Art, Science, and Animation
by Vibeke Sorensen
Professor and
Founding Chair
Division of
Animation and Digital Arts
School of
Cinema-Television
University of
Southern California
China
Cartoon Industry Forum &
Qingdao
International Cartoon Festival
Qingdao,
China
October 23, 2003
First, I would like to thank you for
your invitation to this important animation festival and forum. I am very happy to
be here and delighted to see so many imaginative and innovative works from all
across China. They are of very high quality and show
a flowering of activity and a dynamic vitality in the Chinese animation
industry. I was especially impressed with works that showed Chinese themes and
made use of traditional Chinese drawing and painting styles with a combination
of 2 and 3 D techniques. Some of them were very beautiful and showed great
sensitivity and vision. I was also impressed with works that made use of
contemporary fine art painting styles, as well as influences from Anime, and
experimental approaches.
I would like to explain what animation means to me. It means “to give life to” and “to give soul
to.” Animators give life to their artwork and give it their soul. It is not
just mechanical movement of images. Inanimate things can move, but to be alive
is something else. There are subtle gestures and movements in space and time
that communicate what it means to be alive. To impart it to inanimate images
requires careful observation, talent, and skill.
The
brain works according to physical phenomena that are shared among all people on
the earth. And although our languages are different, they all exist as a
representation of our experience of life, and our need to communicate that
experience to others. Words are an approximation of these experiences, an
interpretation of the impressions that arise from the condition of being alive.
Therefore, language is the art of the science of the brain.
I
believe that consciousness arises from the physicality of our bodies and
brains, and that at the time we are born, we are both individuals and part of a
social structure. This structure
includes our relationship to our parents and families, our culture, and the
world. Therefore, my view is that the dichotomy between the individual and
social is artificial. Actually, we are both, and we need to recognize and
respect both. We need individuals with a social conscience, whose work and
creativity is informed by humanistic values.
The
desire to live in harmony with the world and understand our place in the
universe is shared among all people, because our bodies and brains work more or
less the same way, live on the same earth and all need to survive. Our
individual experiences are variations on these universals, and they are rich
and diverse. Specific environmental conditions, histories, and unique
experiences of the individual and group are expressed through unique cultural
languages which have developed over centuries. They evolved through the mixing
of people and cultures, as well as creative invention by individuals playing
with words and symbols. These languages, both verbal and visual, are
fascinating precisely because they are different and the same, simultaneously.
World art encodes unique knowledge and experience into universals. We can see
commonalities between cultures and religions, for example, even when the
details and specific modes of representation are different.
Another dichotomy that is artificial is the separation between the
scientific and humanistic. Our
scientific investigations are always linked to our humanity, simply because we
are human. Our human intervention in the process of discovery reinforces this.
In fact, the model we use to explore and develop digital technology today is
that of the brain and body, and connections between them. Physical-digital
interaction models are based on what we know about the human body and senses,
and how intelligence is formed. Basically, dynamic patterns of connections
between nerve cells in the brain arise from physical interaction with the
world. When more connections are made, more memories (both short and long term)
are created, which leads to a more intelligent person. Cognitive science and
its relationship to computing and the arts, is growing. Because we live in
time, it inevitably leads to animation.
If
we see connections as a model for understanding our world, we will be
able to think about the potential to develop new and improved languages and
technologies for communication on an international level, including animation.
One of the problems that we face as we develop this, is the institutional
separation between art and science. Keep in mind that no fields pre-existed.
In the West, they were all connected until the Renaissance, when the Christian
Church’s explanation of phenomena conflicted with empirical scientific
discovery taking place at the time. To resolve this problem, the Church claimed
the domain of the spiritual, and science the domain of the material. This led
to the separation between the mind and body, and art and science in our
educational structures. In Europe, by that time, art was not even part of the
university. It was separated into art academies. It is still largely this way
today.
Ironically,
the most famous artists of the Renaissance looked to the ancient Greeks, before
Christianity, to learn how to represent the human body visually and spatially.
In fact, that why the name “Renaissance,” or “re-birth” was given to this
period. It embraced the notion of the “universal man,” a person educated in
both art and science, an ideal that gave the name “university” to our
educational institutions. While today it is often used without consideration for
its original meaning, it nonetheless represents something extremely profound
and important.
The
invention of perspective, photography, cinema, and computer graphics and
animation, all resulted from a synthesis of art and science. The language of
moving images and sounds, too, is based on understanding the perceptual
phenomena of persistence of vision and the movement of waves through air to
make sound. Their common digital foundation has made a continuum between the
senses and sense based media, and is leading to new ways of understanding how
our bodies and minds work, and how we relate to each other.
So,
the combination art and science is extremely fertile. But the sciences have
only recently begun to teach visual thinking and language, including cinema and
animation, as a part of an educational curriculum, despite the fact it is so
clearly important. And the arts are not teaching scientific concepts as much as
they could. But this is changing.
New ideas arise from the synthesis of other ideas, and new fields
arise from the synthesis of other fields. In the last 30 years, there has been
an increasing recognition that many of the most important innovations in art,
science, and technology have arisen from the crossover between fields. Artists
working with science and technology accelerate the development of technology
for civilian applications. For example,
Bell Labs in the 1960s brought composers into the computer laboratories with
the understanding that they would, through pursuing their own computer music
compositions, accelerate the development of sound technology for telephone
systems. And it did. In the 1980s, XEROX developed desktop publishing
technology because conceptual artists wanted to make pieces with text quickly.
This became a huge industry in a few short years. There are many examples of
artists advancing technology through creative personal work. It is still a kind
of secret, because we continue to live in an era where art and science are
separate. But communication between them is increasing, and the most advanced
research think tanks are supporting it more and more. The problem is the
preparation of the artists and scientists. They need transdisciplinary, or mutual education.
Further,
because most fields use images to communicate, and try to understand dynamic
phenomena, they almost all eventually work with animation. But most people do
not understand this, have no education in animation or art history, and so
their work has serious problems. Even art schools frequently teach computer graphics
and digital multimedia, but ignore animation and animation history. Of course
the opposite is a problem too, that is teaching computer animation with no
grounding in traditional media animation, fine art and art history.
Animation language has already had a profound impact on all media and
fields. People
everywhere are using it, quoting it unconsciously as they send videos in their
emails. In fact, so many people are making it on their laptop computers at work
and at home, that it needs to be understood as a basic form of literacy. Not
only are the production and distribution models of cinema decentralizing, but
the esthetic language is diversifying and evolving quickly because of how
widespread it is. It is in places we never heard or dreamed about, and made by
people who look and live very differently from ourselves.
By world or global language I do not mean mono-cultural,
where the strongest dominates and the weakest disappears. On the contrary, I
mean multicultural, where everyone, even the most fragile, can
enter into the dialog and exchange ideas and points of view. People are
increasingly bringing their own cultural traditions to these media, visually
and musically, so they can represent themselves the way they want to. It is
also extremely interesting to the global community, which is enormously
culturally diverse. As a result, animation is becoming a meta-language,
a mix of many different visual languages., and animators working with a
multicultural approach are ahead in developing it, making it more
international.
Strategies
for developing open minds towards new ideas and specifically world cultures,
and bringing that to animation and digital arts, is one of my primary goals.
That is why our program at USC is so international, and why we require more
world art history courses for our animation students than most other
universities and art schools.
A few years ago, Ed Catmull, CEO of Pixar talked about employment at
his company. He said that there are many jobs in computer animation. And there are many computer animation
programs at colleges all over the world. But 99 percent of applicants are
unemployable. Why is that? He said that the problem is not that they don’t know
how to use computers. The problem is that they do not know art history and
animation. He said that the best applicants are those with MFAs in animation
from schools like USC and CalArts. It takes at least 3 years to learn how to
animate. (This includes drawing and painting, and not only work on a computer.)
But they also need to have good taste, and this comes from art history
education. Students who only study
computer animation do not have this. He said that it is better for Pixar to
hire artists from European and international art academies with no
knowledge of computers, than computer animators who have studied in a 1 or even
2 year computer based program with no courses in fine art and art history.
I want now to discuss the idea of universals. One of the goals of
mathematicians, writers, musicians, artists, and philosophers, for thousands of
years, is the desire to link images and sounds (as we do in our minds). This
dates back to the Egyptians and before, and has led to many innovations. In the
west, music was connected to mathematics, but visual art, as I mentioned
previously, was off in the academy and in the church (where it was used to
communicate stories to illiterate people). So the work of connecting them often
took place outside. In the west in the 20th century, this outside
place was the independent experimental film community and to some extent, the
commercial film and entertainment industry.
Oskar Fischinger, a Bauhaus painter and experimental animator,
and Leopold Stokowski, a conductor and composer, proposed a visual-musical
animated film called Fantasia to Disney in the late 1930s. Although Walt considered it a failure after
box office troubles following its release, Fantasia is now considered
his greatest masterpiece.
John Hench, one of the first 6 animators at Disney, a founder of Imagineering,
and today at 94 the official portrait artist of Mickey Mouse (and one of the
most important sponsors of our program at USC), thought that entertainment was
the way to bring fine art to the masses. He had the idea to invite the most
famous fine artists to Disney to make short experimental films as a way of
extending the language of animation and cinema. He knew that commercial art had
always had a dialog with fine art, and in a way, the separation between them is
an artificial dichotomy, too. At least, it is an exaggerated conflict. Walt,
probably through the influence of John Hench, had brought the art of his
time to his new company when he first started it, and it was called ‘art
nouveau.’ He worked with painter Kai Nielsen to develop the esthetic which is
known today as the Disney Style.
Well,
John Hench succeeded in bringing Salvador Dali to Disney in 1946 to make
a short film called Destino. But Disney decided that
because of the failure of Fantasia, he had found a formula for features
and stopped it at the storyboard stage. So the Disney style of animation, while
becoming more refined, also became fixed and resistant to change. But the
language of animation continued to develop outside of Disney, in independent
studios such as UPA, and places like the National Film Board of Canada. It also
developed here in China (and I am very interested in learning more about this
history).
It
is very interesting to see that after 57 years, Destino has
finally been completed and is now, in 2003, winning many awards all over the
world. Roy Disney is traveling with it. And John Hench was the director. So his
idea of bringing fine art to animation was and still is visionary. To be
precise, it is timeless. And now because of digital art and animation,
the public is better educated about animation and its potential, and hungry for
more.
Perhaps
the most relevant to this discussion is the work of experimental animator, John
Whitney Sr. Motivated by a desire for images to rise to the level of music,
he sought new ways to combine them. He had studied music formally, and also had
knowledge of art history. He knew from his study of science that waveforms are
common to sound and light, and so in the 1950s, he used an early computer to
link the two, and move images using sound wave data. The resulting works
reached a lyrical and transcendent beauty in revealing fundamental physical
principles that are also common to sound and light. The techniques he innovated
stimulated others to use computers to do the same, and today, he is widely
considered the father of computer graphics, including by computer scientists.
Again, he was an experimental animator making visual music. This led to
important innovations that had enormous benefits to art, science, and global
language.
The
light shows of the 1960s, MTV, and contemporary multimedia computing, all look
to visual music pioneers as major influences not only for their esthetic but
also the methodology of working and combining media (for example the idea of a
using a visual score for animation was pioneered by Oskar Fischinger. This was
directly quoted in Multimedia Director software). Animators today are using new
technologies to make animation even more musical than before, and musicians
work with animation, including real-time interaction so that they can perform
images like instruments, filling space the way music does, sometimes even with
stereoscopic imagery.
So, the fusion of the senses through media is a powerful paradigm for
invention. Because connections
between media bring us closer to how the mind really works to combine different
sense impressions, it is an inevitable direction for our media to develop. It
is also a way to discover universal esthetic experiences.
It
is widely thought that through correlations between music and color, we can
perceive something fundamental about the structure of the universe. By creating
shared transcendent experiences, animation can help us to reach a state of mind
similar to meditation. Mystics talk about this independent of media, but media
can help other people be open to this possibility. It can help open minds,
develop sensitivity and tolerance for others, and overcome fear of the unknown.
Well,
fear is universal, too. But so is the desire to overcome it. Art that helps us do this, that is to live in
peace and harmony with other people around the world, is not only a good idea,
but urgent. It would have a wide international appeal, because everyone needs
it, and possibly a profound effect on world consciousness. At the very least it
would foster a deeper understanding of people and life on our planet, and help
us to celebrate our common humanity.
To
look ahead, one can imagine what will result when one combines physical and
digital media, where the richness of both worlds come together in a humanistic,
synergistic way. Real-time computer graphics and music and wireless
technologies, ubiquitous computing (chips in objects such as cars, robots,
architecture, toys, refrigerators, etc) and intelligent interfaces will provide
us with new kinds of entertainment, such as networked live visual-musical
performances and mobile, interactive 3D toys and games. Media that show us things we cannot see but
need to know with remote sensing devices will provide us with greater
understanding of our environment. Digital cinema will give us real-time
distribution, which will allow us to include live music and sound events, but
also photo-realistic visual effects. There will be even more of a blurring
between objective and subjective points of view, and of real and imaginary
scenes.
It
used to be said that “seeing is believing.” But today it is so easy to alter a
photographic image, that it is hard to know what is true or real, and what is
not. It is necessary for people to be visually educated and actively critical
in order to ascertain this. We have to remember that living things have
feelings and that machines do not. People who primarily interact with robots
and virtual characters instead of animals, frequently do not know how to behave
with living things, and they often abuse them. This is a serious growing
problem that we need to address. All of these and other ethical issues extend
to animation, games, robots, toys, networked media, telecommunications and cell
phones. They embody our values and ethics.
What are some universal concerns shared among all people of the
earth?
Stories about life’s rites of passage: life cycles and changes, dream, myth and
memory; birth, growth, transformation, play, love, marriage, gender roles,
work, old age, sickness, death, loss, our relationship to nature and other
people, our culture, the ecology, peace and war, political, philosophical and
spiritual pursuits.
We
use metaphor, cultural languages, and realism to communicate these things. Many
are culture specific, resulting from the repetition of use of local icons in
each environment. But there are also many universal forms, shapes, and
structures that transcend cultural specificity that are common across the arts.
Many seem to arise from our shared human evolution, and many are based on
nature and geometry, such wave phenomena, expressed in polyrhythms (music) and
loops, increasingly relevant to real-time interactive games. There are many
spatial and temporal structures common across the arts and cultures. They are
the foundation of art, design, music, literature, and the other arts. Concerning movement, it is the basis for
animation, including locomotion, gesture, dance, and body language.
All
people need stories that show strategies for solving problems and conflicts,
for cooperating, working together positively and productively, especially
across deep cultural differences. Today, we urgently need to understand how
world religions are similar and not only different. We need works that foster
truth, ethics, and empathy for other people, animals, and the natural world.
The most important issue is to develop respect for others and the
environment. Issues of multiculturalism, humanism, and the ecology are the
most important concerns internationally. The survival of the planet is in
question, and becoming a crisis. Animation has an important role to play in
addressing these issues.
People
in the west are very interested in cultural differences, and world art and
music are becoming very popular. Recent international events have not
negatively affected this. On the contrary, it has made it more important.
Therefore media that are inclusive are becoming more popular. They bring
people together who would not otherwise communicate, in ways that are usually
positive. The western commercial esthetic in the west is changing to reflect
this, stimulated by international travel, the internet, and changes in
demographics. The huge international populations living in and around large
cosmopolitan cities such as New York and Los Angeles, home to Hollywood, is
accelerating this.
So when I founded the animation and digital arts program at USC, my definition of
“world class” did not mean the biggest and best in Hollywood,
although USC does have this reputation. To me it meant “international.” I hoped
to create a United Nations of Animation, a program that would be
relevant on a global level by emphasizing multiculturalism and plurality. This
program would emphasize the transfer of ideas from many cultures and
disciplines to animation with the hope of making it more intelligent and
relevant internationally. I hoped that our students would come from all over
the world, and would focus on the points I mentioned previously: humanism,
ecology and ethics. The diversity of our collective human heritage would be
reflected in our approach to aesthetics, too, because this is the
language of multiculturalism and animation in the world context. It would
combine many aesthetic languages with a wide range of techniques, and draw on
both folk and fine art traditions from all over the world.
USC
is a live action film school with strong connections to the entertainment and
computer industries. It is situated within a major research university within a
major cosmopolitan city, with many influential cultural institutions closeby.
So, it would be possible there to extend the language of cinema and digital
technology in new ways, and transfer ideas and information from other fields to
it, in order to extend it. The possibility to integrate live action cinema with
animation, in particular, was a major interest, allowing us to innovate in the
area of visual effects and digital cinema. With this, it could become more
poetic and magical, as animation works with the world of the imagination.
Students would have a strong technical and esthetic education in fine art,
science, film, and animation that would prepare them for new professions
developing in the digital media field, making them more likely to be leaders in
it, rather than followers.
So,
our students study basic film production, history, and criticism. Within the
traditional approach to animation, we combine character animation, experimental
animation, and computer animation. This includes stop motion, hand drawn Disney
style character animation, and a wide range of physical and digital media. We
have courses that teach the fundamentals of drawing, writing, storytelling, and
animation, and we supplement them constantly with in-depth workshops (for
example in acting, storyboard, layout, and sound design) that change with the
field and particular student needs.
Since
computers and software change quickly, students need to understand the
principles at the foundation. This does not only mean how computers
work. But it also means
traditional drawing, film language, and animation techniques. Our students need
to be aware of contemporary trends in the field of digital media, including
research into new technologies. They have to be able to adapt to constantly
changing processes and working methodologies that increasingly integrate
physical and digital media. They have to be facile in their ability to
crossover between different ways of working and thinking, be conversant with
different aesthetic approaches, and have the ability to work in more than one
capacity, including as animation directors, in-betweeners, computer animators,
game and web designers, etc. They have to be able to work individually and
collaboratively, including in transdisciplinary teams. This allows them
to continually adapt to a constantly changing world.
We
teach our students about new forms of animation crossing over with contemporary
fine art, including painting, installation, performance, and cinema, as well as
the internet and interactive media. We require a course (that I teach) called
“Interactive Animation” in which I transfer my own research in interactive
architectural installation, wireless media, and real-time networked visual
music performance, to students. (The content of my work is focused on issues of
multiculturalism and the ecosystem, and involve international institutions and
collaborators.) Students are also required to take a course called “Writing for
Animation” in which they write scripts for short-form animation, as well as
poetry, and explore the use of text as a creative element in their work.
Students
must make at least 3 complete films or media works in 3 years, including a
thesis. They may use any medium, including 16 and 35mm film, digital video,
CDROMs, websites, or mixed physical and digital media. It can be in any genre,
from abstract animation and visual music, to traditional storytelling and
character animation, or new forms of narrative and documentary.
We
are unique at USC because we are so international and all of our professors
work at the intersection of fine art and industry. Our professors include Kathy
Smith from Australia, Christine Panushka from the USA, and me from Denmark. Our
Program Coordinator Isabelle Gelot is from France and our Production Supervisor
Mar Elepano is from the Philippines. Students and visiting scholars come from
China, India, Japan, Korea, Spain, Norway, Denmark, Canada, Mexico, Colombia,
Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Trinidad, and many other countries.
We
are also unique because we have a rigorous program that demands a great deal
from our students. Usually animation programs at other schools and universities
in the USA are narrower than we are in their aesthetic approach, focusing on
acting storytelling or computer character animation. Most other schools have
separate departments for animation and digital arts, which we combine at USC.
While a few still teach animation as a hand drawn art, most other animation
schools concentrate on computer animation and teach it from the perspective of
technical ability with software. As I mentioned previously, students from these
programs are usually not as well received by industry.
The
problem comes when people think of animation as a technical skill. It is an art.
The most important thing, to give life to and to give soul to,
comes from careful observation and empathy towards others, and this is
what is reflected in the art of animation, independent of any specific medium.
Drawing and traditional art making develops this ability. It is then
transferred to the computer. Without this ability, the animation has no “soul.”
At
USC, we have a relatively small program of about 70 students: 25 undergraduate
minors and 45 graduate students. This is because we do not have enough space
for more. The proportions between students, faculty, and facilities must remain
constant to be effective. This is because we consider animation a kind of
crossover between architecture and music: students need the individual desk
space of architects and lessons of musicians. Each professor can mentor 15
graduate thesis projects, and our production classes only have room for 15
students in them. Graduate students have their own cubicles in a shared studio,
each with a desk and computer where they can paint, draw, and make computer
graphics and combine live action and digital effects, edit video, and work on
the internet. They can record their animation onto 35mm film, digital video,
DVDROM, CDROM, or any other medium. The Cinema School also has a Festivals and
Distribution office to help students distribute the work.
Basically,
what we are seeing is that animators are taking on all of the roles of
filmmaking, from writing and directing, to producing, cinematography, editing,
and now distribution, given the internet. Production and post-production are
becoming the same, too. The digital process is collapsing the distinctions
between them, and our students are on the cutting edge. They are also crossing
over with people in related fields, such as scientific visualization and
simulation.
Our curricula:
Undergraduate Minor in Animation:
This
is a minor (and not a major), so that students can receive a broad
undergraduate education in humanities and sciences. They must major in any
other academic field than Cinema-Television.
|
Semester |
Courses |
Units |
|
1 |
FA 120 Western Art to 1500 (or other world art course) |
4 |
|
2 |
FA 121 Western Art after 1500 (or other world art course) |
4 |
|
3 |
CTCS 190 Introduction to Cinema |
4 |
|
4 |
CTPR 385 Colloquium: Motion Picture Production Techniques |
4 |
|
5 |
CTAN 448 Introduction to Film Graphics-Animation |
4 |
|
6 |
CTAN 436 Writing for Animation |
2 |
|
7 |
CTAN 450b Animation Theory and Techniques |
2 |
|
8 |
CTAN 450c Animation Theory and Techniques |
2 |
|
Total Units |
32 |
|
Students are expected to already have studied fine
art history and computer graphics, and have a portfolio of artwork in any
medium that shows individual vision and skill. We require a sequence of courses
which are supplemented with electives, 2 of which must be taken in the division
of Critical Studies (history and theory). A Thesis project is required for the
M. F. A. degree.
|
Semester |
Courses |
Units |
|
CTAN 451 - History of Animation CTAN 577a - Character Animation CTAN 522 - Animation Department Seminar |
2 1 |
|
|
2 (Year One) |
CTAN 436 - Writing for Animation CTAN 522 - Animation Department Seminar |
2 |
|
3 (Year two) |
CTAN 501 - Interactive Animation* CTAN 548 - Animation Production II CTAN 522 - Animation Department Seminar |
2 |
|
4 (Year two) |
CTAN 524 - Contemporary Topics in Animation and Digital Arts CTAN 522 - Animation Department Seminar |
2 |
|
5 (Year three) |
CTAN 593 - Directed Studies in Animation CTAN 522 - Animation Department Seminar |
2 |
|
6 (Year three) |
CTAN 594b - Master's Thesis CTAN 522 - Animation Department Seminar |
2 |
Note: Please see http://anim.usc.edu for more information about our program and
curricula
So, where do our students go and what do they do when they graduate? We have about 100%
employment, and they go to Warner Bros., Disney Feature Animation, Sony, Rhythm
and Hues, Klasky-Csupo, Pixar, Pacific Data Images, Dreamworks, Microsoft, new
companies, and to teaching and research, including USC’s Institute for Creative
Technology, among others. They bring with them skills and ideas, critical and
creative thinking, and a working knowledge of an international and
multicultural professional environment. They have seen that an idealistic
humanistic approach can work, and they take that with them to other social and
work situations.
Finally,
the most important thing that any animator, artist, and educator can do is use
what they know to make the world a better place and lift the human spirit. I
would like to show you some of the student work from our program, and you
decide if these works are successful in this regard. I look forward to hearing
comments from you about this after my talk.
Thank
you very much for your attention.