Cognitive Zest » Media Artists

458nm + The Cags

jedypod — Sun, 27 May 2007 03:55:37 +0000

I was just looking at some videos on MeFeedia.com, and came across this amazing 3D animated short called 458nm.

“It’s midnight. A smattering of moonlight falls upon the forest floor. Two mechanical snails move slowly through the darkness. They confront one another and briefly take the measure each other’s powers before uniting in love play. With mounting ecstasy, their transparent bodies begin to glow, but just before climax a dark shadow looms over them…” (from the twitchfilm.net review).

458nm can be viewed on the No Fat Clips blog.
[See post to watch Flash video]

The Cags is a short 3D film from Russia, available as a DivX download, and quite amazing to watch.

The Movers and Shakers of 3D animation of 2005 also has some other interesting works, including the previously mentioned 90 degrees.

Peter Rose VOX 13 Series (1982 – 2000) on UbuWeb

jedypod — Mon, 07 May 2007 02:16:50 +0000

Peter Rose is an experimental media artist currently a professor of media studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Recently I and my fellow students of media at the Evergreen State College had the good fortune of receiving a couple of great presentations about his work and philosophy and creative processes that he gave here.

The reason I am writing about him here, is to key anyone who might be interested in to the fact that a collection of his works regarding language, the VOX 13 series, are online in full quality full length form at UbuWeb.

Taken in the aggregate, Vox 13 offers a grand circumnavigation of the subject of language. By turns it is a reflexive riff on reading, a hyperdimensional performance piece about gesture, a horror story told by a computer, an opera about the voice, a documentary on the transience of language, a metanarrative about the elements of story, an Edenic parable, a kinetic koan, an arch ideological satire, a joke about semiotics, a materialist metaphor, and a performance piece about communication. The opus considers what it means to read, what it means to listen, when it is that we speak, how words acquire meaning, what it means to write, who we listen to, how we listen, what speaks, other ways we can speak, what the voice is, where language can be found, what words do to time, what holds stories together, and how light shapes language. There are reflections on time and language and there are explorations of the places where speech and power seem to intersect. I offer a nod to Tom Phillips’ “A Humument,”, the Firesign Theatre, the Four Horseman, Sid Caesar, early Woody Allen, Julian Jaynes, the Sackners, W. H. Hudson, sehtraB dnaloR, and Ludwig Wittgenstein who, in one of his more jovial moments, announced that “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” Much of this work is a voluble illustration of that dictum.

- Peter Rose

Here is one work of particular interest for me, The Darkening.

Rabbit, Owl

jedypod — Wed, 02 May 2007 07:46:47 +0000

Recently I happened across the animation “Rabbit” by Run Wrake, on the DVblog website (a rather prolifically updated compilation of interesting video). I had seen this screened in SOS: Media by Ruth Hayes previously, but thought I would share it here, as the 3rd post in this little series of interesting and notable “Multimedia Discoveries”.

Here is the YouTube version for streaming.

If you wish a higher quality copy to experience, here is a Quicktime version.
Rabbit

The Owl is a music video for the somewhat post-rock band I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness, by the excellent Emmanuel Ho. The interesting thing about this music video is that it was created entirely in After Effects, using primarily the Pen tool.

Maywa Denki

jedypod — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 21:48:09 +0000

Maywa Denki are a group of artists and engineers in Tokyo, Japan. They are known for their creation of absurdly creative “nonsense machines“, and other works of electromechanical devices which are gloriously surreal in their purpose and functioning.

Here are some blog posts for further reading.

The Nonsense Machines of Maywa Denki
PopGadget – Maywa Denki
Suicide Bots – Maywa Denki
Hand Circus – Maywa Denki
Maywa Denki Homepage

Online Video Discoveries of Excellence: Doll Face + Dog + 90 Degrees

jedypod — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 01:08:44 +0000

In the following space, I would enjoy presenting to you a collection of excellent short videos and animations that I have come across on the Internet. This collection is arbitrary and non-encompassing; as such, expect more posts of this sort to follow.

Doll Face
A slightly interesting and notable example of a simple conceptual 3D animation by Andy Huang. ( There is also an interesting interview with him about the creation of Doll Face ). Evidence of the importance of conceptual intention in the creation of meaning. Animation is heralded for its ability to convey in a compressed time-space a matching complexity of meaning to long-form narrative works, is it not? Download the Original, or watch the Youtube embed below.

Dog
Shown this 3D stop-motion animation short by Suzie Templeton a long time ago by my associate Brad Hutchinson, and I was blown away by the beauty and intensity of this animation, and would enjoy sharing that with you now. There are a couple other films by Templeton watchable on Youtube, including her new 30 minute epic Peter and the Wolf.

90 Degrees
Shown this animation by my friend Fred Blasdel, I was amazed and inspired by how polished and flawless the work of students could be. Created by students at the excellent Gobelins school of animation in France, this 3D generated short possesses a very interesting element of the synchresis of the sound-design reinforcing the visual aspect and enhancing the conveyance of the narrative / meaning. This walks the line between music video and experimental short film; a delicious line of intrigue. A higher definition quicktime version of this can be watched here.

Thorsten Fleisch

jedypod — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 09:43:51 +0000

Thorsten Fleisch is an experimental media artist from Germany, who has produced some very interesting work in the realm of animation, experimental imaging, and generative audio-visual / mathematical media. All of his work is compelling, some bordering on amazing and inspiring to myself. Gestalt was created by rendering still images of 4th dimensional Quaternion fractal structures unfolding into 3 dimensional space, and then altering the parameters of the fractal equation to create animation.

I also recommend that you visit the FleischArchive, and check out some of the really amazing old animation that is present there.

This discovery was facilitated by this post on Generator X, an amazing and informative compilative weblog and news website containing information relating to generative art, aesthetics, new media, and technology.

Soon Mi Yoo: The Modality of Meaning in Essayisticity

jedypod — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 17:16:48 +0000

Michael Renov’s discussion of the term essayistic in nonfiction autobiographical film and video lended a lucid and meaningful context to approach the cinema of Soon Mi Yoo. The essayistic is less concerned with the categorization and classification of genre, but rather to analyze the methods of the creation of meaning. “Rather than assemble a model to which a series of works might be forced to conform, the intent is to ask how and under what conditions meaning is produced in certain texts” (Renov 09 col2). Essayistic elements are very prevalent in both films of Mi Yoo that we viewed, in the nonlinearly progressive construction, both in the strong reliance on the expressive function of associative dialectic between visual imagery and sound.

Soon Mi Yoo’s films are very writerly in their construction. Issues and conclusions are not laid out in a linear friendly way that will clearly inform an audience of a certain idea. Instead, presentation is often convoluted and circular in some sense. Issues still arise and are discussed, but concrete conclusions are often left for the audience to interpret or consciously reason out on their own. “Repetition, dispersion, and digression maintain their hold throughout; there is a conclusion but no end” (Renov 12 col1). The essayistic is then an interrogation, a research, a discovery through an “active critical process,” which the ‘reader’ or watcher is a part of (Renov 11 col2). This is very much evident in Faith, as the shifting emotional memories of Faith and Soon Mi Yoo lead us through the narrative of the piece, in a circular and sometimes repeating structure. As Tournon writes of Montaigne’s writing practice, and which seems to be telling of the essayistic, “thought can abandon its theme at any time to examine its own workings, question its acquired knowledge or exploit its incidental potentialities” (Renov 11 col1).

Very much a part of this active readerly process is the expressive function of the relationship between the visual and auditory components of Soon Mi Yoo’s films. This oppositional strategy to the conventions of traditional documentary allow a much more nuanced and interesting approach. “The expressive dimension remains sorely underdeveloped in current documentary practice, the play of the signifier held in dutiful harness to the signified” (Renov 09 col1). In the films of Soon Mi Yoo which I have seen, it seems that often the voiceover contains the primary portrayal and discussion of the ideas in the piece, while the corresponding visual elements serve an associative, expressive role. This is especially evident in Faith, in the way that the layered dual voiceovers reminisce, while seemingly disassociated, or sometimes thematically tangentially related scenes present themselves on screen.

The expressive dimension is possibly better exemplified in the nuanced and sometimes difficult to comprehend associations between different components of Soon Mi Yoo’s films. In Ssitkim: Talking to the Dead, there is a recurring and logically inexplicable sound of tearing or scraping that occurs periodically throughout the film. Separate from this sound, and never occurring at the same time, is the written list of the names of the dead. This list progressively becomes more and more worn and difficult to read as the film goes on. Suddenly it struck me that the ink comprising the text appeared as if it were partly scratched off, as if with a knife or other sharp instrument, and then this idea associated itself with the scratching sounds heard earlier. I’m sure that the subtle nuanced associations that contribute in a compelling and profound way to the meaning of the film are excessively abundant for those that are willing to look. As Sally said in our seminar, one can’t fully analyze Soon Mi Yoo’s films with our logical cognitive selves, we must look more deeply for the nuanced and emblematic sources of expressive meaning as well.

I am very fond of the work of Soon Mi Yoo, with its intricate, carefully and intelligently constructed, and subtly nuanced and artistically expressive attributes. I can already see some strategies she uses apparent in my own work. I have always naturally gravitated towards a writerly (and essayistic in some regards) method of presenting my ideas in a piece, choosing to attempt to allow the viewer to read their own ideas and reasoning into whatever ideas or themes I present. Accomplishing this through subtly nuanced associations between different aspects of the film is something I have attempted before as well. However, I would be very pleased to be able to make my visual metaphors, associations, and other subtle expressive attributes as intelligent and carefully intentionally constructed as I perceive Soon Mi Yoo’s to be.

Works Cited:
Ssitkim: Talking to the Dead. Soon Mi Yoo, 2004. video, color, sound, 34 min
Faith. Soon Mi Yoo, 1999. video, color, sound, 12 min
Renov, Michael. “History and/as Autobiography: The Essayistic in Film & Video,” Frame-Work: The Journal of Images and Culture 2 n3 (1989): 6-13.