Tuesday, 29 November 2011
Monday, 28 November 2011
Monday, 14 November 2011
Friday, 11 November 2011
Thursday, 10 November 2011
Wednesday, 9 November 2011
Friday, 4 November 2011
writing so far
In my reading I have been investigating a number of strands that seem to be unrelated I’m not sure how I will unify my ideas for the essay but I hope that it may in some way inform or explain my practice. Being concerned with illustration and animation my work is concerned with characterization, I emphasize details of objects, people and situations.
Using the computer as my medium I have developed a detailed cartoon style that is closer to caricature than realistic. Simplification an exaggeration are tools I rely heavily on.
Scott Mc Cloud in his graphic novel Understanding Comics expresses simply the concept of the simplified cartoon as powerful sign because of the space it inhabits between representation and symbol. I am interested in how cartoons are perceived by the public and the growing trend for low budget independent animated films published on the internet that are competing with the huge budget blockbusters that occupy the increasingly 3D cinemas.
Technology has changed the structure of entertainment as a whole and certainly Chris Anderson’s theory of ‘The Long Tail Effect’, could easily use the animation industry as case study with Pixar and Dreamworks aiming to attract as broad an audience (typically children and parents) as possible, while smaller groups of indie filmmakers release work on sites like Vimeo and Utube appealing to a more niche audience. Making use of the internets way of collecting revenue from advertisements as they become viral sensations.
I see this diplomatic shift in artistic expression as a good thing and see its benefits apparent in the short animated film Salesman Pete (2010) were the vision of one or two art students has defied suppression to produce a visually arresting piece of film. When you compare that to the committee led rehashing of old tried and tested brands such as Dreamworks’ seventh installment of the Shreck franchise ‘Scared Shreckless‘ it seems that the availability and usability of high end animation software, coupled with the instant worldwide reach of the internet is creating a virtual soapbox for creative talent around the globe.
I have also been reading about Jean Baudrillard’s theories about simulated reality and in a way that connects back to Scott Mc Cloud’s comic book semiotics and even computer generated characters.
Baudrillard considers how modern society has alienated its people from reality who experience life via an imitation of it, one obvious example is photos of celebrities stare out at us from countless billboards and magazine covers so much so we perceive them as people we know and have relationships with. The 2009 Documentary film ‘Starsuckers’ tells of how we become psychologically dependent on famous personalities we have never met and manipulated be the companies using celebrity identities to sell consumables.
Dig a little deeper however and realize that apart from notable exceptions these images are heavily doctored in photo editing software in fact we no longer need to edit photos of celebrities as it is possible to create photorealistic models in 3D software. One example is the deceased actor Marlin Brando who’s uncanny likeness can be seen and interacted with in the recent Godfather game for the Playstation 3.
Baudrillard considers a future were we interact only with computer generated programs opting out of difficult reality in favor of the stimulating fantasy life offered by this new technology.
Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games (MMORG) are a relatively new phenomenon. In MMORGs Avatar is the term used for the players online appearance usually looking nothing like the player. In these games millions of players are able to take part in a digital world were they can appear as their individually designed Avatar and interact with other peoples digital identities socially or for competitive point scoring activities.
Blizzard entertainment the makers of one of the more successful games recently published confirmation on its website that its hit game World of Warcraft, “now exceeds 12 million players worldwide.”(1)
as always seems to be the case fictional writers foretold some of the pitfalls of this new digital lifestyle long before the technology was heard of, in the 1990 sci-fi film Total Recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger loses his mind while living out a virtual life in a realistic game that goes wrong leaving him unable to tell reality from fiction.
These early visions seem strengthened by the speed in which technology evolves in 1972 Arcade game Pong was released and became a huge success housed in a machine the size of a domestic fridge the tennis game was displayed in simple LED graphics that bear no resemblance to todays generation of games in 2008 Nokia teamed up with Capcom to
release a fully 3D adventure game Resident Evil: Degeneration that could played on Nokia’s pocket sized ‘N-Gage’ Smartphone.
According to ‘Moore’s Law’, the term used for Intel co-founder George Moore’s prediction that every two years the number of transistors that can be fitted on an integrated circuit will double. at present the computer games industry is rapidly approaching the ability to create games with realtime photorealistic graphics. an interesting question is at what stage do the graphics and gaming experience become truly indecipherable from reality and what happens to humanity then?
some philosophers have raised the point that if we are prepared to believe that in the future a completely believable simulated reality is possible. then we must also assume that future generations will indulge in these simulations, perhaps in the process voluntarily losing their memories of life outside the game. perhaps some of these games are designed to simulate their near or distant past, why not 2011? Could we be willing (or unwilling) participants in a game?
I find it interesting to compare this very modern concept with the ideas behind ancient spiritual beliefs. hinduism and christianity are both grounded in the story of an infinitely intelligent creator who builds the earth and everything in it. In fact it is hinduism that the term Avatar comes from meaning appearance or manifestation. Vedanta hindu teachings tell that God, in order to entertain himself in a divine game of hide and seek, divided his soul a million times, each part (thats us) thinks itself separate from the whole and the purpose of life is to realize this truth.
This illusion is referred to as ‘Maya’ which interestingly is the name of the industry standard visual effects software that for 13 years paved the way in computer generated imagery and has been a key tool in developing the culture were interaction with Simulacra is an everyday occurrence.
(1) http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/press/pressreleases.html?id=2847881
Using the computer as my medium I have developed a detailed cartoon style that is closer to caricature than realistic. Simplification an exaggeration are tools I rely heavily on.
Scott Mc Cloud in his graphic novel Understanding Comics expresses simply the concept of the simplified cartoon as powerful sign because of the space it inhabits between representation and symbol. I am interested in how cartoons are perceived by the public and the growing trend for low budget independent animated films published on the internet that are competing with the huge budget blockbusters that occupy the increasingly 3D cinemas.
Technology has changed the structure of entertainment as a whole and certainly Chris Anderson’s theory of ‘The Long Tail Effect’, could easily use the animation industry as case study with Pixar and Dreamworks aiming to attract as broad an audience (typically children and parents) as possible, while smaller groups of indie filmmakers release work on sites like Vimeo and Utube appealing to a more niche audience. Making use of the internets way of collecting revenue from advertisements as they become viral sensations.
I see this diplomatic shift in artistic expression as a good thing and see its benefits apparent in the short animated film Salesman Pete (2010) were the vision of one or two art students has defied suppression to produce a visually arresting piece of film. When you compare that to the committee led rehashing of old tried and tested brands such as Dreamworks’ seventh installment of the Shreck franchise ‘Scared Shreckless‘ it seems that the availability and usability of high end animation software, coupled with the instant worldwide reach of the internet is creating a virtual soapbox for creative talent around the globe.
I have also been reading about Jean Baudrillard’s theories about simulated reality and in a way that connects back to Scott Mc Cloud’s comic book semiotics and even computer generated characters.
Baudrillard considers how modern society has alienated its people from reality who experience life via an imitation of it, one obvious example is photos of celebrities stare out at us from countless billboards and magazine covers so much so we perceive them as people we know and have relationships with. The 2009 Documentary film ‘Starsuckers’ tells of how we become psychologically dependent on famous personalities we have never met and manipulated be the companies using celebrity identities to sell consumables.
Dig a little deeper however and realize that apart from notable exceptions these images are heavily doctored in photo editing software in fact we no longer need to edit photos of celebrities as it is possible to create photorealistic models in 3D software. One example is the deceased actor Marlin Brando who’s uncanny likeness can be seen and interacted with in the recent Godfather game for the Playstation 3.
Baudrillard considers a future were we interact only with computer generated programs opting out of difficult reality in favor of the stimulating fantasy life offered by this new technology.
Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games (MMORG) are a relatively new phenomenon. In MMORGs Avatar is the term used for the players online appearance usually looking nothing like the player. In these games millions of players are able to take part in a digital world were they can appear as their individually designed Avatar and interact with other peoples digital identities socially or for competitive point scoring activities.
Blizzard entertainment the makers of one of the more successful games recently published confirmation on its website that its hit game World of Warcraft, “now exceeds 12 million players worldwide.”(1)
as always seems to be the case fictional writers foretold some of the pitfalls of this new digital lifestyle long before the technology was heard of, in the 1990 sci-fi film Total Recall, Arnold Schwarzenegger loses his mind while living out a virtual life in a realistic game that goes wrong leaving him unable to tell reality from fiction.
These early visions seem strengthened by the speed in which technology evolves in 1972 Arcade game Pong was released and became a huge success housed in a machine the size of a domestic fridge the tennis game was displayed in simple LED graphics that bear no resemblance to todays generation of games in 2008 Nokia teamed up with Capcom to
release a fully 3D adventure game Resident Evil: Degeneration that could played on Nokia’s pocket sized ‘N-Gage’ Smartphone.
According to ‘Moore’s Law’, the term used for Intel co-founder George Moore’s prediction that every two years the number of transistors that can be fitted on an integrated circuit will double. at present the computer games industry is rapidly approaching the ability to create games with realtime photorealistic graphics. an interesting question is at what stage do the graphics and gaming experience become truly indecipherable from reality and what happens to humanity then?
some philosophers have raised the point that if we are prepared to believe that in the future a completely believable simulated reality is possible. then we must also assume that future generations will indulge in these simulations, perhaps in the process voluntarily losing their memories of life outside the game. perhaps some of these games are designed to simulate their near or distant past, why not 2011? Could we be willing (or unwilling) participants in a game?
I find it interesting to compare this very modern concept with the ideas behind ancient spiritual beliefs. hinduism and christianity are both grounded in the story of an infinitely intelligent creator who builds the earth and everything in it. In fact it is hinduism that the term Avatar comes from meaning appearance or manifestation. Vedanta hindu teachings tell that God, in order to entertain himself in a divine game of hide and seek, divided his soul a million times, each part (thats us) thinks itself separate from the whole and the purpose of life is to realize this truth.
This illusion is referred to as ‘Maya’ which interestingly is the name of the industry standard visual effects software that for 13 years paved the way in computer generated imagery and has been a key tool in developing the culture were interaction with Simulacra is an everyday occurrence.
(1) http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/press/pressreleases.html?id=2847881
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