OUTLINE

NOTE: this outline is a work-in-progress. Expect changes and additions!

 
 
week


+ description

 
 
1
january 26, 28 (mon.and wed.)

--Introduction, objectives, resources, expectations, requirements

-- animation discoveries weblog - ongoing assignment to be completed April 19

-for Wednesday, January 28,, read essay by Lev Manovich, What is Digital Cinema?

REMINDER CHECKLIST:

  • Get orange sticker on your ID, in Art Dept. office, Hillyer Rm 101 during regular office hours (8:30am-4pm)
    The purpose is for authorized access to the VCRC Lab - Hillyer 218
  • Fill out Media Services User Registration Form (to be filled out in class & signed by instructor)
  • Sign up for "Sophia" Web Account at User Support Center (Stoddard, 2nd floor)
    The form can be downloaded and printed from this website url:
    http://www.smith.edu/its/tara/account_forms/sophia_account.pdf
  • Bring ZIP disk (or other appropriate storage media such as USB Flash Disk) to class, starting this Wed.,Jan.28
  • Sign up for RHIZOME mailing list "Net Art News" at www.rhizome.org (use your Smith email account)

ANIMATION, TIME-BASED DIGITAL IMAGING

View / Discuss (in class, as time allows):

  • Graham Harwood "Eye Test"
  • Brakhage "Mothlight" (1963) and "The Garden of Earthly Delights" (1981)
  • Scott Pagano "ok.town re.work", from Reline DVD compilation of work by multiple artists (2002)
  • Kasumi, "Roadtrip", from Synesthetics DVD compilation of short films by Kasumi (2004)

LAB: An orientation to Media Services is a strict requirement for access to production equipment used during the semester.


 
 
>

for Wednesday, January 28,, read essay by Lev Manovich, What is Digital Cinema?

 
 
2
february 2 and 4

LAB:

  • Animation strategies importing still images into Final Cut Pro for editing.
  • Export first project from Final Cut Pro in 2 different ways: (1) uncompressed dv file and (2) Quicktime (sorenson) for web. FTP your quicktime animation to your website, linked from your main page for this course. Refer to the following link for embedding quicktime movies into web pages:
    http://www.apple.com/quicktime/authoring/embed.html
 
 
 
>
for Wednesday, Feb.4, review Introduction (pages 7-25) from textbook, Digital Art by Christiane Paul
 
 
3
february 9 and 11

Pixillation Animation exercise due this week: Monday, Feb.9

View / discuss:

  • Les Leveque, "Free Space of the Commodity" (video, 1995, U.S.)
  • Ken Jacobs, documentation of 16mm film dual-projection, "The Georgetown Loop" (video, 1996, U.S.)

LAB:

 
 
4
february 16 and 18

Audio recording monologues and sound signatures of place due on Monday, Feb. 16

Listening / discussion of experimental audio mixes (a tentative list):

  • Ultra-Red, from "Structural Adjustments" (audio, 1999, U.S.)
  • Vito Acconci, "Under-History Lessons" (audio, 1976, U.S.)
  • Phillip Kent Bimstein, "Garland Hirshi's Cows" (audio, 1990, U.S.)
  • Keith Townsend Obadike, "Sex Machines" (audio, circa 1995, U.S.)
  • other works (in addition to Obadike's) collected in the Audiophfile series at nomadnet.org

LAB:

No class on Wednesday., Feb.18 - Rally Day.

 
 
5
february 23 and 25

Sound Montage Sketchbook assignment due this week: WEDNESDAY, Feb.25 . (note this extended deadline)

 

 
    for Monday, March 1, Read Chapt. 2 "Digital Art as a Medium" (pages 96-111) from textbook, Digital Art by Christiane Paul  
 
6
march 1 and 3

Mon., March 1st. Brief review of ongoing animation discoveries weblog assignment. Have it begun and posted at your website with at least 3  entries.

Discussion of textbook chapt 2 of Digital Art by Christiane Paul

View / discuss (tentative list):

Exploring Diegetic Effect in Animation

LAB: Text and Sound Animation with Flash vector graphics

SUMMARY 1: Timeline, Keyframing and Tweening

SUMMARY 2 (with assignment parameters) involving:

  • Sound-Image Relationship ("Diegesis"),
  • Editing Graphic Symbols
  • Motion Tweening Instances of Symbols
  • Shape Tweening "Broken Apart" Graphics
 
 
7
march 8 and 10

FLASH ANIMATION ASSIGNMENT DUE WEDNESDAY March 10

Video viewings in preparation for next project (this week and after spring break):

  • examples of rotoscoping work by students from previous semesters

 
 
8
march 15 and 17

No classes this week - Spring Break

 
 
9
march 22 and 24

Action vrs. Behavior: Movements for graphic animation -- Video camera exercise due on Monday March 29

"a gesture, a word, an action, a tableau by which, separately or in a series, the social attitudes encoded... become visible to the spectator"

- Elin Diamond discussion of a theory of acting and social gesture ("gestus") developed by the playwright Bertold Brecht. (quoted in essay by Tina Chen)

View/discuss film/video examples of loop structures (distinct from narrative structures) in time-based media. The following works apply this looping structure to (or derive looping structure from) human behavior and movement:

  • Maya Deren, excerpt from "Meditations on Violence" (1948, US)
  • excerpt from 1969 labor film "Sweep Floors, Wash Windows, Wetmop Floors" (from compilation, "From Labor to Behavior" assembled circa 1992 by Rob Danielson, US)
  • Hollis Frampton, excerpt from "Critical Mass" (1971, US)
  • Blithe Riley "Digi-Puppet" (1999-2001, US)
  • except from Natalie Zimmerman, "Throwing Weight" ( 2003) video from "First Person" DVD compilation
  • Animal Charm (Jim Fetterley & Richard Bott), "Stuffing" (1998, US).

LAB:

  • Intro to Video Camcorder and importing into Final Cut Pro
  • Production session at Media Services tv studio using blue screen set-up
 
 
10
march 29 and 31

Action vrs. Behavior: Movements for graphic animation -- Video camera exercise due this week, Monday March 29

Action Vrs Behavior: assignment: Part 2 Interactive Video (due monday, April 12)

"There's a pattern in my film work that could be the pattern of a hundred thousand movies. It is simply to repeat and purify, repeat and synthesize, abstract, abstract, abstract." - Scott Bartlett

View/discuss film/video examples of graphic abstraction through analog and digital image-processing. Focus is especially in relation to human gesture, repeating or "looping" actions that contradict or supplant narrative structure (sense of beginning-middle-end) with musical-rhythmic structure that can extend indefinitely in time:

  • Scott Bartlett, "On/Off" (1968, US)
  • Richard Linklender and Bob Sabiston, excerpt from "Waking Life" (2001, US)
  • Bob Sabiston and Tom Pallotta, "Snack and Drink" (1999, US)
  • Michael Theodore, untitled homage to filmmaker Stan Brakhage (2004, US)
  • Zoe Beloff, excerpt from "Where Where There There Where" (cdrom, 1998, US)

LAB: graphic abstractions of optically-gathered images


Media artist, Zoe Beloff, will be joining ARS361, Interactive Digital Multimedia, in class (DDS Lab) on Wed. afternoon. You are welcome to join us for that meeting.

ATTEND EVENT TONIGHT. This is a REQUIRED EVENT. Be there:
Wed. March 31, 7PM, Stoddard G2 Auditorium
Projection Performance by multimedia artist Zoe Beloff

More info about the Projection Performance by Zoe Beloff - evening event, "Claire and Don in Slumberland"

More info about artist Zoe Beloff at her website.

 

 
 
11
april 5 and 7

View/discuss:

  • Zbig Rybczynski, excerpt from "Steps" (circa 1995, Poland and US)
  • Jan van Neumen, excerpt from "Optimizer Customizer" (2002, The Netherlands)

continue Action Vrs Behavior: assignment: Part 2 Interactive Video (due next monday, April 12)

LAB: handling interactivity

SPECIAL LAB SESSION ON FRIDAY, APRIL 9TH- - 1:00PM to 2:30PM.

Transfer your interactive projects and Flash animations to miniDV videotape. Bring a blank miniDV tape to Media Services (plus optional blank VHS). Bring any interactive and/or Flash works that you want to "demo" onto videotape.

 
 
12
april 12 and 14

LAB: "Bare-bones" Intro to 3D imaging with "open source" 3D animation software, Blender3D

Assignment due Monday and Wednesday of this week - Action Vrs Behavior: Interactive Video

Written treatment due Wed. Apr.14 for final project with: Individual meetings, to discuss Final Project ideas.

 
 
13
april 19 and 21

Animation Discoveries Blog competed by April 19 with 10 linked citations and brief commentary on each, posted on your website.

open lab session for final project and individual meetings

Wednesday: Individual meetings, to view Final Project work-in-progress (required)

 
 
14
april 26 and April 28

Monday: open lab session for final project (Instructor will not be in town during class period)

NOTE THAT THE INSTRUCTOR WILL NOT BE IN TOWN ON MONDAY ,APRIL 26, UNTIL EARLY EVENING.

INSTRUCTOR WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR ASSISTANCE AND CONSULTATION AT THE FOLLOWING TIMES:

7PM TO 9PM ON MONDAY - DDS LAB

1PM TO 5PM ON TUESDAY - VCRC LAB, HILLYER

CRITIQUE Wednesday April 28

DUE on Wed, Apr.28 :  FINAL PROJECT  DUE with a CD-ROM compilation of all your semester projects, including animation discoveries blog. Reminder when buring your CD-ROM: move the files, first, to the computer hard-drive. If you try to burn to CD-ROM, the files that are on your external hard-drive, it may cause an error.