Digital Reality: Blurring the lines between nature and codes

While listening to music while drawing, I came accross the music video for David Guetta's "She wolf". Although the music is much to be diesred, I found the video quite interesting.




 

The visuals and tone of the clip, dark and cold, somehow fit very well with the track. But what is perhaps most striking is the relationship between the enviroment and the digital distortions that occur throughout the video.

I searched for articles reggarding the blurring of the lines between nature and digital reality, and surprisingly found very little, but I will carry on in hopes of finding something with an accademic background.

I believe that in a creative setting, this would be a really interseting concept for perhaps a novel or a graphic novel, as it induces to think about the enviroment from a different point of view and forces the creator to think outside the box. I will certainly try to intoduce this in one of my presonal projects.

Japan's Monsters

In this lecture, we spoke of Japanese culture and aesthetic, how its consumerism has affected society and its appeal to western media.
The focus of the lecture was to establish the line between "Cute" and "Monstrous", a line that's very blurred when we look at a piece of animation like my Neghbour Totoro:

 

Although the characters may look soft and with a sunny disposition, they all have certain features that render them slightly morbid and disturbing, like the Catbus as we see above.

The "Giant Monster on the loose" genre is also significant in japanese entertainment, as one of the most famous "Giant Monster" film, Godzilla, now a clut movie, is originally Japanese.

This genre, though, emerged also in american filmaking, as we see with King Kong.

With this in mind, it easy to see the meaning of Geissbhuler's Pease Poster.

Speedpainting

During my struggle to gain interenet visibility, I decided to create a YouTube channel and upload speedpainting videos.I go introduced to speedpainting videos during my early studies and I've always found them an excelent source of inspiration.
A speedpainting is a video in which an artist records themselves creating a digital or traditional drawing or painting, speeding it up and editing the footage, creating a record or their creative process
Here are just a few examples by popular YouTube artists:

SeaSaltShrimp:


                                                                                                                                                                 
Mary Doodles:



                                                                   
Vivziepop:

Animation: a History

"Animation refers to the creation of a sequence of images—drawn, painted, or produced by other artistic methods—that change over time to portray the illusion of motion."
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Zeotrope:
Invented by William Geroge Horner in 1834.
Injected movement into the still image by creating a succession of still onto a round base and, thanks to the fast spinning motion, induced movement, or rather, animation.
The zeotrope allowed a multiple audience.

 

Contemporary zeotropes can be found at Pixars Studios and Studio Ghibli:

Rotoscope:
Invented by Max Fleicher in 1915.
it was a device used to trace live action

 

It was complicated to use due to the speed of the capture; it was also hard to draw smooth and life-like movements.

Research:

Cell Animation:

Invented in 1915.

It was easier to produce with more stable results; fluid animation.

Research:

Postmodern: The Fourth Wall

One of the characteristics that defines postmodern work is the concept of breaking the fourth wall, a "practice" which consists of breaking the so called wall between the spectator or viewer and the piece of work being shown. 

This concept follows the phylosophical ideologies of Denis Diderot but the fourth wall illusion is often associated with naturalist theatre of the mid 19th century.

As mentioned, the fourth wall is the immaginary wall at the front to a stage in a traditional three wall box-ste, through which the audience sees the play. This concept applies to any from of entertainment, including books, comics and videogames in which the charachters talk directly to the reader or player.

When we talk about comic books, the character most famous for breaking the fourth wall is Marvel's Deadpool:

Other than being a generally complex character, despite being famous for his outgoing, annoying and at times rude personality, Deadpool and the storyline that follows him faces other deep concepts such as death and how man reacts to it, self-awareness and the descovery of one's true nature and reason of existance, self-conflict and awareness of ones flaws, and the multiverse theory.

Here are some examples:

In animation we see the breaking of the fourth wall in the Loony Toons short "Duck Amuck", in which Daffy Duck, the protagoinst is forced to adapt to the constantly changing scenerey that the animator creates. 

Creepy and Surreal: The Uncanny

In this lecture we faced the topics of Surrealism and the Uncanny, two very interesting topics when applied to art.

As explained, there's a substantial difference between surreal and uncanny.
Surreal is something that is distorted and strange but the viewer sees it straight away. For example:

But Uncanny is something equally strange but the viewer can't grasp it right away:

For an Uncanny effect we can distinguish something strange about something familiar from something strange added to something familiar.

The Uncanny is more disturbing than surprising.

We see this in E.T.A. Hoffman's "Sandman"

Nathanael, the hero, first encounters the Sandman in the form of a grotesque lawyer, who performs alchemical experiments with his father after Nathanael and his sisters have gone to bed. One night Nathanael hides and sees what's going on. But he is discovered, and nearly has his eyes burned out with coals. He escapes but, subsequently, his father is found dead after an accident with an experiment.

"Don't you know?" asks the unfortunate hero's nanny. “[the Sandman] is a wicked man who comes to children when they won't go to bed and throws handfuls of sand in their eyes, so that they pop right out of their heads all covered in blood, and then he throws them in a sack and carries them off to the half-moon to feed to his little children; they sit there in the nest, and have hooked beaks like owls, which they use to peck the eyes out of the heads of naughty children."

This Stop Motion Animation is based on the Gothic Horror Story by E.T.A. Hoffmann, and features carved wooden puppets

The Uncanny is a conceptual point in a graph created by Masahiro Mori entitled the Uncanny valley. In this graph we see how the line move between the realism of an object, or in this case a person, and the empathic response of the viewer:

This is also explained in detail in a video created by Vsauce on Youtube:

Backwater Gospel

Here is " The Backwater Gospel" created by Bo Mathorne.

This fantastic 9 minute short speaks of a small town in an arid area of North America in which it's inhabitants are tormented by strict religion and death.

The visuals, the plot, the soundtrack and the atmosphere this piece portrais is incredibly detailed, giving the viewer a constant sense of dread and anxiety.

Here is the production video:

This is an extremely well produced piece. One that is ceratinly worth watching.

Workshop Week 1 Animations

Here are the animations created in the first Workshop Week. I have also included links to the Uni Blog where more explanations are provided.

Pilot Animation from Stefania Rebaudo on Vimeo.

http://srebaudouniblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/httpsvimeo.html

Demolition Animation from Stefania Rebaudo on Vimeo.

http://srebaudouniblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/demolition-animation.html

Particle Spray Animation from Stefania Rebaudo on Vimeo.

http://srebaudouniblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/particle-spray-animation.html

Dense Liquid Animation from Stefania Rebaudo on Vimeo.

http://srebaudouniblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/dense-liquid-animation.html

Propaganda

In this Seminar we were presented with a few propaganda posters and asked how they affected us and our judgement of them and the situation they portraied.

 How does the example from the magazine play on the viewer’s emotions to achieve its effects? Consider both its content and stylistic approach. 

Just by seeing the expression on the man's face, it noticable his concern and seriousness as he tries to respond to his daughter. Family is very important during these post-war times, and this poster depics it in a way that almost blackmails the viewer to take action and support war based establishments.

How does the example provided depict women/men? How is gender used in this example to sell a product? Again, consider both style and content. 

Post-war ideologies where extremely male oriented, and just by reading the slogan, we understand how women where treated and viewed as people that tended to the family and that had very little say in other matters.

Animation Heroes

In this Lecture, it was discussed how animation has affected and is affected by society, science and the economy.

The main themes where:

-Playful Politics: Reflection of social norms, which refferenced cartoons such as Top Cat, Yogi Bear, Tom and Jerry, Marvel's Spiderman and the Magic Roundabout, to explain norms that, although are not written or taugh, seem to be understood; an example could be the difference between good and bad or rich and poor.

-Sofa Satire: Narratives and issues from the events of the time: Series like Family Guy and the Simpsons, that depict everyday life of a working lower middle-class family and how they face different daily obstacles, face them in a comedic way and always get a "happy ending"

-Girl Culture: A vehicle for consumer indoctrination: A short study on not only animated series targeted to children are based on toys and other goods, but also install a very strong sense of gender difference, from the use of coulurs and sounds, to narratives and animation styles.

-Authority: Challenging the status Quo: an observation on how recent works of animation like South Park are challenging the common conventions of everyday life and viewing it in a different prospective.

-Us & Them Branding: Epitome of Emotional Attachment and Consumer Culture: how cartoons have made us attach to a conumer agenda.

How do we think about Gender and Sexual Difference?

Week 7 Lecture Notes

This Lecture examined how gender difference and feminism have influenced politics, art, society and social networks.

The main theme was !W.A.R. (!Women Art Revolution), a feminist film that explores the role of women during the political instabilities in 1960/70 America.

-For over forty years, Director Lynn Hershman Leeson has collected hundreds of hours of interviews with visionary artists, historians, curators and critics who shaped the beliefs and values of the Feminist Art Movement and reveal previously undocumented strategies used to politicize female artists and integrate women into art structures.

!Women Art Revolution elaborates the relationship of the Feminist Art Movement to the 1960s anti-war and civil rights movements and explains how historical events, such as the all-male protest exhibition against the invasion of Cambodia, sparked the first of many feminist actions against major cultural institutions. The film details major developments in women’s art of the 1970s, including the first feminist art education programs, political organizations and protests, alternative art spaces such as the A.I.R. Gallery and Franklin Furnace in New York and the Los Angeles Women’s Building, publications such as Chrysalis and Heresies, and landmark exhibitions, performances, and installations of public art that changed the entire direction of art.

New ways of thinking about the complexities of gender, race, class, and sexuality evolved. The Guerrilla Girls emerged as the conscience of the art world and held academic institutions, galleries, and museums accountable for discrimination practices. Over time, the tenacity and courage of these pioneering women artists resulted in what many historians now feel is the most significant art movement of the late 20th century.- 

The site: http://womenartrevolution.com/

Evolution of Architecture

During the course of my studies I found that Architecture has been a great resource for understanding the vrious hitorical and artistic movements. I began roughly at the start of the IX century, when glass and metal where starting to take center stage in industrial architecture. Then I moved on in chronological order, finally reaching the utopian visions of the practice Archigram. 

Here are a few images that describe the main movements in architecture, starting from Paxton's Crystal Palace, Olbrich's Secession Building, Gaudi` and Victor Horta's works of Art Nouveau, moving on to Adolf Loos's Tzara Mansion and finally an Archigram Poster and the Vimeo clip "Walking City" which describes in detail the evolution of Archigram's styles.

       

                   
                   Walking City from Universal Everything on Vimeo.

Illustration Made in Italy

Here we have a few of the works of Italian artist and illustrator Paolo Barbieri.

Paolo Barbieri is a self taught artist that specialises in Fantasy and Sci-Fi illustrations. Some of his most well know works include illustrations for books such as "L'apocalisse", a series of detailed and colourful illustrations based on the verses of the Apocalypse from the Bible, "L'inferno di Dante", illustrations based and interpreted form Dante's Divine Comedy, "Favole degli Dei", illustrations based on Greek legends and Myths. He also created Covers for italian fantasy novels, including the series "Le Guerre del Mondo Emerso".

I personally find his sketches and illustrations spellbinding, the amount of detail and care depicted in his works make him an extremely versatile and talented artist.

http://www.paolobarbieriart.com