Condensation Animation

28th January

So drawing on the ideas of affordance, and the notion of making something out of nothing, or making something that maybe goes against some of the other works and has a more sublime and more material quality, I started to look into the idea of creating something that is drawn into condensation. This may not be as gameful as some of the other works. It is emerging from mechanics of engagement, I don’t want though an animation that is separate from the world, but part of it, and that then can change the world while it is in existence. Fitting Into the notion of instantaneous structures working through imaginative affordance, or re affordance as I now star to see it, as against deaffordance. The idea of affordance being a quality of the environment,and the ability of participants to activate, or use the ecological factors of the environment, led me to think on the notion of breadth, of condensation emerging from breadth. In this way people are able to create a template, or the surface of the activity. So in my minds, I see the work, as being created by lots of different people blowing and creating condensation, and in some way this allowing the creation of a frame, that will have them in. I began trying it out for myself, creating condensation and drawing into it, but I did begin to find it hard, to photograph,a nd also wondered about how to get the frames of the animation ina quick and easy way for participants. I wanted them to draw it in some way. Also though I began to become a bit disappointed with the idea of drawing into the condensation. I felt that the condensation created the material of the work, or the canvas on which to draw, and this blowing fitted in with many ideas I have about instantaneous structures that I have put forwards in my writing, that the work, suddenly appears, and needs little set up, is temporal in nature, and disappears. This fits with condensation and the fact it disappears quickly.  

I haven’t been writing this as I did it, so will go back, to before xmas, probably october when I started with the idea.  I wondered if drawing in the condensation, was somehow removing it. I found when experimenting, a cut out of a pig, near a window I was trying it on. I then created condensation, put the pig cut out on it, and wipe the condensation away around it, this when i removed it left the figure, but made from the condensation. So this was a reversal of my original idea, rather than drawing in the condensation, and therefore removing it, I looked at creating the drawing from the condensation by removing the access and leaving the image, made form the breadth.

This i felt fulfilled the idea more as the image itself was the residue of the breadth. Part of this is looking at the root of animation, of animus, of breadth bringing to life the inanimate. I was unsure about the idea of using some kind of template, like was this a cheat, was it somehow undermining the idea of actually drawing it. But I did feel the template meant that participants could perform the task,and create the image. It does have a challenge, like using you breadth to bring it about.

 

I met with Thom, an animator I work with, and talked this through with him, and he thought this could work. I then spoke to Chris, and tried out the template I had quickly made. It was doing this, and discussing this with him, that we came to realise that rather than an object to put into the condensation, I could use an outline template, with the image cut out, and then the breadth is blown into this, filling the outline.

 

I then had a meeting with Karoline, who informed it was the birthday anniversary of the angel of the north, and thought that maybe doing this work, as an angel animation, could be good. She agreed to this. So it would be in gateshead and about the Angel.

 

I thought this because the animation would have to be a single figure. But this can mean it difficult to show motion etc, as no background. But now in some way, by it being the figure of condensation, on a window it means that the rest of the environment is visible through the window. So it meant that the background in the real world coul house the animation. In this way then I saw the window as almost a Matte screen. This I found itnersing, matte painting was the way that superimposition used to be done in movies, and have always loved the matte work in the wizard of oz. So if a set was built, or a location was used, then a glass plate was filmed though, with paintings on that would expand the physical location.

On reviewing the photos of the practices I had done, I like the fact it was now occurring in the world. That the figure was laid over the world beyond the glass, so it was situated. Also original animation was done on glass sheets and using tracing paper etc.

I wondered about cutting it out, and what to make it on, I thought plastic etc, but then practicing with thom, i saw that we could use just thin card. I still thought about laser cutting it all, as started to think it would be interesting to keep the cut out shape itself. I started to like the fact that the animation, was created through the use of negative space. So it was in the part that was removed.  It also gave me a way I thought to show the faces of the participants, which is part of the work, showing that the animation, is created from the puff of those engaging. As it meant that now that the window was clear, the head of the blower can be behind the animation.

Working with Thom we created two hundred frames, Laser cutting seemed the way to go. We create the frames using software, i had imagined drawing it out, but it seemed the quickest solution. We then decided to attempt to cut it out, it was easier than I thought and we got through them all in a couple of days. It meant though that I lost the inside figures, which I was maybe interested to use in someway.