Summative Hand-in
I have created an initial series of animations that will be part of my final project. These have helped me understand the nuances of establishing the visual language I intend to utilize, allowing me to understand its limitations, strengths, and methodologies. To begin with, I created simple and abstract loops, in which organic elements move, transform and flow. Doing this helped me develop my skills with Toon Boom Harmony, which after a lot of experimentation I have decided is the software best suited for my aims. I created a first draft in which I placed these elements within a single composition, with the objective of visualizing how they could relate with each other within the screen, and get a first impression of the rhythms and patterns that arise from the interactions. Following this initial stage, I have begun the process of creating the narrative backbone of my piece.
The animation begins with an image of an eye appearing on a blank screen. The eye is one of the central motif of the piece. It symbolizes the subjective nature of human experiences, as well as playing with the words “eye” and “I”. Everything stems from the fact of being an “I”, a human capable of consciousness, cognition and perception; the animation, which attempts to illustrate ideas of interconnectedness, seeks interpret poetically the immense capacity of contemporary society to peer into the fabric of reality, zooming into the micro and the macro. The eye serves as metaphor for this act of observation, as well as the unified being that perceives with it. It is also a lens itself, that focuses light as well as attention in order to apprehend the world. The eye is the beginning, the “I” from that peers and creates meaning.
This eye will then move within the space, being observed from the sided, which makes it a more abstract, mechanical looking object. After blinking a few times, a tree will appear to grow from its lens. Once again, this plays on the idea of the “eye – I” as origin, and introduces another pivotal motif, that of the tree, which is the most basic, relatable and perhaps beautiful expression of the fractal shape of nature. A branch in a tree is small image of the whole tree. Its shape is also a metaphor used within many other sciences, such as the often heard “tree of life” which evolution is often described to be. This tree will grow from the eye, and then I will zoom into one of its branches. From it, a fractal form will sprout, repeating the basic action of splitting in two, which will create a round container-like shape, resembling a flower.
So far, I have managed to animate to this point. So far, I have created everything spontaneously, letting the narrative invent itself as I go. I am familiar with this approach to creativity, which is like the process of collage, in which relationships happen randomly and new, unexpected meanings are formed.
I have a loose plan of the direction I intend for the narration to take. I plan on using the fractal branches of the flower as a loom, with which a “fabric” is created – this fabric will play on the idea of the “fabric of creation”, as well as introducing the image of the dark matter web that is the overarching gravitational structure of the universe, and which is what leads to pockets of density to form. This, in turn, leads to galaxies, stars and eventually planets to be born. This “web” that will be woven by the fractal flower-loom is another one of the shapes that repeat themselves amongst different systems within nature: dark matter, neurons, mycelium, and even the internet utilize this shape as a way of maximizing communication. Once this web is established, I plan on zooming into it. Within, the spiral shape of galaxies will be visible, which is another of the fractal motifs I intend on using. These galaxies will spin and whorl, and within them spherical suns and planets shall form.
I am not sure exactly how the narrative will progress after this point, but I have the general idea of the planets forming, and then once again into zooming them. Then, life will form, by means of surreal, organic machines I have been developing with my drawings, and begin to evolve, by means of the organic machinery of DNA, amino acids and proteins. Eventually, it well lead to the birth of a human being – I will show its eye opening, which will allow me to loop the whole piece once again. This looping design will allow me to create small differences on each round, emphasizing certain elements and creating variety, as well as extending the length of the piece as much as needed.
As I explained in my previous hand-in, I intend for this piece to serve as an element of a performance piece. I have continued training different types of dance, articulately hip-hop and contemporary, with the idea of inviting a choreograph that will accompany the animation. By making it looped, I can make the dance repeat itself, which is a common way of structuring dance pieces, since it allows movement to be deepened and reiterated in order to make it clearer.
I had proposed the idea of inventing a software platform with which to generate a system of improvising. So far, I haven’t continued with that avenue of exploration, because once I started animating it became evident that I need to work on a central backbone around which to articulate the piece. Thus, I will let that idea rest for the time-being, and instead focus on creating a clear and engaging central structure. This also allows me to think of using the material I generate as a film, and not only as part of the performance. However, given that time runs short, I will be focusing mainly on developing the interactions between dance and animation, as well as perfecting the visual language I am using for the piece.
Last year I created a series of surreal video collages, which I still consider are worth developing. Hence, time-permitting, I want to see if it is possible to make the simple line-drawn material interact with this footage, perhaps echoing the work of Don Hertzfeldt, one of my main references, and the subject of my dissertation. I am fascinated by his capacity to elicit awe upon an audiecec, using a subtle combination of simple characters and a creative and fantastical use of analogue and digital animation techniques, such as in It’s Such a Beautiful Day and World of Tomorrow.
I have continued exploring poetry within the context of the performance piece I am creating. I intend to accompany the images, movement and music with a spoken poem, which will make the narrative clearer.
In terms of the music of the piece, I am still in dialogue with Dara Etefaghi, with the hopes of having him design a musical piece to accompany the performance. Next sesmter, once I have a clearer structure and an initial draft, I will collaborate with him to design this piece.
I have finished the Glass Chain project animation. With the help of Greame Wilson and Ceyan Hay, two musicians from ECA. We created a soundtrack for the piece using only glass objects – glasses, cups, bowls, beads, bells – which goes along with the crystalline nature of the piece, as well as the historical background. I am satisfied with the result, and consider that the music tied the whole piece together and solved certain pacing problems it had.
Extract from my dissertation “Peering into the Folds of Change: The Lens as a Metaphor for Animation”:
Animation, as I have demonstrated, is a broad and powerful medium which humans can utilize as a “lens” with which to observe both the inner and outer worlds, using it to make otherwise veiled aspects of reality visible. This ranges from complex scientific problems, which become clear and can be furthered developed when made into moving images, to the art of communicating these problems to the public, inviting them to question their understanding of reality, and its ethical complexities. And, as an artistic medium, it can also give visible form to subtle and metaphorical questions about humanity and its relationship with the future. As such, I intend to analyse my own animation practice, and attempt to evaluate it as well as place it within this rich context. My purpose it to use it as a lens which brings the audience closer to aspects of reality that aren’t immediately visible, and, by doing so, find relationships amongst things which result in a feeling of interconnectedness amongst scales. As a practicing animator, my main interest is to use it as a creative medium with which I can peer into the morphing depths of reality, and communicate the intrinsic complexity and sheer beauty of the mysteries of nature. As I have demonstrated, animation allows artists to bring together many different forms of expression together, crafting sequences of movement which can make manifest phenomena that would otherwise remain hidden. I want to wield the imaginative freedom of animation to craft pieces in which certain aspects of nature can be given visual form, and compose these into work that reveal the inner emergent order that is displayed throughout all scales of the universe. As science progresses, we are capable of better understanding the complex dynamics of nature’s inner workings, making them visible with animation techniques that allow us to observe their patterns of change. I intend to utilize this knowledge to create artistic pieces that can translate the inherent beauty of these workings into a relatable, inspiring and revealing shape. Reality displays a powerful interconnectedness amongst all its scales that is, in my opinion, an important reminder about how humans, as part of it, should think holistically about themselves and their relationship with the world. Animation, thus, is the medium that allows me to generate shapes and transformations that can make these connections explicit. At the same time, it isn’t a stable, rational endeavour; on the contrary, it is enormously expressive and free. I can approach it with a loose, imaginative attitude. This, in turn, expresses the inherent spontaneity of creativity, as seen through the artist’s quest to loosen the vice-like grip of normality, and find hidden, paradoxical truths, and communicate them to audiences.
One of the main reasons I am interested in animation is that it allows me to render within the frame any scale of nature, establishing dialogues amongst them and revealing parallels and repetitions. I am fascinated by the holographic characteristics that nature seems to display, in which shapes, patterns and processes repeat themselves in all the scales we can perceive. This makes me feel deep awe, which in turn elicits a sense of wonder and respect of nature. It helps me forget my personal turmoil, and instead reminds me that I am but merely an element on a far greater whole, which is reality itself, and me being a part of it. By using animation, I can create art that can incorporate not only the images where this interconnectedness can be perceived, but the dynamic movement that is inherent in it, as things in nature never stop transforming and morphing from one state to the next. Animation is the only medium I have found that allows me to create pieces that make this constant movement evident. My current practice seeks to incorporate a wealth of visual references I have compiled from various scientific documents, and create a collage of different organic elements in the process of transformation. I intend to create an abstract narrative structure that illustrates the origin of the universe as science understands it so far, and imagine a fantastical system which gives birth to galaxies, then planets, then life, and eventually humans, who in turn wonder and go on to create art about their origins, in a closed loop. I hope this piece will function as a lens capable of zooming into the fractal nature of reality, and transmit to an audience my fascination and wonder.
As technology becomes ever-present, and screens becomes a pivotal element of humanity, it is important and enlightening to attempt to understand animation, which is both a product and an engine for our capacity to express ourselves within this context. The metaphor of the ”lens” I have explored seeks to encapsulate the wide variety of functions animation can serve, and the multitude of forms of communication it is integral to. Animation has the capacity of visualizing phenomena that would otherwise remain hidden, revealing the intricacies of the way these phenomena change within time. It can zoom, like a lens does, into the deeper underlying structures of reality, allowing our optical sense to decipher infrmation. Data makes sense when it is expressed visually. Similarly, as science continues to delve and reveal reality’s functioning, animation serves a useful role as a means of communicating these findings, creating engaging and entertaining pieces in which anthropomorphic cartoons can enhance the meaning and relatability of otherwise dry, abstract science. And, undoubtedly, animation excels as an artistic medium with which to convey the intrinsic beauty of the mysteries of the universe, and their relationship with our minds. By crating visual worlds, animation can imagine ways of communicating subtle and metaphorical ideas to an audience, allowing creators to craft languages, images and characters with which the viewer can relate. Like a lens, it can be customized and designed to serve specific purposes, making visible both the micro and the macro scales, and even taking it a step further and making them dialogue, revealing their fractal nature. This new way of thinking about this discipline has allowed me to expand its definition, acknowledging it’s enormous scope within the endeavour of human creativity, and thus enhance my own practice. In the end, I hope to be able to use animation to give visual form to a wide spectrum of phenomena, revealing their interconnectedness and wonder.
Formative Hand-in:
Throughout this semester, I have continued working on the ideas that were proposed last semester, as well as exploring new ones, a s well as finding ways of materializing the conceptual framework I have developed into a concrete piece. I have continued researching different scientific concepts that pertain to the central theme of “Creation” that has been central to my work so far. I have read books about chaos and emergent properties, dynamical systems, A.I, and fractal shapes, which have helped me understand certain aspects of the natural process of creation that complement my already established ideas.
After experiencing the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, I have understood, with great effort, that my main interest in animation lies in its potential as a tool for collaboration, trans-disciplinary creation, and dialogue with other artists. I had the fortune of meeting many fascinating and talented performers, who allowed me to visualize an aspect of creation that had remained in a secondary plane before, and which involves the creation of experiences and characters by means of the body, as a medium which is inherently capable of incredible feats of expression, as well as a tool that must be sharpened. Back in Colombia I worked extensively in improvisational and physical theatre, as well as dance, but abandoned that line of work in my effort to focus on creating animated pieces. The Fringe reminded me of the body’s potential as a creative medium. Also, I managed to glimpse the lifestyle of these artistic performers, which involves travelling, training and constantly collaborating, which aligns with my vision of art as a means of reaching and connecting with others, not just as an artefact on a screen but as an embodied, constant way of living. Thus, I have decided to transform my project. Instead of creating a short film, as I had initially planned, I have decided to create a performance, in which my multiple artistic interests can merge into a single experience: animation, dance, poetry, and, perhaps, collage. To do so, I am refining the work done last semester, and finding ways of translating it into a format that is suitable for projection and interaction with actual bodies.
I still intend to focus on the central concept of creation. I plan on developing an animated piece in which all manners of organic shapes, inspired in trees, bacteria, proteins, cells and a wealth of other elements of life and nature, as well as shapes inspired in astronomy and physics, such as spirals and strange attractors, can converge on a narrative in which a universe is born, grows, and eventually creates life. I have worked on developing an abstract yet clear visual narrative that connects all of these, using basic lines and textures, which allow me to easily and quickly develop movement and transformation of shapes. Parallel to establishing a central backbone around which to develop this narrative, I have been working on designing a series of small animated gifs that will serve as elements that can be combined and articulated to create a greater, more complex whole. This is inspired on the way in which DNA makes life, via the “language” of amino acids and proteins, which, using a limited number of “letters”, creates “words” and eventually “meaning”: life, made of reducible and distinct parts, that when arranged in specific orders create organisms, which have evolved into life as we can observe it. I intend on making a diverse range of these animations based on organic shapes and motifs, which afterwards can be used as a palette to create interesting forms, rhythms and structures.
Eventually, I would like to bring elements from my collage practice into this process. I have created a collage piece for the internationally-renown circus company “Fauna”, inspired by their show in the Fringe. Working on this piece helped me reinvigorate my creativity, by letting me enter the “flow” of finding spontaneous relationships amongst different fragments, in order to form interesting dialogues and images that work as whole, beyond the limited scope of their constituent parts. This way, the boundaries of micro and macro can be prodded for new meanings and symbolic palimpsests.
I am still working on the structure that allows me to relate this initial animated premise with the idea of adapting it into a performance piece involving dancers. I have taken part in a wide variety of dance workshops in Dance Base, which have allowed me to practice my dancing skills as well as begin to network with dancers and choreographers, setting the ground for a possible workshop, at some point in 2018, in which I can experiment with ways of using this animated material as a starting point for a show.
I envision creating a software platform that works as a live performance system in which a multitude of small animated GIFS (which echo the cut pieces of a collage) can be easily arranged, scaled or rotated to compose a large, spontaneous amalgam of forms which move and transform in distinct ways. This would allow me to respond improvisational to a dancer, making the process of exploring movement a lot easier. To develop this, I plan on collaborating with Sky Su, a software developer, who is also a dancer and an ECA alumni.
