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    24 views19 pages

    Ngai, Sianne - Animatedness

    Uploaded by

    Pablo

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    of 19
    $8 - one ‘xe by the pcm nh epson flinch scent tat an found in mine when eon ofan” A 79. With ch ng ecto dee felipe on iden of oy snc afer ee da Sack de Ads hey of sa se peer nine ere 29 2 animatedness lie description of tone a specie vers calla th in a reveral of our er om of aura that what ea ¥ actually an unspecified kind of tone Far as Tonia notes about aft, tone’ generality and absracncs shoulda distract fom the fact that ic is always “about” something Tronialy,sothing demonseates this beer than Melville af tively ambiguous nove, whore atonal tne we haves mately “about” tone ital en tobe ul ‘he simultaneously ondesty and noisy character df JaMovng Pitre Flow They Are Made and Worked (19), par of serie of volumes withthe overall le "Cangursts of Science,” Fieerck A. Talbot announced that “Americans have brought the ‘one turn oe picture’ movement t high sae of perfection, and uve produced some astonishing pictures at resul of its appli ‘tin.” A technical explanation of “one tua one pictare” Tal tees term for stop-motion animation, i offered by the example of| ‘he “popular fil” Animated Paty: “A fomp ofthe material was shown upon a table Suddenly twas observed to become agitated, sad to resolve itself gradually ino state and busts of well know pl; 30 cleverly roughest be istaaly identified” “Aaticipting the animation technigue that would be trade- ‘marked decades Inter inthe United States at Claymation, Tabor’ fim featuring a lump of earthy mater seems a partculatly fe ting means for explaining stop-motion cinematography, given how mie this “rick” was perenived w be, Despite the novelty and sophistication associated with special eflets in general, the stop. ‘ein technique “brought «to high sate of perfection” by 90» animate ‘Americans is not only “one of the simplest of trick effects” br one ofthe mot tedious to perform ‘The ump of material lis 09 the tbe. The emer iat ep. The modeler advances t the table whilst the she led and mores the cay sighly towards the died eee. He shen eps out of the pice and the cmers andl ‘sroedsuficcay eo expos one pica and cover the lnt ‘gin. The modeler comes forward once again an advances 2 de farther with hs work; after which he rete feo the ‘een, and the second stage it recrded pon the set pare, Ls This aerate process of shiping the puny eae + ‘ime, and potogrphing ever septate movement cota, ‘ed unt be but comple Tis exentltat the progres should be ety sad, or tle the material would lok a ook shape by spasmodic jumps andthe sin would be desuoyed. (MB 339) ‘Harking back tthe Familiar medi of sill photography, flea an- imation was thus seen as ind of echnologial tas, Ae Talbee ite "e wil be aberved «tht this mage eet x not pro duced ia accordance withthe generally acepted priciles govern. ing cinematography. Tes merely a serie ofsap-shos taken as cr ‘ain imervals and coud be produced jus aswell by a hand-camera ‘fone had sulin pits or film” (MP 230, The simultaneously basic yet exceptional character of thi special effec is underscored bythe ideological Fanas) which Animated Pay seems to suggest ""ataton” that is quickly silled, ad even scr ce. ict to “resolve tel a the fil’ Inmpen protagonit i trans, formed ito “cleverly-sroughe” images of humans of uumiseleble social distinction: "a bust ofthe King, ofthe American Preiden, ‘or some othe ilusuis personage” (MB 230) ‘The fact that such precasical "ick films” tended to feature ‘snes of production inthe absence of human agents—for instanes ‘film in which “a stocking is} kated before the audience by un snimatedness - 91 sex hands” magia carpenter’ shop” picture in which “ols sre manipulated without hands aad where he wood is plane, tev cise, and Gaon af ito» box = by an aparently fnyeriou and invinle fore”*sugges 4 farther tony: that figs based on echniealy “tachovard and lbointenie ping rice pretly tore that most specialty imagined the wo- 8 ose of technology so advanced sto put an end to Sen ae oper In cna we“ spi” of the sar and iting needles onved to action” Sign mee din an Al ed by Talo, 2 the cat ofa shore depicting a shoeing san "going to seep a his sk and the footwear ening alt lle he deeams, rather running to and fo to tenor the dt spay the blacking, and to give a vigorous paling of AR 23) From this ambiguous ira tween agiated things and deat ‘aed peions, one could argue tit whit ery animation tee foregrounds mori the incresingly ambiguus star of he ‘san agency in a Frditea These questions of agency wil gee npr inthis chapter we fos on one of the most basic ‘es in which afer becomes socillysesgniable in the age of Sar ep bro hci sing fine sno eee ga Sons tes eg i mai phi set hi of Ber cnssin a ely repre to I contol. This surprising interplay between the passionate ‘andthe mechanical wll be our focus 38 we move through readings sf texts by William Lloyd Garston, Frederick Douglas, Haciet, Becher Stowe, Ralph Ellison, and she shoe-ived but aesthetically 92 + animated and policy controversial Claymation tein show The Pe {i8-a0on) acing the aes eransformation int 4 esing technology in American ctrl cote ranging rom mineeeae ‘And though this exaggerated expressiveness i ascot from the ‘racial stereotype whose origin are allegorized in “Genghis Chan? the image of the disturbingly “vey” lump suggest how mach “animacion” sill seems required frit production. Insofar as we fen regard the cliche as 2 “dead image”--what Robert Seanum, calls “fossiized” metaphor whose “expired figurative life” is ‘rarely capable of being “testored or reinvented” the pocm' trans, formation of “slump in the cheoae into ene tat makes pies might be said to dramatize “giving life” ia more ways than one." Moreover, in presenting the transformation ofthe inanimate “lump” inv living, speaking agcot within a series of poems ‘how le marves the violent Mongol Genghis Khan with thei Pasive Charlie Chan (the American cnet icon from the ipfoo tamed into @ television cartoon in the s97os uhrough Hlaanay Barkers The Amasing Chan and the Chan Clon, Yau amazingy es al the definitions of “animate” and “animated” provided by WebsersColepate Dictionary. With bot terms, we moe from rel. ences to biological existence ("endowed with feo the qualities fife av), to socially positive emotional qualities lise” ull of vigor and spirit,” "zest", and finally to a hinorcally specie nimatadnes + 95 mode of sreen representation Cinade inthe form of an animated ‘aroon’)" Wiile all these meanings become spectaculaly com essed in Y's "lump," the already counterinaitive connections in the standard dictionary definition of "animated”—berween the or- sncvinistic and che technologizal-mechanical, and becween dhe ‘echnolgical-meckanial and the emetional—are further compli- (PA,"6) From a emia perspective ths pe eas Chow to are hatthe main question fcng ind word sib cone invoked, potrophized, or vetoquized by fee world theory isthe question of fow to Wari Sitamitization into autonomy and independence “The that Ger thd ele has 25 singly hat of ‘nisin the oped women of ira ‘ues to making the autmatoe tad aninated condos a 25 techaolgies of mass, \e 100 aninaednes their own vices the conscious point of departure in thee interven: tion" PA 6, 68. Automatiaton, inthe Fords or Taylors sense dramatized by Chaplin (and Chow), becomes useful i slightly anacheontin synonym forthe kind of animation already at work inthe antebe {ue writings of Garrison and Stowe; in both tuations the hon ‘ody i “objected to [a manipulation] whose origins are beyond fone individual grasp” and becomes “a spectacle whose acathon? ower increases with ones increasing awkwardness and belpes ess” What makes the affect of animatedness distinctive, homey, {isthe way in which i oddly synthesizes two kinds of automtion ‘whose meanings run in opposite directions, encompasing the ex » temelycdiied,hyperrationaized routines epimized byte fac {ory worker’ repetiive wrenching movement in Madera Tine Bot alo as Rosalind Kats notes, “the kind of berating eae ‘Ponta that We abit With. he Size intation of the word ‘automatism a in yaaa)" Reis

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