Animation- Digital Antidotes
Animation has moved to the center of our moving-image culture. America’s
children spend more time engaging anime and avatars than they watch
network TV. Animated formats compete with main line cinema, and new
media artists commonly utilize and manipulate animation processes
in their projects. A proliferation of easy to use animation software
such as Flash has introduced animation to artists. Digital animation
processes now used by artists encompasses a fast array of approaches,
from simple tools to industrial software used to create the latest
Pixar blockbuster.
Digital Antidotes is a selection of video art that is digitally animated.
Program
Part One: Point, Line and Plane
Abstract rhythms emerge from music, line and shapes. These artists
use generative video loops to create dynamic imagery, some reminiscent
of the great Oscar Fischinger.
Bradley Hyppa, USA, "Lunchtime in the Fidi", generative
video loop, 2007, (3:53 min). Pedestrian movement across
the urban landscape is captured by video taken from the 14th floor
above the Financial District in San Francisco. These rhythms are used
to create abstract computer generated renderings (using the open source
Processing platform) to provide insight into both the objectives and
methods of social construction.
Kazuhiko Kobayashi, Japan, “ Ensemble”, :Monochrome”,
“Rotary Plate”, collection of generative looped
videos. Rhythm and line merge to create audio and video music.
Part Two: Familiar Twists
Exciting contemporary animation that references methods used at least
a century before cinema, such as stop action and puppetry, but enhanced
through new animation tools.
Jessica Westbrook, USA, “Sugar Free”, 2007, (2:45
min). Sugar Free investigates the complex of consumption
as a binary ratio: package=energy, desire=need. Deploying motion graphics,
a sequence of manipulated packages present a new way of looking at
the biology and physiology of consumption.
Hillary Mushkin, USA, “As we go on”, 2005, (6:57
min) Hand drawn images move in animation. A hand drawn sketch
of a man’s face is the canvas for an array of manipulations
suggesting an internal dream world.
Orit Ben Shitut, Israel, “The Long from Inside”,
2007, (3:14 min). The Long from Inside deploys film, collage
and motion graphics. The composition gives a glimpse into a psychological
state reflecting both internal and external realities. At its heart
is a reconstructed narrative of a cinematic world that slowly begins
to rupture.
Barbara Agreste, Italy/London, “Reptilica”, 2008,
(6:00 min). Reptilica is half animation half a film where
real people perform. It Starts with a doll which is animated with
the stop motion technique, she is searching through the many dry leaves
that rest on the floor, something she has seen or felt passing by,
but she can't seem to find it.
Aleksander Kostjuk, Croatia, “Nino the Adventurer”,
2006, (3:38 min). Little animated character dealing with
objects and happenings that come from above.
Michael Greathouse, USA, “The Banquet”, 2007,
(6:40 min). Inspired by film noir and b/w Hollywood horror
films, my most recent work is a series of short video loops produced
exclusively with composited computer animation. In these videos there
is no beginning and no end, only a single moment continually repeating
like a skipping record. Questions are not answered; the story is implied
but never defined.
Carl Burton, USA, “Drift”, 2007, (10:21 min)
A refreshing bit of experimental storytelling that uses the otherworldly
yet familiar imagery of microscopic life as its backdrop.
Robbyn Alexander, USA, “Limerence”, 2006, (5:00
min). Limerence is a time-based self-portrait created with
hand-painted, directly manipulated found film footage, re-appropriated
music and found sounds. Both a cinematic loop and a moving painting
of light, it's enveloping, hypnotic rhythms of light, image and sound
induce analtered state. Viewers are invited on a psychological ride
through the subconscious mind in its creative experience of being
in love.
