For this experiment, I have mixed pre-recorded sounds into an abstract rhythmical piece.
Appreciating sound artefacts by showing the dominant shapes and colours.
Graphical notation made through reduced listening of the cooking track.
Storyboard drawn with consideration of the graphical notation.
Outcome: Making a spontaneous free form animation with the audio wave structure in mind is more effective in capturing the feeling of movement than storyboarding.
Animation inspired by the graphical notation
Mix and match each audio stems with a representative visuals.
Repetition makes point of reference which helps to express ideas effectively.
Oskar Fischinger's animation the movement of forms and the rhythm of the music echoes each other. This symbiotic flow arises from the interaction of colours and energetic movements linked to Fischinger's psychological states.
Fischinger's structural workflow:
analyse a piece of music.
breaking it down into time components.
do the drawings separately from the music to create a visual composition.
as a result, synchronisation is done entirely on its own.
As major contribution to the development of my practical, the workshop has exposed me to the process of direct-on-film animation and Norman McLaren's synthetic sound. Process of synthetic sound: -drawing on the audio side of a film strip -different shapes generates different sound
I have learnt that the queer aesthetic of direct-on-film comes with spontaneity and versatility of the mind. I felt more engaged with my thought when I do more and embrace the sensation of movements in free form animation. This humble pursuit preserves the organic quality within visual music.
How do we perceive and interpret forms & colours in mind?
Constellate: Perceive in terms of patterns rather than individually. Create a relational structure of the simply objective and turn them into a sensed natural phenomena.
Colour Intervals and Transformation
Transformation concerns colour intensity and light intensity showing equilibrium between contrast and affinity. By stepping up and down, it creates a special effect of transparence called film colour.
Colour interval
Middle Mixture : Intersecting Colours
From the top - spatial illusion through connection and separation.
Last two - illusion of volume called fluting effect.
Spacing and relation between similar colours
Free studies with 3 colour stripes
The Bezold Effect
A method in which the colour combinations can be changed entirely by adding or changing one colour only.
Bezold Effect
Free Studies
Practically, colour application has physical attributes of shape and size. Variations these inherent properties and other factors - recurrence and placement - are taken into account in the overall effect of their interactions. Hence, unlike notation in music and choreography in dance, colours' shapes and sizes does not necessarily directly related to tones. It is a more complex natural phenomenon which should be investigated in a qualitative manner through experimentation.
Failed attempt of free studies - No focus
Free studies with music: Redbone by Childish Gambino
Free studies with music: Fantômas by amiina
Mouse Click
Doors Opening and Closing
Quantity
2 basic quantity questions:
size - extension in area
recurrence - extension in number
"Both measurements concern predominance and emphasis. They establish weight in space - and weight in time."
Examining Barthes' the 'diction of language' in music in which 'body' performance plays an important part in creating gestalt; merging the theories of form with the making process of objects to create a sensed natural phenomena.
Learning Points
Performance: Variations of timing and spacing give a different nuance to the new image formed.
Intuitive trial-and-error with spontaneous movement repeatedly done to create the desired effect (personal agreement of what is aesthetic).
Change title to 'Importance of audio to animated performance or movement'
Tacit: understood or implied without being stated
Visual language
Chaplin economy of gestures
Wassily Kandinsky - Constructivist geometry and spiritual effect of colours
Don't bring up animated characters, just elemental figures, forms and animated composition
Visual Music
Principles of animation: acting or reacting which comes first?
Acoustic language
Dedicate a section about diegetic and non diegetic sound
Audio motives. melodic repetition.
Tacit language developed based on prior knowledge of acoustic properties such as timbre, minor/major key, pitch, layers of sound affects planes in visual composition.
‘The narration told the overall story, but the music created the deeper shades of meaning.’
‘The musical phrase associated with each character is known as a leitmotif.’
‘Leitmotifs can also be ‘hardwired’ into the human psyche. In other words, there are many natural and manmade sounds that can evoke an instinctive emotional feeling or association in the human mind … Leitmotifs can in this way be associated with abstract cultural ideas and evoke spiritual feelings’
celebrated the modern utopia made up of machines, revolution, movement and speed
dynamism and energy
Gesamkunstwerk
'cross-fertilisation of modernist art forms was often expressed in tactical programmings of the manifesto.'
Arnold Schoenberg
Twelve tone composition
'explore ideas of creating structures of visual pattern'
formal patterns and dynamics, fluidity
Wasilly Kandinsky
non-objective abstract art
Music satisfies the modern desire for rhythm in painting, for mathematical, abstract construction, for repeated notes and colour, for setting colour in motion.
Analyses forms and colours not from ideas association but from painter's inner experience.
I was inspired by and loosely draw lines and forms to some of the old Blade Runner soundtrack. I realise one thing about making visual music is that you have to get the mood of the music right before scribbling in order to get the right form. The form is shaped after first few seconds listening to the music and familiarising with the rhythm.
In the first two drawings I use one continuous line to get into the flow.
The circles and dotted lines drawing is inspired by Oskar Fischinger's Experiment Painting. Sparseness between lines signifies rhythm and the size of the circles follows fortissimo. Constructing the composition according to the flow of the music.
Textual analysis: How mood and meaning is conveyed through different sound-image relationship.
Cultural Aesthetic and Technological Development
Reproducibility: made accessible for everyone
Constant shift between low brow and high brow: animators constantly experimenting ways to deviate the conventional structure
Constant experimentation with sound: Disney's Metronome, McLaren Neighbours (synthetic sound), Carl Stalling (illogical SFX for gags), Hans Zimmer (shepard tone - illusion of rising tension
Relate this back to the purposes of animation: consider their structures.
Practical
Create an animation based on sounds, take into account textures and noises of audio pieces selected when designing the characters and the environment.
Consider mood and meaning when listening to the audio. (outcome: chaos or order?)
Experiment with different traditional medium to best express my response to the audio.
Abstract Animation
- shape or forms moving in illogical continuity
- primal: seeks to represent inarticulable personal feelings beyond the orthodoxies of language
- rejection of rationalism and emerging from the unconscious mind
- philosophic and spiritual
- subjective interpretation
Sound
- distinguish diegetic and non-diegetic
- interpreted through the feelings it inspires
- specific signifier for the purpose of narration and characterisation
- Some conventional use of non-diegetic sound: reinforce naturalism (Disney), accentuate comic imperative (Warner Bros.).
Choreography
- Laban's movement thematics: formalist approach to define mood and meaning
- observing people to discern the need for and aims and intentions of their movement
- 'focuses on the flow of the weight of the body in time and space, articulating the effort action'
- Depicting conflict through juxtaposition of rhythm and function in any sequence
'Experimental Animation has a strong relationship to music and, indeed, it may be suggested that if music could be visualised it would look like colours and shapes moving through time with differing rhythms, movements and speeds' (Wells, 2006)
Source:
Wells, P. (2006 [1998]) Understanding Animation, King's Lynn: Routledge.
Choreography
- the prominence of the dynamics of movement as a narrative principle
- for McLaren, every animated film echoed dance 'because the most important thing in film is motion, movement. No matter what it is you're moving, whether it's people or objects or drawings; and in what way it's done, it's a form of dance.' (Bendazzi, 1994)
- 'Understanding movements and their functions can therefore be a means of understanding people. If they move to satisfy a need to express, then by observing and analysing movement one can discern the need and also the aims and intentions of the movement' (Hodgeson and Preston-Dunlop, 1990)
- 'narrative often played out purely through the movement of the body as it is represented in the animated film.'
- 'The 'body' here might be understood as an obvious representation of the human/animal form, an abstracted version of human/animal form, or purely abstracted shape that finds correspondence with the dynamics of movements available to the physical form.'
- Rudolf Laban's modern dance theory: 16 basic movement themes (construction of movements):
(on weight, space, time and flow)
1. Awareness of body
2. Awareness if the body's resistance to weight and time
3. Awareness of space
4. A recognition of the flow of the weight of the body in time and space
5. The need to adapt to the movement of others
6. A recognition of the instrumental (functional) use of limbs
7. An increased awareness of isolated actions
8. An understanding of occupational rhythms (work-related movements)
-'it (the animated forms) can only give the impression of 'space' and 'weight''
'It may be argued, though, that animation is liberating because it can manipulate the illusion of space and needs no recognition of weight unless it wishes to draw attention to the implications of a figure or an object actually being light or heavy.'
'the weight that the animators wishes to imply'
'relies on the viewer's understanding of the actual weight of figures and objects in the 'real world''
(on rhythm and function of movement)
9. The ability to create different shapes of movement
10. The deployment of the 8 basic effort actions
Wringing
Pressing
Gliding
Floating
Flicking
Slashing
Punching
Dabbing
11. Orientating the body in space, playing out the following key tensions:
Firm <---> Light
Sustained <---> Sudden
Direct <---> Flexible
Bound <---> Free
12. Relating shape of movement to effort of action
13. The ability to elevate the body from the ground
14. To create group feeling through the expression of movement
15. To create group formation through movement (e.g. circles, rows, etc.)
16. To determine action moods through the expressive qualities of movement
'especially useful in the detailed address of choreographic movement in animation because the elements successfully focuses upon the specific vocabulary of any one movement. This helps to distinguish the source of the movement, and the impulses from which it arises; the direction of the movement and its purpose; and the final outcome of the movement, either as it completes its own process, or informs the following cycle of movement.'
Paul Wells on Richard William's view of the whale scene in Pinocchio:
- focuses on the flow of the weight of the body in time and space, articulating the effort action
- Using Laban movement thematic to explain the process from 'floating' effort action to a 'punching' effort action: Action moods 'from passivity to anger' triggered by heat and smoke -> 'bound' state -'free' state tension, stillness till the sneeze 'freeing' the body to move (sustained-sudden) -> changes the space orientation.
Juxtaposition of rhythms and functions that occurs between the whale and the fleeing characters:
(movement and counter-movement) instrumental use of limbs by Geppetto and Pinocchio; 'slashing' in contrast to whale's 'punching'. -> climax: whale's failure -> final outcome: stillness and quiet
'By addressing the different and conflicting modes of movement in any one sequence, it is possible to reveal the inherent qualities of the animation itself in the determination of time, space, weight and flow.'
'The formalist approach engages with the implicit meanings of movement and serves to add another dimension to the understanding of animation as a medium over and above its capacity to capture the thrill of the chase or a moral and ideological conflict'
Case Study
(Feet of Song, 1988. by Erica Russell)
- abstracted human figures engaging in a number of dance oriented movements correspondent to a soundtrack of calypso music.
Analysis using movement thematics
Awareness of body - opening image which prioritise symmetry and balance in upright form
Awareness of space - circular turn pivoting in one leg
Adaptation to partners - multiple figures abstractly linked together and are compressed to indicate the center of the body as the key instigator of movement.
Instrumental - redetermined pushing movement as expressive rather than functional
'gliding' and then 'slashing'
The 'body'
- Abstract and highly-stylised design - calls attention to the illustrative and choreographic elements of both animation and dance, essentially defining their intrinsic relationship.
-fusion of different shapes and forms
-narrated through the vocabulary of dance and the expressive design schemata of the animated form.
'Russell has not subjected her bodies to the demands of realistic movement and 'a story', but used her bodies to narrate the inarticulable abstraction and satisfaction of rhythm and movement. Laban's movement thematics enable the viewer to penetrate this language and define the mood and meaning of physical expression.
Sound
- creates mood and atmosphere, pace and emphasis
- 'creates a vocabulary by which the visual codes of the films are understood'
- elements that composes sounds in films:
1. Voiceover [omnipotent narrator] (non-diegetic)
2. Character monologue (diegetic)
3. Character monologue (non-diegetic)
4. Character dialogue (diegetic)
5. Character dialogue (non-diegetic)
6. Instrumental Music (diegetic)
7. Instrumental Music (non-diegetic)
8. Song [music with lyrics] (diegetic)
9. Song [music with lyrics] (non-diegetic)
10. Sound effects (diegetic)
11. Sound effects (non-diegetic)
12. Atmosphere tracks
- Sense of now-ness:
'Music may be normally interpreted through the feelings it inspires, and is deployed to elicit specific emotional responses in the viewer and define the underlying feeling bases in the story.'
-'From the use of 'real', un-scripted, non-performance voices through to the overt mimicry and caricature in the vocal characterisations by such revered figures as Mel Blanc and Dawes Butler, the tone, pitch, volume and onomatopoeic accuracy of spoken delivery carries with it a particular guiding meta-narrative that supports the overall narrative of the animation itself. In the same way as music, the voice, in regards to how it sounds, as much as what it is saying, suggests a narrative agenda.'
- hyper-realist texts (e.g. Disney):
'emotional synchrony of the voice is reinforcing modes of naturalism'; uses non-diegetic to heighten the emotive aspect.
- Warner Bros. (Chuck Jones):
'... whenever possible, never use a sound effect that you'd expect. It should have the same effect on your ears but should not be the same sound effect.' 'So your eyes sees one thing and your ear says the opposite.'
'constitute a sound/image relationship unique to the animated film, particularly with regard to the comic imperatives it placed within the narrative structure.'
'delineate specific narrative information'
Case Studies
(Gerald McBoingBoing, 1951 by UPA)
- A film directly addressing the role of sound in animated cartoon
- Anarchic - liberate from Disney's hyper-realism and Warner Bros. and MGM's comic anarchy - 'to achieve more aesthetic and philosophic effects, or an altogether more self-conscious style of humour.'
- The language of sound as a narrative tool:
'The noise essentially narrates the scene and determines its visual possibilities.'
'drawing attention to the consequences of the sound itself as the substitutional representation of an action.' as displayed by the gradually heightening tension stirred up at the beginning up to effect of the explosion.
'defining its central character through the non-diegetic apparatus of the voiceover and musical interludes and, most importantly, through the shift of sound-effects as non-diegetic imposition on a scenario to a diegetic voice within the scenario.'
-'The pertinent use of sound as a specific signifier for the purpose of narration and characterisation': 'Gerald McBoing-Boing recognises sound as a mode of authentication, and implicitly illustrates the relationships between the impositional animator and the requirements of the texts. In many senses, sound is the chief mechanism by which this relationship may be properly evaluated.'
(Beauty and the Beast: Belle's Prologue (1989) by Disney)
- Musical narrative: 'a self-conscious expression of the tension between the realist mode and the performance mode, where the musical presupposes the translation of speech into song, walking into dancing, objects into props, and any environment into a version of a stage.'
- Song's mood dictates the pace and rhythm of the action with occasional diegetic authentication.
- 'The role of a song in the soundtrack, may therefore, legitimise the use of the lyrics to illustrate thoughts and emotions, and/or extend narrative questions and issues. It may also provide a structural device for the specific choreography of a scene or the background for other exchanges. Further, it might be an expression of both diegetic and non-diegetic information, and the stimulus for particular kinds of imagery.'
- '... it also defines aspects of character, particularly those concerning motivation.'
Abstraction (aesthetic)
- 'abstract films are more concerned with rhythm and movement in their own right as opposed to the rhythm and movement of a particular character.'
-'shape or forms rather than figures'
-'highest mental and spiritual faculties' Specific non-continuity (distinctive language | non-narrative)
-'signals the rejection of logical and linear continuity and the prioritisation of the logical and linear continuity and the prioritisation of illogical, irrational and sometimes multiples continuity.'
-'continuities are specific in a sense that they are the vocabulary unique to the particular animation in question' Interpretive form
- Self-expression: 'vocabulary used by painters and sculptors'
- Subjective: 'the audience are required to interpret the work on their own terms, or terms predetermined by the artist.'
- (William Moritz) 'using animation in a directly metaphoric - "spirit and integrity of its own"- way and not working in the realms of the purely abstract.' Evolution of materiality
- recognises the physical nature of the medium of choice
Multiple styles
Orthodox Animation: unity of style
Experimental: mixing 'to facilitate the multiplicity of personal visions an artist may wish to incorporate in a film, ... to challenge and re-work the orthodox codes and conventions and create new effects.'
Presence of the artist
-personal, subjective, original responses
-'relations between the artist and the work, and the relationship of the audience to the artist as it is being mediated through the work.'
-'closely related to philosophic and spiritual concerns and seeks to represent inarticulable personal feelings beyond the orthodoxies of language.' Dynamics of Musicality
-'if music could be visualised it would look like colours and shapes moving through time with differing rhythms, movements and speeds.'
-'psychological and emotional relationship with sound and colour which may be expressed through free form which characterises animation.'
-'often resisting dialogue, the cliched sound effects of the cartoon, or the easy emotiveness of certain kinds of music.'
-'Silence, and avant-garde score, unusual sounds and redefined notions of 'language' are used to create different kinds of statement.'
-'if orthodox animation is about 'prose' then experimental animation is more 'poetic' and suggestive in its intention' Case studies: non-objective and non-linear animation
(A Colour Box, 1935. Dir. Len Lye)
'Composing motion' as it reveals the 'Body Energy' which connects the music and images
-the lines, shapes and colours that move in relation to the music represent the spontaneous physical response of the artist during the moment of expression.
-'narrative' is entirely bound up with the psychological and emotional state of the artist in relation to social and environmental stimulus, the background and experience of the artist, and the artist's knowledge and use of the medium.'
-'action that takes place between the frames; subject to intense variation given the conditions he imposes upon himself in making the film.'
-'viewers must find their own relationship with imagery and its determinate meanings on their own terms.'
(The Nose, 1963. Dir. Alexander Alexeiff)
-pinscreen technique: prioritised the ways in which light redefined solid materials rather than animation concerned with line-forms or surfaces.
-'create narrative ambiguities and destabilised environments.'
-'His films seem dream-like and render the viewer uncertain and vulnerable, yet encouraged to participate in dream logic which seems to define parallel worlds.'
- (in other words) create 'the unnatural' and address 'the uncanny'
-'resisting an obvious 'story' in order to create mood and atmosphere'
-'music was later added to punctuate aspects of it rather than to create a specified emotional response.'
-Strong Surrealist tendency: rejection of rationalism -> Freudian theory
(Andre Breton Surrealist Manifesto) 'art should emerge uninhibited from the unconscious mind, recovering the imagination to engage with notions of supernatural and the re-creation of myths.'
-'Characters' slip in and out of a fluid physical environment and have a temporary narrative status, seemingly operating as figments of the imagination.
- the 'uncanny' can materialise through the acknowledgement and acceptance of the power and effect of any animated image.
-Xerography and puppet animation
-Xeroxed (photocopied) and enlarged, and then rendered and drawn on before being re-filmed on a rostrum.
-'The effect to distort and degrade image to create a haunting and hallucinatory quality to 'the character'
'The film continually blurs lines in regard to its representation of 'life' and 'death', masculinity and femininity, and the physicality of sex and violence.'
-'Animation also reduces the status of 'the body' and, in doing so, extends its vocabulary of representation, thus using it as an infinitely malleable property less fixed by biological or social constraints. The body here is uncertain but obviously politicised.'
-'Anderson is attempting to re-engage an audience with its deepest fears, using an abstraction of visual and verbal languages, which resist rationalist interpretation and evoke primal 'babble' of the unconscious mind directly expressing the taboo and the repressed aspects of the human condition.'
-'deliberately resisting interpretations', 'disorientate and provoke the viewer'
-'refutes and invalidates it (sense of 'the real'), insisting upon the medium's capacity to create different and unique image systems with their own inherent form and meaning.'
References
- Kinetic geniuses: Norman McLaren, Charlie Chaplin, Oskar Fischinger
- Optical art - psychedelic: pattern repetition, rotation of colours
- Ub Iwerks, Richard Williams, Sylvain Chomet
- Stanley Kubrick's Space Odyssey Stargate Sequence (VFX)
- Music videos: 'Backwards' by Tame Impala, 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' by George Dunning, Ori Toor, Jesse Kanda
Content Proposal
- Examine the relationship between function and aesthetic in choreographic dynamics
- Investigate timing and spacing in cartoon animation
- Mickey-mousing and repetitive pattern. How order can cause disruption?
- Explore the extremes in plasticity of image relative to music
- Subjectivity of experience: abstraction and clarity of image to the audience
Practical Direction Create character animation and environment based on drawn sounds
After the presentation, I have clearer ideas of where am I going with COP 3! I have decided that my essay focus will be on animated performance because I definitely feel more passionate doing a research on the topic as compared to the rest of my ideas. I have also received reading suggestions to kick start the research.
Here are some of them:
-Acting for Animators by Ed Hooks
-Animated Performance by Nancy Beiman
-Funny Pictures: Animation & Comedy in Studio-era Hollywood
Animated performance are usually caricatures of everyday life. It takes inspiration from slapstick comedians from the silent film era such as Charlie Chaplin, the Three Stooges, Harold Lloyd, Jacques Tati, and many more.
Hmm hmm hmm Monsieur Hulot agrees
A classmate also suggested that I can compare and contrast theatrical plays from oriental cultures, such as traditional chinese opera, kabuki, wayang shadow puppetry, etc. I can potentially look at how they influence a specific aesthetic of the animation originated from different places which could also help to specify my research topic even more.
George Orwell's 'Down and Out' has inspired me to explore animated performance. The novel itself is is an autobiography of Orwell's youth, in which he spent living in poverty, working rough jobs and encounters with different kinds of personalities who are living in more or less the same situation as him. Having experienced living in poverty, Orwell approached the subject in a very natural way and it struck me that he does not give a stereotypical image of tramps but crafted complex characters from their behaviour and differing views on life formed through experiences. I realised the transition between one instance to another is a process that leads to growth or decay of a certain human being - the reflective consequences of action.
In animated feature films, the running time prompts the production team to be more pragmatic with the narrative, hence many characters are made different from the rest of the crowd. Caricature plays a huge part in film characters as it helps to isolate the main characters and narrows down the scope of the narrative. The peculiarities in the designs of the main characters helps to sets the right mood to excite the audience about the journey that awaits. Therefore, character design is a potential theme that I'll delve into for the extended essay.
As I did more research I think character design is not what I should be focusing on because I think that world building is more significant than just character design, which leads me into a more generic topic of production design. I am particularly interested in auteur filmmakers such as Coen Brothers, Wes Anderson and David Lynch who conveys emotion through a combination of well designed premise, performance and narrative.
Play acting is another thing that I am interested in after doing more in depth research of character design. Play acting means crossing the line between everyday reality and some invented reality, like a mime performance. Chaplin is a respectable name from the silent comedy golden era because he uses caricature-like gestures to convey different emotions and creates invented reality in the audience's mind through such strong characterisation. Another example of caricature artist that I want to explore is Hokusai as he used to do performance sketches when he was an apprentice and I am interested in the dynamics in the still image that he creates through the thickness of lines and definition forms that helps to convey fluidity in his drawings.
The module has helped me become more confident in researching to come up with a question through primary and secondary research. I found coming up with my own question for the Critical Analysis challenging as I have diverse interests in the subject of Animation, and therefore exploring just one specific aspect of animation won’t do for me. I have only managed to found my question when we had the Animation Core Texts lecture which got me interested in the critical theory of popular culture by the Frankfurt School because of the scope is still within commercial entertainment, and are still applicable to the animation industry nowadays. I feel that the research that I did was more extensive and I was able to understand the theories and apply it into the practical context better than last year when I did an essay about The Culture Industry. I have learned many insightful knowledge which can be applied in the process of making the response for the studio briefs within the themes within the module rubric.
My Critical Analysis essay is about how to invite the audience to view the world as the world of possibilities. In simpler terms, it is how animation techniques can be used to show a different perspective of the world than just the world where people are working for the capitalist system. The idea is to see make the audience see the value of animation more than just a mere commercial entertainment. I am intrigued by synesthesia in the art of animation, which means the production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body. The emotive nature of synesthesia can explain complexity of the world without simplifying it like animation made for commercial entertainment as explained by an entry on my blog. Due to my passion in this topic, I think I have read too much resources for my own good. I felt it as I have difficulties coming up with my own sentence for the sake of analysing the theories in depth. Instead, what I did was discussing a wide range of theories while having no clue of what to be explored to evidence the thesis that I was about to critically analyse. I reckon that the essay was heavy on the theory, while not discussing animation evidence in depth to make it strong enough to back the thesis. A learning point from this would be that the animation analysis has to be of stronger significance to provide backings for the main thesis. In the future I think I should learn to be more critical about animation and films to balance out my textual knowledge.
The Visual Investigation brief is the one that is most enjoyable to do mainly because I challenged myself to express my thought in the form of collage. The spontaneous process of collaging helped a lot when filling up the contextual research because it is much faster than drawing. Collage is the best way to express the thought because it is a conscious effort to take images out of context and putting it into another context in meaningful ways. The collage aesthetic also suits the pop culture context I am discussing in my essay.
Although I enjoyed the intellectually stimulating Context of Practice 2 (COP2) module, my journey throughout this module was a tough one. I faced several problems which I will mention below, some have been solved while some has affected the quality of my work which quality does not meet my expectation. My time management is really poor for COP2 because I failed to use the Christmas Break to work on the essay as I underestimated the commitment of a free-lance job, whereas I used up my Easter Break for a pre-booked holiday. So, there goes most of my time which I could have spent for COP. Therefore, everything else other than the essay have to be done in a rush. What disappoint me the most is my badly planned Creative Response. I feel that the concept for the creative response is very weak as I did not have time to present my idea to Richard and my peers in less than a week before the module deadline. The plan is to make an animation from the 5 best pieces of my study on shapes, textures and compositions that evoke emotions in my concertina. However, those three aspects are lacking in my study and it has lost its coherence to what I have investigated in my essay and the Visual Investigation. Despite feeling dissatisfied with the poorly done Studio Brief 2, I think I should give myself a pat in the back because I procrastinate less than last year and have resilience to relentlessly work on all the required submissions for the deadline. With such attitude, I will be able to make better quality works if I were to do similar things in the future, without any disruptions that is out of my control.
To sum up, COP2 has contributed to my personal development as a critical artist. I have a mixed feeling towards this module: whereas I feel confident of my research and synthesis on the subject matter, I still have doubts on how to creatively respond to a generic essay topic. In the future, I want to be more proactive in terms of asking questions around to clarify my doubts. I have liked COP2 throughout the year, and it is not just a module that I want to get done quickly, which is exactly what I did close to the submission deadline. I did not enjoyed it. A lesson to take for next time, is to be more careful when making personal decisions that will affect my time to do any modules. Although I don’t planned my way through the module, I enjoyed the spontaneity in making the Visual Investigation which gave me a reassurance not to lose momentum in the last sprint.
Texts by Adorno, Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Leo Lowenthal.
Synthesis from radical Marxism and psychoanalysis to explain effects of popular culture to the mind of its audience.
Leftist: urgency to escape from the fascist capitalist system in the America.
Walter Benjamin reads popular culture in positive manner in contrast to the 4 scholars.
Popular culture went through a streamlined production to generate money. The outcomes:
monotonous, standardised
'Retour ala Normale': forcing conformity into the unconsciousness to maintain the status quo
superficial needs over essential needs
life and art reduced to monotonous line of production
Pseudo-individualisation(the 'drugs for mindless consuming zombies'):
to conceal the formulaic standardisation in music by giving it varying characteristics, such as repackaging to make consumers buy the same thing over and over.
make the consumers docile through musical rhythm, physical response to pop music immediately expose to the desire for mass to obey.
Impact to the society:
Perpetuation of the set formulas that works, made desirable for the sake of giving infantile security.
(Herbert Marcuse) Products indoctrinate and manipulate the society, causing them to demonstrate one-dimensional thought and behaviour.
Authentic Culture & Mass Culture:
Intellectuals' outcry that presses on the total revolutionary change from the core to achieve authenticity.
Avant-garde cinema screened only for a niche target audience. (elitist)
Walter Benjamin 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' (1936)
Pop culture's consumption can be resisted and played as a form of rebellion; consume without being brainwashed.
Shift from elitism to democracy in art. For instance, reproducible art have the capacity to fight back against traditional elitist culture.
Digital culture have brought art to our fingertips. The exhibition value no longer depends on context it is placed on, instead it is designed to transcend through spatial boundaries to spread its revolutionary potential for social change.
Auteur Theory: relationship between cinema and art where signature styles, like in the work of art, is incorporated in cinematography.
A source that is unused for the essay, but is one of which that contributes to the main argument. The book's introduction is relevant to the professional practice of an artist mainly about the cooperative work and how it can help to resonates the purpose of the work better compared to when they isolate themselves from the society. I do not think the book have substantial information that can be relevant to back the argument in my essay as it got deep into the sociology of creative practice.Therefore, I decided not to use this book as reference.
PREFACE
x.
‘Practical skill is a tool rather than salvation, but lacking it, issues of Meaning and Value remain abstractions.’
xi.
‘… no one could survive as a passive creature without will; we have at least to attempt to make the way we live.’
INTRODUCTION
4.
(on diversity: sexuality, race and religion)
‘To force all this complexity into a single cultural mould would be politically repressive and tell a lie about ourselves. The ‘self’ is a composite of sentiments, affiliations and behaviours which seldom fit neatly together; any call for tribal unity will reduce this personal complexity.’
5.
(Bernard Madeville fable of the bees, Georg Simmel the strangers)
‘… some public good can come from shared vice, but only if people do not ‘suffer’ from religious, political or indeed any convictions.’
6.
‘One result of managing conflict well, as in a war or political struggle, is that such cooperation sustains social groups across the misfortunes and upheavals at times.’
8.
‘Cultural homogenisation is apparent in modern architecture, clothing, fast food, popular music, hotels … an endless, globalisation list. ‘Everybody is basically the same’ expresses a neutrality-seeking view of the world. The desire to neutralise difference, to domesticate it, arises … from an anxiety about difference, which intersects with economics of global consumer culture. One result is to weaken the impulse to cooperate with those who remain intractably Other.’
9.
‘people are losing the skills to deal with intractable differences as material inequality isolates them, short-term labour makes their social contacts more superficial and activates anxiety about the Other. We are losing skills of cooperation needed to make a complex society work.’
13.
(Erik Erikson)
‘self-awareness emerges within the context of experimenting and communicating to others.’
16.
(on collective rehearsals)
‘Musicians with good rehearsal skills work forensically, investigating concrete problems. True, many musicians are highly opinionated …, but these opinions will sway others only if they shape a particular moment of collective sound. This empiricism is perhaps the most resonant point about artistic cooperation in a rehearsal: cooperation is built from the ground up. Performers need to find and work on telling, significant specifics.’
17.
‘Ritual makes expressive cooperation work … As will appear, ritual enables expressive cooperation in religion, in the workplace, in politics and in community life.’
18-19.
dialectical approach aims to reach common understanding
‘Skill in practising dialectic lies in detecting what might establish that common ground.’
‘You pick up on the intention, the context, make it explicit and talk about it.’
20.
Adam Smith on sympathy
‘Imagination can overcome these barriers; it can make a leap from difference to likeness so that strange or foreign experience seems our own. Then we can identify with them and will sympathise with their trials.’
21.
Empathy
‘Curiosity figures more strongly in empathy than in sympathy.’
22.
Sympathy v.s. Empathy
‘As a philosophic matter, sympathy can be understood as one emotional reward for the thesis-antithesis-synthesis play of dialectic; ‘Finally we understand each other,’ and that feels good. Empathy is more linked to dialogic exchange; though curiosity sustains the exchange, we don’t experience the same satisfaction of closure, wrapping things up. But empathy does contain its own emotional reward.’
Indirection gives a leeway for experimentation and improvisation
‘… this subjunctive mood opened up a space for experiment; tentativeness issued an invitation to others to join in.’
23.
‘By practising indirection, speaking to one another in the subjunctive mood, we can experience a certain kind of sociable pleasure: being with other people, focusing on and learning about them, without forcing ourselves into the mould of being like them.’
24.
‘In dialogics, while people do not neatly fir together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, yet they can get both knowledge and pleasure from their exchanges.’
24 – 25.
Cooperation online
‘Their most potent political effect occurs when they stimulate and arouse people to act off-line, rather than containing them to experience on-screen.’
27.
Machine moderates
‘Its (Google Wave’s) dialectical, linear structure failed to account for the complexities which develop through cooperation.’
28.
Problem with machine moderation in online cooperation
‘…meeting face to face to practise more effective lateral thinking, including everyone fully in the conversation.’
‘shedding context often means shedding sense; understanding between people shrinks.’
29.
‘The fault is in the … software written by engineers with an inadequate understanding of social exchange.’
