Second level reflection on practice-theory (3)
Theorising practice has required the reconfiguration of what animation is in my own frame of reference and a better understanding of how it is written about in the field.
For me this begins with what is animation as a term? For me it begins with the process and the ways in which an animated scene is bought to life, for the field it is about how animated film is received by the viewer as either, this character or animated object has been given the appearance of being alive, or this animated world is alive and is a world I wish to suspend disbelief and enter into it.
On reflection I needed to begin with what it is that is being referred to when thinking about the state of being 'alive' and this began with a literature search that revealed that many theorists write about the 'liveliness' of an object or thing as either 'mechanistic' or 'animistic/vitalist'. This is most often in relation to the animated film as whole, or in regards to the characters within the film.
My interest was with the structure of motion, as in the flower observation study at location A, physiological as in Location B but most importantly changing states of motion in nature, as in Location C.
In relating the work conducted in Location C, I could relate this mainly to visual and special effects that created motion and the sense of aliveness in the animated scene. Research into this area led to the discovery of how Disney special effects are studied and observed from nature and how they are extended to morph into character like behaviour, they become animal like to express the narrative of the story.
Location C became a site in which the notion of observed Newtonian motion became layered with micro motion and structure, evolving into the world of quantum mechanics. This came about as I became very interested in the pleuralistic approach to viewing world and my interest in how technology extends human physical limitations.
The project had taken the notion of quantum mechanics and applied this to animation theory to form a research project that was more theory based than practice based. I had begun to construct and argument that could apply the development of quantum theory to the evolving themes in the surrealist Movement and how this had emerged in surrealist animation in france and Weimar in the inter war period.
At the second year review, I and the panel were dissatisfied with the overall framing of the project and the lack of practice content. This led to a turn to practice in which the practice development was retracked back to the critical turning point following the intense three month training in the CGI tool (comput generated imagery software package) 3D studio Max and my subsequent turn to craft practices. This return to that critical turning point was very painful to do, but was a necessary one.
At this time, I had met a PhD student from the RCA that was researching the perceptual haptic in Svankmayers films, subsequent discussions revealed that she also had had the same experience with 3Ds Max, and had turned to material practice. She also quoted Svankmayer as saying that cgi is a dead material.
I reengaged with cgi tools to try to examine the tension between human-computer interface while at the same time reengaging with making in material craft processes. It was through the practice experiments of making paper, modelling in cgi and breaking the cgi software, as well as reading the 'practiced digital hand', I began to examine the tension and realised it's complexity and relevance to current discourse.
The tension at the interface between human-computation generally seemed to point to many factors, those being the cognitive load of learning a new software package, the way in which the software is taught to achieve the objective of creating object, world or environmental motion for narrative storytelling predominantly in a photorealistic way, the lack of an intuitive interface in the software package, or cgi mainly smooth, non haptic and tactile aesthetic, the functional process of copy and replication for production optimisation and the general function as an engineering functional industrial tool.
In breaking down the assumptions of how the software could be used I discovered that the optimisation inherent in the software functions could produce a new aesthetic and the functionality of the software itself be revealed. I discover that the use of light effects makes the software inefficient in regards to rendering time, using virtual cameras to reveal the hidden spaces within virtual objects by flying virtual cameras through virtual boundaries reveals a moment of indecision by the computer in which it seems to ask itself should I be showing the front or back of this object, and so it produces a hole. This experiment can be viewed in watching the 'glitch' film. Handling cgi seemed to me to be like handling light. The use of light in cgi and the effects of light through and on actual materials became an important part of the research. I discovered that the use of cross lighting could reveal the surface structure of an actual object in real space whereas in cgi the placement of internal lighting and the effect of transparent materials placed as maps on virtual objects gave the appearance of translucency and varying grades of opacity. But to my mind, the structure of the virtual object was still hidden unless the wire itself was purposefully revealed. I turned to 'Re-imagining Animation' to locate writing on 'light' animation and discovered the artist Joos. It was while on his website that I discovered mutual interest in the world of Henri Bergson, and his interests in Cyborg art. Although his frame of reference seemed more directed towards the cybernetic technology than the organic organismic biology as mine own practice is.
Other projects that were in process at this time was 'The Watch' that illustrates the different notions of time in Bergson's work. In reading 'the practiced digital hand' and thinking about how I experience time at location C I became aware of 'clock' time and time 'unfolding' as in Bergson's duration.
I was also continually asking questions relating to 'How does an object give the appearance of life', How does an animated scene give the appearance of being a life-like world both in Photorealism and as a constructed fantasy animated world? I read books on 'the animated world' attended conferences at the Tate, and animation theory.
I needed to define the term 'animation' from practice, and articulate my own frame of reference on how I configure the term 'life'.
The practice experiments Organima (illustrating a feedback method of oscillating between practice-theory as a method of research), Helios (a study of Heackles single called life-forms that construct their form from the 'ether' of the silica in the water) allowed for experimentation with light and translucency in cgi while also allowing me to think about a simple form of consciousness), Locust (the process of replicating a living creature in cgi and in material craft) allowed for me to think about a more complex consciousness with a simple nervous system but also thinking about swarming behaviour and the structure of the armature of the skeletal object.
Then there was the discovery of the Higgs boson, this was an important aspect of the original interest in quantum mechanics and the consideration of life, and the searching for an understanding of life itself, early in the practice development. I had begun to think about cgi as a system of binary coding and computer language, as well as the DNA coding of the biological form.
In feeling a need to respond to this critical development in science and thinking about the creation of life in the universe, as well as the embedded coding at the base of human, animal and 'world' I developed a short test piece I provisionally entitled 'binary cloud'.
It was bringing together theory on the cybernetic organism, a resignation of practice as engaging with the notions of organismic biology/evolutionary biology in practice and joining up the dots of current and past practice experimentation under the theoretical model of Cybernetic Organism, cyborg theory that I was able to better define aspects of the practice-theory.
Many works engage with technology and craft processes as forms of hybridity with many works making the physical materials dominant. The interest in environmental metamorphosis instead of character animation, could be aligned to visual and special effects in animation and could be termed 'background' animation. The processes of which could be thought of as emergent properties of complex systems, particle dynamics and swarm like behaviour. The kinds of philosophy engaged with such as Henri Bergsons, Gaston Bachelard and Bateson could be considered process philosophy.
A paper published in July edition of 'animation:An interdisciplinary journal' was entitled
This proposed a theory of how the two levels of animation, foreground and background' motion could relate to eastern philosophy.
This can be aligned to current questions that ask,
Is animation a cybernetic organism expressing itself as evidenced in the close alignment to technological evolution and cyborg thematic in animated film? Is it a technological advanced cyborg expressing the history of human-technological development as a document of culture,a cultural cyborg artefact?
Does experimental animation give dominance to background animation in forefronting the processes of entropy and decay in natural materials as the main focus or dominant feature of the film?
Can the philsophy of Henri Bergson, Bachelard and Bateson help to construct a different conceptual model through which Animation could be theorised?
And so it would seem that the research project has expanded before it has been able to contract the research focus, but I feel that certain events and publications necessarily needed to happen before this was a remote possibility.
The finding of cyborg theory, the relocation of practice, the reengagement with process and the consistent reference back to theory have placed the project into a much stronger position.
The next step would be to complete the practice experiments and continue in practice while reviewing all literature to identify the key texts that are now relevant. I need to re write the project contents, glossary and main objected in which the recent publication of the animation thesis I have recently read can help in the basic structure.
The study will be located in 'visual and special effects in animation', but this will be examined through the framework of cyborg theory, complex systems theories in opposition to mechanism/animist theory positions.
The binary paper process can be an illustration of an organic computer animation and can be extended to the human genome in regards to an emergent process of evolution and organic process of change that leads to the notion of an animated film achieving it's objective as being a world that is 'alive'.
In shifting focus from animated object to the animated 'background' environment, and highlighting the accociated 'processes' of natural environmental conditions such as 'entropy' and the relation between the two types of animation I will enable to illustrate this as a animated installation and film.
I am currently thinking about constructing a complete human body as a projection object,and projecting film from experimentation onto it. This object could be connected to it's wider environment as an interactive piece if this is necessary for the illustration. This life scale puppet will be accompanied by the hand made paper produced in experimentation. The main function of this animation would be to play with the notion of emergence in complex systems as an agent for metamorphosis and extract examples of this process for projection onto the animated object and in doing so reverse the usual object dominance as an animation subject and illustrating the necessary aspects of background 'periphery processes'that are usually ambient to varying degrees in animation but essentially give life to the overall animated life of a film (this idea is provisional and will depend on the progress of the short experiments and the availability of data)
For me this begins with what is animation as a term? For me it begins with the process and the ways in which an animated scene is bought to life, for the field it is about how animated film is received by the viewer as either, this character or animated object has been given the appearance of being alive, or this animated world is alive and is a world I wish to suspend disbelief and enter into it.
On reflection I needed to begin with what it is that is being referred to when thinking about the state of being 'alive' and this began with a literature search that revealed that many theorists write about the 'liveliness' of an object or thing as either 'mechanistic' or 'animistic/vitalist'. This is most often in relation to the animated film as whole, or in regards to the characters within the film.
My interest was with the structure of motion, as in the flower observation study at location A, physiological as in Location B but most importantly changing states of motion in nature, as in Location C.
In relating the work conducted in Location C, I could relate this mainly to visual and special effects that created motion and the sense of aliveness in the animated scene. Research into this area led to the discovery of how Disney special effects are studied and observed from nature and how they are extended to morph into character like behaviour, they become animal like to express the narrative of the story.
Location C became a site in which the notion of observed Newtonian motion became layered with micro motion and structure, evolving into the world of quantum mechanics. This came about as I became very interested in the pleuralistic approach to viewing world and my interest in how technology extends human physical limitations.
The project had taken the notion of quantum mechanics and applied this to animation theory to form a research project that was more theory based than practice based. I had begun to construct and argument that could apply the development of quantum theory to the evolving themes in the surrealist Movement and how this had emerged in surrealist animation in france and Weimar in the inter war period.
At the second year review, I and the panel were dissatisfied with the overall framing of the project and the lack of practice content. This led to a turn to practice in which the practice development was retracked back to the critical turning point following the intense three month training in the CGI tool (comput generated imagery software package) 3D studio Max and my subsequent turn to craft practices. This return to that critical turning point was very painful to do, but was a necessary one.
At this time, I had met a PhD student from the RCA that was researching the perceptual haptic in Svankmayers films, subsequent discussions revealed that she also had had the same experience with 3Ds Max, and had turned to material practice. She also quoted Svankmayer as saying that cgi is a dead material.
I reengaged with cgi tools to try to examine the tension between human-computer interface while at the same time reengaging with making in material craft processes. It was through the practice experiments of making paper, modelling in cgi and breaking the cgi software, as well as reading the 'practiced digital hand', I began to examine the tension and realised it's complexity and relevance to current discourse.
The tension at the interface between human-computation generally seemed to point to many factors, those being the cognitive load of learning a new software package, the way in which the software is taught to achieve the objective of creating object, world or environmental motion for narrative storytelling predominantly in a photorealistic way, the lack of an intuitive interface in the software package, or cgi mainly smooth, non haptic and tactile aesthetic, the functional process of copy and replication for production optimisation and the general function as an engineering functional industrial tool.
In breaking down the assumptions of how the software could be used I discovered that the optimisation inherent in the software functions could produce a new aesthetic and the functionality of the software itself be revealed. I discover that the use of light effects makes the software inefficient in regards to rendering time, using virtual cameras to reveal the hidden spaces within virtual objects by flying virtual cameras through virtual boundaries reveals a moment of indecision by the computer in which it seems to ask itself should I be showing the front or back of this object, and so it produces a hole. This experiment can be viewed in watching the 'glitch' film. Handling cgi seemed to me to be like handling light. The use of light in cgi and the effects of light through and on actual materials became an important part of the research. I discovered that the use of cross lighting could reveal the surface structure of an actual object in real space whereas in cgi the placement of internal lighting and the effect of transparent materials placed as maps on virtual objects gave the appearance of translucency and varying grades of opacity. But to my mind, the structure of the virtual object was still hidden unless the wire itself was purposefully revealed. I turned to 'Re-imagining Animation' to locate writing on 'light' animation and discovered the artist Joos. It was while on his website that I discovered mutual interest in the world of Henri Bergson, and his interests in Cyborg art. Although his frame of reference seemed more directed towards the cybernetic technology than the organic organismic biology as mine own practice is.
Other projects that were in process at this time was 'The Watch' that illustrates the different notions of time in Bergson's work. In reading 'the practiced digital hand' and thinking about how I experience time at location C I became aware of 'clock' time and time 'unfolding' as in Bergson's duration.
I was also continually asking questions relating to 'How does an object give the appearance of life', How does an animated scene give the appearance of being a life-like world both in Photorealism and as a constructed fantasy animated world? I read books on 'the animated world' attended conferences at the Tate, and animation theory.
I needed to define the term 'animation' from practice, and articulate my own frame of reference on how I configure the term 'life'.
The practice experiments Organima (illustrating a feedback method of oscillating between practice-theory as a method of research), Helios (a study of Heackles single called life-forms that construct their form from the 'ether' of the silica in the water) allowed for experimentation with light and translucency in cgi while also allowing me to think about a simple form of consciousness), Locust (the process of replicating a living creature in cgi and in material craft) allowed for me to think about a more complex consciousness with a simple nervous system but also thinking about swarming behaviour and the structure of the armature of the skeletal object.
Then there was the discovery of the Higgs boson, this was an important aspect of the original interest in quantum mechanics and the consideration of life, and the searching for an understanding of life itself, early in the practice development. I had begun to think about cgi as a system of binary coding and computer language, as well as the DNA coding of the biological form.
In feeling a need to respond to this critical development in science and thinking about the creation of life in the universe, as well as the embedded coding at the base of human, animal and 'world' I developed a short test piece I provisionally entitled 'binary cloud'.
It was bringing together theory on the cybernetic organism, a resignation of practice as engaging with the notions of organismic biology/evolutionary biology in practice and joining up the dots of current and past practice experimentation under the theoretical model of Cybernetic Organism, cyborg theory that I was able to better define aspects of the practice-theory.
Many works engage with technology and craft processes as forms of hybridity with many works making the physical materials dominant. The interest in environmental metamorphosis instead of character animation, could be aligned to visual and special effects in animation and could be termed 'background' animation. The processes of which could be thought of as emergent properties of complex systems, particle dynamics and swarm like behaviour. The kinds of philosophy engaged with such as Henri Bergsons, Gaston Bachelard and Bateson could be considered process philosophy.
A paper published in July edition of 'animation:An interdisciplinary journal' was entitled
This proposed a theory of how the two levels of animation, foreground and background' motion could relate to eastern philosophy.
This can be aligned to current questions that ask,
Is animation a cybernetic organism expressing itself as evidenced in the close alignment to technological evolution and cyborg thematic in animated film? Is it a technological advanced cyborg expressing the history of human-technological development as a document of culture,a cultural cyborg artefact?
Does experimental animation give dominance to background animation in forefronting the processes of entropy and decay in natural materials as the main focus or dominant feature of the film?
Can the philsophy of Henri Bergson, Bachelard and Bateson help to construct a different conceptual model through which Animation could be theorised?
And so it would seem that the research project has expanded before it has been able to contract the research focus, but I feel that certain events and publications necessarily needed to happen before this was a remote possibility.
The finding of cyborg theory, the relocation of practice, the reengagement with process and the consistent reference back to theory have placed the project into a much stronger position.
The next step would be to complete the practice experiments and continue in practice while reviewing all literature to identify the key texts that are now relevant. I need to re write the project contents, glossary and main objected in which the recent publication of the animation thesis I have recently read can help in the basic structure.
The study will be located in 'visual and special effects in animation', but this will be examined through the framework of cyborg theory, complex systems theories in opposition to mechanism/animist theory positions.
The binary paper process can be an illustration of an organic computer animation and can be extended to the human genome in regards to an emergent process of evolution and organic process of change that leads to the notion of an animated film achieving it's objective as being a world that is 'alive'.
In shifting focus from animated object to the animated 'background' environment, and highlighting the accociated 'processes' of natural environmental conditions such as 'entropy' and the relation between the two types of animation I will enable to illustrate this as a animated installation and film.
I am currently thinking about constructing a complete human body as a projection object,and projecting film from experimentation onto it. This object could be connected to it's wider environment as an interactive piece if this is necessary for the illustration. This life scale puppet will be accompanied by the hand made paper produced in experimentation. The main function of this animation would be to play with the notion of emergence in complex systems as an agent for metamorphosis and extract examples of this process for projection onto the animated object and in doing so reverse the usual object dominance as an animation subject and illustrating the necessary aspects of background 'periphery processes'that are usually ambient to varying degrees in animation but essentially give life to the overall animated life of a film (this idea is provisional and will depend on the progress of the short experiments and the availability of data)
