Scenes from The Brave Little Toaster

I think this movie is where my interest in this topic all began. This is part of the reason I chose to do stop motion, because it is a dated technology and it is quite nostalgic of my childhood. When I display my final animations I will have them in 4: 3 TV format, not wide screen, because wide screen is relatively new and I would rather my work sit in the "slightly dated and nostalgic" catergory. I would also probably just use normal old TVs, because a big flat screen would seem out of place as well.

Chest of Drawers

Tony Oursler at Lehmann Maupin, New York (March 2007)

Tony Oursler - Switch, 1996

Tony Oursler

Tony Oursler - Eyes

Set up for crit week

Some test of placing the TV on the ground, without the table, on its back etc

Jan Svankmayer - Picnic with Weissmann (1968)

Jan Svankmayer - Meat Love (1989)

Crit Week feedback - 14/9/09

-Someone thought it was slow to unfold, he noticed the eyes first then became aware of the sound
-The eyes become a little man watchin us
-The noises are unidentifiable, James thought he heard a Friends episode in the mix, but he didn't
-The soundtrack sounded like sitcoms
-Voyeristic experience for the eyes (secretly looking)
-Absence of feeling in the eyes
-David felt like something was missing in the work
-We are looking at the eyes, but the eyes are looking back at us
-A reflction/connection between machine a chair
-Reminiscent of 1970s childrens animation, has that aesthetic, therefore feels grounded in a particular time
-You wait for something to appear/happen, but no closer is offered
-No punchline
-David thought the soundtrack wasn't connecting
-Someone said the canned laughter isn't working (but there is no canned laughter in there)
-Maddie suggested I was over doing the aesthetic with the table and chair
-Like Sean Kerr's work, but more melancholic
-Maybe put the tv on the wall, at eye height instead of on a table
-Sense of estrangement - the insessant voice magnifies this feeling
-The eyes look open, not bored, but staring (David)
-Apprehensive eyes (Maddie)
-Are they needing to play off something?
-David - 'under cooked', not getting connection to soundtrack, not engagin, something is missing
-Maybe instead of the soundtrack being taken from movies, it could be what the tv itself would hear, vacuum cleaner, domestic stuff etc
-Install on a flat screen?
-Have many different screens facing each other
-Make eyes respond to each other
-David - Needs more compelling noise
-Maddie - the chatter vs. the slience of the eyes - background noise & foreground silence = good
-Scripting noise would be prone to problems
-The volume of the noise is useful, if it is very loud it changes the work completely, when its loud the eyes look scared
-Would be useful to test multiple tvs, having conversations
-Doesn't need the rest of the face, eyes only works because they rest of the face is made up from the other parts of the tv
-The tvs could be flat on their backs looking up at us, like tables
-Someone thought the noise was all the channels a tv would hear in its head at once, before you pick what you want to watch then it would only be one channel

Crit week set-up

Work, Rest & Play

A video trypdich made from archival footage of people at work, rest and play. A comment on technology.

"This is the first in a series of films using documentary, industrial and educational film footage from the Prelinger Archive and The Internet Archive. The film explores the theme of technology, showing how the future can be edited and manipulated through advances in computer science. As the narrative in the film says "The art of computer graphics is only in its infancy yet it is already stimulating creative thought in far out areas where research is likely to get complex and unwieldy". Commissioned by Lovebytes http://www.ubu.com/film/plu_work.html

Blinking Plunger Test

'The Family, Leisure and Recreation'

The New Zealand Ministry of Recreation and Sport defines "leisure" as "an attitude and an experience encompassing a myriad of feelings which contribute to well-being" while "recreation" is defined as "a freely chosen activity done in free time". Those studies which have distinguished between the two terms have tended to use "leisure" when writing about time spent in informal relaxing at home, and "recreation" for time spent outside the home engaged in activities.

Research on family leisure and recreation falls broadly into the following categories: the family life cycle, social class, socialisation, family authority, and family cohesiveness. The first four of these deal mainly with the effect on the family on leisure while the last is concerned with the effect of leisure on the family.

There are three amin influences on an individual:
Work, Family, Leisure

Among young single people the greatest emphasis is given to physical recreation. For women this generally changes swiftly at marriage to an interest in home based crafts, hobbies, television watching and social life. The change for men, from physical recreation to television watching is more gradual but is accelerated by the birth of the first chikd. Children appear to have a much greater influence on their mothers' recreation than on their fathers'.