has been around forever and could be said to feel retro but in PEER it doesn’t as green screen is used to review history. Committed to humorous seaside antics, Peer is intended to be shown through a telescope where a potential mismatch takes place. For example, where my parents are seen coming in and out of shot.

[catobekker-old]

In the basement with Willam Kentridge. #art #architecture #kentridge #thomasheatherwick #zeitzmocaa (at Zeitz MOCAA)