'Entropy' of 'material' decay within experimental traditions of Animation
Entropy, also known as the second law or thermodynamics, and the arrow of time is part of the complex systems of nature. It is an agent of decay that can deploy any one of natural forces to bring about decay in material things.
The process can easily be identified in auteur animation practice and experimental traditions that have a material medium. The process of entropy communicates the meaning of the human condition, it's close connection with nature, it's fragility, fear and beauty inherent in the human experience. However, can this be applied to non-material mediums such as computer generated imagery?
I could argue that it is only to the context of the plastic box (and the cognitative load associated with the encounter with the plastic box and it's multple tools of program software and internet connectivity) separates computer generated imagery (CGI) from it's alignment with natural world processes. As in nature and also in CGI, the perception of light is the same, once the images are released from within the computer and projected outwards onto the world the light is just light.
The surface upon which light falls becomes critical to it's reception by the audience. In the cinematic experience the screen becomes invisible, for fronting the communication. However when this material is something else, the material comes in relation to the communication it receives. The material of the 'screen' connects to the process of entropy, and one begins to feel connected to the deeply rooted actuality of the arrow of time. The communicated message of 'All things are born, life and die' or Time waits for no human is reinforced.
The associations one makes with natural light,however, do differ from that of artificial light, included in this is the light of CGI. Natural light is the agent of entropy, decay, growth and evolution in nature. Entropy is part of the complex system that forms the natural object, it is the agent of creation, a sculptor of atomistic material.
The complex matter of agency and it's relation to freewill and the human soul can be considered to be the privilege of humanity.
How does experimental animation seek to express notions of the tension related humanities evolution in relation to technological advancement of tools that are designed to liberate human but can also enslave; that extend the capacity of human thought, knowledge and connectivity but also entice and enthrall human away from physical experience, actual skills and knowledge of the actual world into a dream world in which all human desires can be mentally satisfied, in which the virtual world can offer an eternality, an alternative heaven of the mind. But experimental animation can also temper the egoistic desire to live eternally without fear or failure in fore fronting human fragility and limitations in using the thematic of liveliness and death, and the materiality of natural materials that align with the natural world processes.
Is this the power of the medium of animation in the technological age?
Is the most interesting aspect of experimental animation the way in which its 'moving-art' expresses tension and anxiety at the cusp of the computational machine and humanity that directly relates to the anxiety and fear of being human and the ways in which one copes with this fact of life, death.
How can the process of entropy be revealed in practice and in contemporary experimental animation?
This notion could be represented by code/text in practice experimentation in which aspects of entropy could be explored in it's textual as well as it's physical and philosophical meaning.
One could begin in identifying when the entropic reference is made in experimental animation.
speeding up Time's arrow:
Deploying the mechanism of Timelapse photography
reversing Time's arrow:
Animating natural dead things such as insects
In reversing the natural passage of the sun
Making Static Time's arrow:
Photography
Looping Time's arrow
Superimposition/merging different location of time simulateously
Examining the space between static time and moving-time
Bringing to life a static image .. CGI?
Real Time is linear, experienced time is a phase transition affected by complex system dynamics, Space is multi planed and life is pleuralistic (experienced on many levels) unique to the observer.
Conclusion:
Research in animation is complex.
The process can easily be identified in auteur animation practice and experimental traditions that have a material medium. The process of entropy communicates the meaning of the human condition, it's close connection with nature, it's fragility, fear and beauty inherent in the human experience. However, can this be applied to non-material mediums such as computer generated imagery?
I could argue that it is only to the context of the plastic box (and the cognitative load associated with the encounter with the plastic box and it's multple tools of program software and internet connectivity) separates computer generated imagery (CGI) from it's alignment with natural world processes. As in nature and also in CGI, the perception of light is the same, once the images are released from within the computer and projected outwards onto the world the light is just light.
The surface upon which light falls becomes critical to it's reception by the audience. In the cinematic experience the screen becomes invisible, for fronting the communication. However when this material is something else, the material comes in relation to the communication it receives. The material of the 'screen' connects to the process of entropy, and one begins to feel connected to the deeply rooted actuality of the arrow of time. The communicated message of 'All things are born, life and die' or Time waits for no human is reinforced.
The associations one makes with natural light,however, do differ from that of artificial light, included in this is the light of CGI. Natural light is the agent of entropy, decay, growth and evolution in nature. Entropy is part of the complex system that forms the natural object, it is the agent of creation, a sculptor of atomistic material.
The complex matter of agency and it's relation to freewill and the human soul can be considered to be the privilege of humanity.
How does experimental animation seek to express notions of the tension related humanities evolution in relation to technological advancement of tools that are designed to liberate human but can also enslave; that extend the capacity of human thought, knowledge and connectivity but also entice and enthrall human away from physical experience, actual skills and knowledge of the actual world into a dream world in which all human desires can be mentally satisfied, in which the virtual world can offer an eternality, an alternative heaven of the mind. But experimental animation can also temper the egoistic desire to live eternally without fear or failure in fore fronting human fragility and limitations in using the thematic of liveliness and death, and the materiality of natural materials that align with the natural world processes.
Is this the power of the medium of animation in the technological age?
Is the most interesting aspect of experimental animation the way in which its 'moving-art' expresses tension and anxiety at the cusp of the computational machine and humanity that directly relates to the anxiety and fear of being human and the ways in which one copes with this fact of life, death.
How can the process of entropy be revealed in practice and in contemporary experimental animation?
This notion could be represented by code/text in practice experimentation in which aspects of entropy could be explored in it's textual as well as it's physical and philosophical meaning.
One could begin in identifying when the entropic reference is made in experimental animation.
speeding up Time's arrow:
Deploying the mechanism of Timelapse photography
reversing Time's arrow:
Animating natural dead things such as insects
In reversing the natural passage of the sun
Making Static Time's arrow:
Photography
Looping Time's arrow
Superimposition/merging different location of time simulateously
Examining the space between static time and moving-time
Bringing to life a static image .. CGI?
Real Time is linear, experienced time is a phase transition affected by complex system dynamics, Space is multi planed and life is pleuralistic (experienced on many levels) unique to the observer.
Conclusion:
Research in animation is complex.
