CCIF, Hangzhou, China 2002

Multiculturalism, Communication, and Animation in the Digital Era

Vibeke Sorensen
Professor and Founding Chair
Division of Animation and Digital Arts
School of Cinema-Television
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA 90089-2211 USA
http://visualmusic.org/vibeke.html
http://anim.usc.edu

September 14, 2002
Hangzhou, China

First, I want to say that I am honored to be invited here and participate in this historic festival. I want to emphasize that I, like the rest of the world, have a great deal to learn from you, from China, and its unique history, and perspective on so many fields. I hope to learn more about you, and your hopes and dreams for your country and the world, including the field of animation and new media.

I want to thank the organizers of this festival for making such a wonderful event, for bringing so many talented and accomplished artists and professionals together, and for sharing so much beautiful work with us. I also want to thank the city of Hangzhou for being such gracious hosts. I want to give a special thanks to Ms. Xu Ling for translating for me today, and for translating the written version of my talk for this publication.

I want to start by giving you a little information about me. My background includes degrees in English literature and mathematics, architecture, and a graduate degree in film, video, and electronic media. I studied music and visual art, and traveled over time from drawing and painting through photography, film, video, and computer graphics and animation, to networked digital media, including the world wide web and new forms of physical-digital media. As a student, I wanted to put everything together because I loved all fields. I still do. Recently, I returned to architecture, but in a new way, informed by all these media. As a professor, I taught at Virginia Commonwealth University, Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, California Institute of the Arts, where I was the Founding Director of the Computer Animation Laboratory, and Princeton University, where I held a joint appointment between Computer Science and Visual Art. I also worked professionally as a computer animator for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA), and pursued research into Interactive Stereoscopic Animation at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. Now, I am Full Professor and Founding Chair of the Division of Animation and Digital Arts (DADA), in the School of Cinema-Television, at the University of Southern California.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When we are born, we use all of our senses to interact with the world around us, and naturally create mental models of it that to some degree conform to it. Why? Because we want to survive, and live in harmony with the world and universe. All of our expressions, as varied as they are, from the earliest time, have sought ways to express and explore our understanding of the world, and share it with others. The mental models we naturally create are as beautiful and varied as the specific cultural contexts from which they arise, and they are so rich in their creativity and range of expression. Because people live in time, these models change and grow as we learn and interact with the world. The mysteries of life and death, of growth and experience are expressed in our language, which is art. We explore our understanding of transformation and change, through animation. Animation means "to give life to," and "to give soul to." It is the embodiment of the soul and life, of transformation from birth to death to new life, of movement and change. We see these changes through a slight movement of a mouth becoming a smile, and a hand reaching out to grasp another hand. We see it in all living things around us, recognizing life instinctively. It is that which gives something life: movement and change in the world around and inside us. Similarly, the mental models that each of us has, that remembers and expresses life and soul, is also dynamic and multi-sensory, updating itself with each new experience. The connections between the senses, their dynamic transformations --animation--, and the artforms based upon them that are now connected by a common foundation of movement, help us to experience and understand the world in new ways. A new language is developing in this new animation space. It is based on an integration of digital and physical media, as all human communication media must in some way connect with the human body. In the past, computers were thought to primarily be concerned with modeling the mind. Today, it is important to think about the integration of the body and the mind, to allow for increased understanding of other people, and foster awareness and share cultural understanding in ways that are as fluid and open as possible.

When we want to communicate our experiences to others, it is our human, cultural experience that we want to share. And so what we are actually trying to do is transfer a multi-sensory model of the memory of our experience, which exists in our minds, to other people through our communication media. Therefore, it is natural for people to want to use more integrated and connected sense based media in their means of communication. Previously separate media based on the senses are becoming more dynamic and "real-time," and more "multi-sensory" or "multi-media." Animation language is the primary methodology necessary to explore and understand them, and connect, reflect and express dynamic cultural experience and concerns. As a result, animation is not only a condition of life that we instinctively recognize, but a way of thinking and working common to all media, thus transcending and encompassing them all.

The connections between senses, thoughts, and media allow us to share our life experience, our culture, changes, hopes, and dreams. It also helps us to discuss problems, and work together to develop and share solutions, potentially so helpful in an increasingly complex and interconnected digital, global, multicultural world. Animation and digital media have an important role to play in this.

In order to survive we need to live in harmony with the world and universe, including nature and humanity. It is not only the connection between our senses and cultures that is important, but between past and present, our histories and current day lives, our long and short-term cultural memories. Because our potential for remembering is now so great, we are able to be very creative in doing this. We can begin to solve the important problem of integrating the past with the present in ways that help each culture and share its beauty with the rest of the world. To do this, we first need to be very open minded, and try to live in harmony and peace with nature, with people and cultures very different from our own. It is more important today than ever before, as our world has become so much more fragile. It is only through improved connections and communication between people from diverse backgrounds, who express themselves in their own way, that true understanding can arise. We can develop our new technology in a humanistic way, to foster openness and understanding, and in so doing stimulate the creation of new ideas, new expressions of creativity, and inspire new ways of working together that help us all to live in peace and happiness.

As the Founding chair of the Division of Animation and Digital Arts at USC, I focused on making an international, multicultural educational program with this in mind. Our program is part of the School of Cinema-Television, considered by many to be the #1 cinema school in the United States, which boasts George Lucas as a graduate, and is oriented toward the entertainment industry.

My idea of multiculturalism and internationalization is very different than that which the business and political world normally defines it as. I do not intend to "mix-down" all cultures, where the strongest dominates in a competition meant to eliminate others. On the contrary, my hope is to respect, support, and learn from all cultures. I want to discover their similarities, explore their differences and nurture their uniqueness, which are often very subtle and delicate, and help in any way I can to share their beauty as part of the global dialog already in progress. This, by entering and even transforming our communication technology that has increasingly become the technology of production and distribution as well.

Specifically in animation, as you well know, the USA is often seen as dominant. Some countries try to imitate the traditional way that the Hollywood entertainment industry approaches animation, rather than transferring their own visual and artistic traditions, which are usually much more elegant and effective in representing the concerns of that culture. And often the imitations are not as good as the original, and the products are not as successful economically or artistically. The opportunity to make something much more original that reflects the depth of a specific culture, with great integrity that the world community sees with great admiration, is an important alternative that resonates historically as well as economically. For example, the Indians (in India) have their own way of making films, and thus have a very strong industry and they are seen by millions of people, with a large market. But the Indian films have a problem to internationalize their distribution. The solution for a country is to look at itself, but with open eyes and an open mind towards others. It is important to try to understand other countries and cultures so one can express one's own thinking in ways that other cultures can understand, too. This is international language. Again, it is important to reinforce one's own culture, but with an open mind and with sensitivity towards others who have unique and important cultural languages. They are also part of the international dialog. For example, the Eastern European animators recognized the difficulties for other countries to understand their films with their spoken languages, and so they decided to make animation without words, with strong images and sounds. And the techniques and designs they used were drawn from local or regional fine art traditions, inspired by the UPA (United Producers of America) revolution of a stylized fine art approach to animation. But unlike UPA, they worked without text. With this, the whole world was able to receive their films, and did so with great enthusiasm. Thus, each country and culture has to develop its own way to express its own universe.

One place where it is very important to use the multicultural approach is in the development of high technology for communication. Technology will only reflect the cultures that participate in its development, and therefore, it is important for all cultures to be engaged for it to be truly responsible and representative. It is the best way for a country to be independent and able to participate with self-determination. It is important for the artists and researchers from each country to be involved and creative from the standpoint of its own cultures.

USC exists within an international and multicultural city, Los Angeles, and so we draw on a mix of many cultures. I wanted to make a United Nations of Animation, reflecting not only Los Angeles, but also the world. We have about 60% international students in our Division of Animation and Digital Arts, the highest in the School of Cinema-Television. And of 5 full time faculty and staff, 4 are international, myself from Denmark, one from the Philippines (Production Supervisor Mar Elepano), one from Australia (Professor Kathy Smith), and one from Korea (Program Coordinator Hye Kwon). One is American (Professor Christine Panushka). We welcome people from all over the world, especially those from fragile cultures and those typically excluded from animation and the dialog of the entertainment industry. We want to help make animation more intelligent and sensitive, extend its reach, and help evolve it into a more diverse and rich field. We hope to improve Hollywood as it goes digital by making it more aware of animation history and language, and thereby more sensitive and poetic, more culturally diverse and democratic, and more responsible as it becomes more global. We want to innovate humanistic applications of it together with new digital technology, with international artists directly involved within an environment that has fast access to the entertainment and communications industries.

We are also highly interdisciplinary, with collaborative projects between different universities in other countries, such as the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. We also collaborate with different fields, such as computer science, chemistry, neuroscience, and others. The idea is that the connections between seemingly unrelated fields and ideas catalyze insight and innovation, and stimulate the crossover of ideas and technology. This also creates new applications of animation and thus new opportunities for animators.

I often ask my students these questions:

1. How many fields, as part of their discourse, use images? Probably all fields do.

2. How many fields, as part of their discourse are concerned with changing phenomena or dynamic data? Probably all of them.

3. How many fields, as part of their discourse use computers? Probably all of them. This means that computer animation, or digital animation is relevant and useful to all fields. It is a kind of universal language. Further, new fields arise from the synthesis of other fields. So, as animation intersects with other fields, new fields are created. This is not only true within entertainment but the sciences (scientific visualization), engineering, humanities, literature, music, art, architecture, culture, etc. The possibilities are vast, and what is needed most is imagination and vision, built on an ethical foundation.

Our program has been supported by Warner Bros., Silicon Graphics, Quantel, Disney, Nickelodeon, Intel, and other entertainment and high technology companies. Nickelodeon supported us largely because they saw that the mix of fields and cultures, and our strong experimental focus, benefits them in the development of new characters and stories that will reach an increasingly diverse and global audience. Intel supported us in the development of new uses of technology as animation diversifies and grows together with technology, in fact driving much of the technology development for international communication applications around the world. They see animation as a huge and growing field, and market for their chips and computers.

I want to draw your attention to our program's website for detailed information about it. It is at http://anim.usc.edu In brief, we have an undergraduate minor program in animation, and an graduate MFA program. We combine character, experimental and computer animation, together with digital arts. We have a broad definition of animation, as discussed, with a solid conceptual and technical foundation in filmmaking, cinema, and strongly encourage the integration of traditional and contemporary media. We emphasize imagination, innovation, and critical thinking. Students study animation history, writing, and production, and are asked to transfer their own cultural backgrounds to it through experimentation. One focus is on narrative storytelling and another is on abstract animation and visual music, a kind of poetry of association between music and moving images. We want students to expand animation beyond film and video to HDTV, DVD, CDROMs, the web and live networked performances, multiscreen architectural installation, stereoscopic animation and virtual reality, and other emerging multimedia forms. I teach interactive animation, focusing on music-image interaction, and stereoscopic animation. In general, our students are expected to think ahead, not only so they can adapt to a changing world, but to anticipate and participate in that change as leaders. In fact, we have 100% employment amongst our graduates. They go into a wide range of fields, including Hollywood feature animation and visual effects, internet companies, government and computer industry research, and education. Some start their own companies.

We also have international agreements for exchanges of research, including with midii@rte, an animation research laboratory at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. (See http://eba.ufmg.br/midiaarte/home_midiaarte.htm ) We participate in numerous international festivals as jurors and animators, including the Hiroshima Animation Festival in Japan, Ottawa, Anisea, Anima Mundi in Brazil, and our professors are invited abroad as research scholars and educators to countries such as Japan, Malaysia, S. America, India, and Australia. I am happy to say that we have many students from Asia and hope to have more from China.

Recently, I had very special Chinese student in my interactive animation class. She was an anthropology student. When I assigned the project of using hyperlinks to connect personal and cultural memories, she looked at me with big eyes and said that she was so happy to be in this class because hypermedia will allow her to express things other media do not permit her to do. She said in much of Chinese culture, every person you meet in your life is thought of as someone you knew in a past life. So she told the story of her brother's marriage and had intersecting narratives of the past lives of people in the wedding party using linked or hypermedia. It better reflects the way people think about relationships, as multiple and non-linear narratives.

Today we have even more possibilities for cultural expression. This includes spatial media, wireless, and networked sense based media, which are becoming very popular. They allow us to communicate a deepening wealth of information across huge distances, bridging people and cultures in ways that more closely match our thinking.

Now I would like to show you some work by our students at USC. I have a 60 minute tape, but will show you now about 10 minutes. The entire tape will be shown on the hotel internal TV network during this conference. [show of videotape]

A few weeks ago I taught a workshop in Fortaleza, Brazil, to students in design. We focused on chance and synchronicity, dream and myth, and they produced 2 projects: a short videotape, and a hyper-linked series of dreams on CDROM, both from their own cultural perspectives. It was gift to me to be able to be able learn about their internal, spiritual life, an opportunity that I appreciated very much. I would like to show them to you. [show of videotape and CDROM from Brazil]

Now I would like to turn to research. In general, my view is that art is research in communication, and that by extension, technological art is research into technological communication. It is a compressed research and development cycle, where the results of the research are put directly into practice and application through the sharing of the artwork with the public. Because a huge number of people around the world will be using digital communications media, and the best way to develop it is to work with artists who make the most demands and anticipate the way other people will use it in the near future.

Further, whenever you want to create moving images and media, you need some kind of technology to represent it. Thus, the need to communicate drives technology development. As cultural information is the primary content of communication, by extension, in a global environment multi-cultural information is the primary content. This is what is increasingly driving new technology development for international communication, and what we are focused on and receive support for in our program, including from Intel and other sources. It is art and science. As discussed, communication technology is increasingly multi-sensory, and includes visual imaging -2 and 3D-, sound, touch, and smell. It is physical and digital. Researchers work with physical input devices such as motion capture, and physical output devices such as 3-D printers and robotic toys. It also includes networking and telepresence, satellite communication, and other new forms such as "ubiquitous computing" (chips in physical objects like refrigerators and architectural materials, and increasingly in such materials as fabric, paper, glass, plants and organic objects). There are many approaches to it, and all involve dynamic data, or animation.

It may be of interest to you to know that although I am an artist, I keep receiving grants from scientific organizations for my work, which they consider research. For example, in 1997, Intel came to me and asked for research ideas. I developed one of several that were of interest to them into a proposal, which was funded for 3 years, the Global Visual Music Project. Because of its success, I was asked to submit another proposal to build a laboratory to extend my research and transfer it to my students. The grant was awarded and now each graduate student has their own computer to work on, and we have several well-equipped computer labs. We enjoy an excellent relationship with Intel and we are very grateful for their support.

Now I would like to show you some of my work. I am interested in how the mind works to connect music and moving images, memory and the senses, and how to use wireless technology and new forms beyond the flat screen. This includes stereoscopic and spatial 3D without glasses, and new ways of working with architecture. This is the focus of my research, and what I have received support for from a number of sources including the National Science Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and Intel. You can see more information about my work on my website, at http://visualmusic.org/vibeke.html

I was asked to discuss some possibilities for China - US interaction. In my view, perhaps the ultimate marriage of animation and technology is one that involves self-determination, where all people and cultures have access to the means of production and distribution, and can therefore engage in an open dialog with others to represent their concerns in the way that they want. With cheaper digital cameras and computers, and faster networking more commonly available worldwide, the production and distribution of animation is far more available to people in all walks of life. It is no longer the primary domain of the large film companies. Universities, scientific, and cultural organizations around the world are engaged. This will inevitably accelerate and expand. One possibility, therefore, would be for each culture to engage itself not only in production, but in media experimentation and research where artists and scientists are working together. This activity could be formalized and integrated into educational structures, as well as in more traditional research and development organizations. International research institutions could be created that would help link those in each country.

So, for East-West relations, one possibility would be to create an international institute, or a special school or company that has a strong and visionary research focus, with connections to related organizations in China and other parts of the world. It would have a humanistic and multicultural approach, and invite local and international artists and scientists to be in residence to work on original artwork that presents new technical and esthetic problems, solving them as a form of applied research. It would be connected with international high-technology communications companies, and would take a leadership role in making some of the most important next steps in the development of humanistic technology for communication, entertainment and commerce. Researchers would conduct workshops and seminars, engage in festivals, exhibits, art shows, and conferences, to help transfer ideas and knowledge to others. In a school, there could be a strong multi- year educational curriculum, on both undergraduate and graduate levels, that could help develop a solid historical, technical and conceptual foundation, also focused on multi-disciplinarity and multi-culturalism, and extended to high level research. Students could assist more advanced researchers, and learn by doing as well as by observing. These activities, with animation playing a central role, would have an important impact on many fields, including animation, and accelerate the transfer of information between them, thus creating many new opportunities. The great task would be to do this with imagination, idealism, and in support of world peace.

One specific example could be the integration of wireless and satellite technology, networked media, with entertainment (such as cell phones with graphic displays, and animation). As Ericsson and Sony are collaborating and building a new center in China, this could be a great opportunity for artists and animators to collaborate with scientists and technologists. China can draw on its vast and rich cultural history and marry it with technology. Shadow puppets are very interesting, and connecting them with digital parts, robotics, or paper with embedded systems and neural nets to give them intelligent behaviors, for example, could lead to many new applications not only for animation but the paper industry, too. Chinese cut paper art is also a rich esthetic language that can be applied to Flash animation immediately, today. There are many more possibilities to explore, based on the unique capabilities of media and the rich history of creativity of each and every culture.

What should China do? Only China knows the answer to this question, and it resides in depth of Chinese culture and the sensitivity of its people. I can see that there is great imagination and a great intellectual and creative history in China. Its music, architecture, philosophy, poetry, painting, medicine, and more, is so rich and so little of this knowledge has yet been integrated into new media, both as form and content, and as a catalyst for developing new ways of communicating. By exploring how Chinese people actually think, and how the culture intersects and connects with the unique capabilities of new media, this is perhaps a way. Not by imitating, but by drawing on herself, and her own strengths. It is up to China to decide how to do this. I am deeply honored and humbled to be asked my thoughts in this regard, and I offer them to you knowing that I know so little about you and your country, and need to learn more.

My goal is to help people understand each other and other points of view, and live in harmony with each other, and with nature and the universe, and celebrate our common humanity.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you today. If you have any questions or comments, I would happy to talk with you further at this festival.