Via Nag on the Lake, we are treated to a playful stop-motion short from award-winning Dutch-Canadian filmmaker Jacobus Willem “Co” Hoedeman. “Matrioska” (1970) was one of his first commissions for the National Film Board of Canada—having immigrated there in 1965 on the hope that the esteemed institution might hire him on. After producing several films including a treasury of Inuit folktales, Hoedeman went to Czechoslovakia to study puppetry and currently serves as an advisory member of the board and animation consultant. Explore more of his works at the link above.
Monday 2 September 2019
little matron
Tuesday 19 March 2019
6x6
misirlou: celebrating the life and genre-forming stylings of Dick Dale (RIP *1938 – †2019) and the Del Tones
the people have spoken: voters of a Massachusetts town remove and re-elect their mayor on the same ballot
scarlet letter: Monica Lewinsky on public shaming and cyber-bullying
caturday: a 1986 feline calendar on the Internet Archive—previously
the professor and the madman: preview for a cinematic adaption of the story of one of the Oxford English Dictionary’s foundational contributors
ใใณใใผใซใฎ่: a photographic safari for the most colourful manhole covers (previously) in Japan
Sunday 2 December 2018
merrie melodies
As a coda to this day’s events, our faithful chronicler, Doctor Caligari, directs our attention to the story behind the animation studio United Productions of America (UPA), which originated over striking animators under contract with Walt Disney (who infamously denied the guild the right to organise) and a sense that animated works weren’t meant as a medium for anthropomorphising nor a reflection of the constraints—however well executed—of real models and ought to forward and promote an air of abstraction and cartoon physics. Outside of the studio system, UPA could undercut the competition and garnered contracts to relay the education and training syllabi (within budget) and established itself as a foil to the cinematic realism and didacticism of Disney fairy-tales.
Monday 26 November 2018
6x6
black mirror:
a local Chinese business woman is publicly pilloried when an AI
misinterprets an ad on the side of a bus as the jaywalking CEO—via Slashdot
cover art: vintage, non-fiction paperback jackets animated by Henning M Lederer
drainspotting: a memory-match game played with decorative Japanese manhole covers (previously here and here)
wallflower: Cecilia Paredes camouflages her subjects against bold floral patterns
l’anis del mono: artist Omar Aqil models Pablo Picasso’s abstract paintings in three dimensions with everyday objects
christmas evil: White House continues the decorating tradition of transforming the residence into a nightmarish hellscape
Tuesday 25 September 2018
i am elmer j. fudd, millionaire, i own a mansion and a yacht
During what could be characterised as the height of the Red Scare in post-war America, fearful over the brittle state of the capitalist model—executives with General Motors commissioned a trio of propaganda cartoons from the creative cast behind Looney Tunes, which marked quite a departure from the usual antics and took a decidedly classroom tone to inculcate impressionable minds.
It’s hard to say how seriously they took their assignment and perhaps only did so as to not draw undue attention to their studios. “By Word of Mouse” (1954) told the tale of a German country mouse, Hans, visiting an American city mouse cousin who lived in a fashionable department store called “Stacy’s” and mostly features Hans being dazzled by the abundance and selection of inventory available to the common worker, with a professor mouse explaining that free market competition of “Rival Department Store” drives prices down to the benefit of both producers and consumers. “Heir Conditioning” (1955) features Elmer Fudd acting as a financial advisor to Sylvester the Cat after inheriting a large sum of money, encouraging him to invest it rather than sharing it with his fellow alley cats. Learn more and watch all the cartoons on Dangerous Minds at the link above.
Thursday 30 August 2018
7x7
secret garden: Google Earth leads a team of researchers to an untouched mountaintop rainforest in Mozambique
ultima thule: on its encore mission, Pluto probe beams back its first image of its next target
comnenian period: an exploration of Byzantine architecture from draughtsman Antoine Helbert, via Kottke
amos rex: a subterranean museum opens in Helsinki
seven points of articulation: a visual history of the past four decades of LEGO Minifigs (previously)
drainspotting: a tour of the manhole covers (elsewhere) of Massachusetts
hyperpolyglot: what the people who’ve mastered dozens of languages can teach us, via Digg
Wednesday 26 April 2017
drainspotting
Unlike in most other places where the รฆsthetic of manhole covers tends towards purely utility and economy, in Japan it’s a matter of community engagement with some nineteen thousand designs reflective of local industry, culture and history. Visit the link up top for a tour of the Nagashima Imono casting factory where many of the manhole covers for Japanese municipalities are made.
Thursday 20 April 2017
animatic
The Calvert Journal has an interesting profile of the lesser scrutinised art form, relegated to children’s entertainment, of animation and the role that allegory communicated through this medium played in protest movements in Eastern Europe and Soviet satellite states, particularly in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. The study with a gallery of examples (not the ersatz Itchy and Scratchy pictured) from the 1950s onward demonstrates the parabolic reach of the message (the animatic being the synchronised storyboard) considering that in most cases the state was the lone patron of cartoons, looking into the past when puppet theatre and other antecedents could be as covertly subversive, plus how contemporary artists are rediscovering animation as powerful form of commentary.
Thursday 6 April 2017
latch and locker
Hyperallergic features a nice appreciation of the overlooked Pop Art artist Dorothy Grebenak, active from 1950 to 1970.
Though she never quite owed up to being attached to that particular genre, Grebenak’s creations were as iconic as those of Roy Lichtenstein or Andy Warhol. Possibly relegated to a secondary status due to her medium of choice—almost exclusively working in hooked rugs meant to be displayed on the wall like a tapestry—Grebenak’s work made it into some prestigious museums but got no further than the gift shops, until being championed by one collector and gallery owner. Find out more about this forgotten artist at the link up top.
Friday 17 March 2017
5x5
i’ve been asked to say a couple words about my husband, fang: the Smithsonian is appealing to the public to transcribe the tens of thousands of jokes and one liners in Phyllis Diller’s card catalogue
robothespian: a stage play in London pairs human actress with a cyborg protagonist, via Marginal Revolution
the horsey-set: luxurious, marbled-floored equestrian club outside of Shanghai
nixie tubes: understand how a microprocessor works through this oversized model
moonwalking with einstein: tried and true memorisation technique may cause enduring changes to the one’s neural architecture
Friday 6 January 2017
7x7
what sorcery is this: seemingly magical, Mรถbius-burrito method of putting the cover on a duvet (Plumeau, Bettdecke)
journeyman: large format, industrial three-dimensional printer installed in its own shipping container for ease of transportation
ัะตััะพัััััะธะทะผ: 1960 Soviet vision of the year 2017
furkids: funny and effective animal shelter promotional presentation produced on a shoe-string budget
f-bomb: despite older brother’s protests baby prodigy gets rather sweary
vinification statt gentrification: tiny urban vineyard in Berlin that was also home to the first programmable computer from the laboratory of Konrad Zuse
Thursday 13 October 2016
7x7
a sweep is as lucky as lucky can be: a look at the brilliant decorative chimneys of Hampton Court
elvis, elvis let me be: a meeting of the minds (and spirits) with Presley and Ann-Margaret, via the fantastic Nag on the Lake
abecedarium: the alphabet for spoiled children, via Kottke’s quick links
point of origin: artists’ palettes transformed into canvases
stowaways: an investigation into how even orderly, ornamental nature can propagate invasive species, raising an interesting counterpoint to extinctions that humans have caused through the speciation and advantage it has imparted for some so called weeds and pests
portable hole: the laws of cartoon physics
atomteller: a line of commemorative porcelain plates of German nuclear reactors either already taken off-line or scheduled to be mothballed
soon
catagories: ⚛️, ๐ฉ๐ช, ๐ฌ๐ง, ๐ถ, ๐ณ️๐, ๐, ๐ณ️, environment, ⓦ
Sunday 21 August 2016
dog & butterfly
While I like to pretend that I usually find these cross-species animal friendship stories a little dopey, sometimes they just resonate with me. Like with the story of this duck that appeared out of nowhere for counseling and companionship for this depressed and anxious dog—there was just something to the narrative and storyboard that struck me as genuine and heart-warming.
Wednesday 27 July 2016
raubdruckerei
Being something of a manhole-fancier myself (that sounds like an awful indictment so perhaps the German term Kanaldeckel is better), I really appreciated being introduced to the urban artist called Raubdruckerin by the fabulous Nag on the Lake. This exhibitionist has made a circuit of dozens of cities to pirate the impressions of the signatures of the plumbing that lies underneath the asphalt but can really be iconic symbols of a place on to tee-shirts and tote-bags and just as representative as a skyline.
Tuesday 5 April 2016
oubliette or down in the underground
catagories: ๐ช๐บ, ๐ฎ๐น, ๐ฑ, ๐ณ️, architecture
Monday 21 December 2015
c.h.u.d. oder down in the underground
When I was a little kid, I can recall wading through flood canals in Oklahoma teeming with crayfish (crawdads—sort of giant sewer shrimps that one would readily barbecue) and once following a tunnel underneath the old officers’ club in Wรผrzburg (formerly the local Nazi party headquarters) big enough to drive a tank through to it cemented up conclusion. H doubts the veracity of this latter Goonies’ adventure.
A clever Redditor posted this portal—which I came across by accident—and to the turn of the century infrastructure that lies below. The city’s manhole covers (Kulideckeln) seem rather plain and haven’t really interested me like those that celebrate coats-of-arms and this entrance to the underworld, which I had crossed over without notice many, many times before, even less so. The protagonist, Harry Lime, of The Third Man descended a similarly constituted stairwell.
Instantly, I knew right where it was—the vaunted brick arches reflecting other utilities of the age, like the landmark Grรผnderzeit water-tower in Biebrich, on the square adjacent to the Hauptbahnhof but I didn’t go to examine it right away—though it might be a time when others might be checking, as I discovered it’s secret while frantically searching for news on the evacuation of the train station, due to a terror warning that has not yet materialised. Out of an abundance of caution, the Christmas market was also cleared out. Presently, maybe it’s best to leave such spelunking to the professionals, the CHUDs and Morlocks.
Monday 19 October 2015
5x5
poll of inaccessibility: eschewing the big cities and iconic sites, photographer Gert Verbelen travels to the geographic-centre of eighteen euro-zone countries
stencil: animal cut-outs with stunning, natural backdrops
tater-tot: vintage Russian potato toy ideas
yodel-ay-ee-oooo: ladies and gentlemen, the Chicken Yodeling of Mister Takeo Ishii
Saturday 3 October 2015
badenov, godunov
Though for some the names Mel Blanc and Tex Avery are more instantly recognisible among the luminaries of animation, there was another Man of a Thousand Voices that gave life to as many memorable characters during his long and varied free-lance career.
Sunday 19 July 2015
twenty minutes into the future or now we resume regular programming already in progress
One of the premiere moments for animation—that is, when it came to the small screen and was widely broadcast in syndication—was infamously introduced in 1959 with a distinct lack of animated sequences with the adventures of Clutch Cargo and friends.
Higher art with greater production value was reserved for the cinema, featurettes like Gerald McBoing-Boing to be shown along with news reels to the audience before the film began, and many great animators honed their talents, debuting on the air-waves later in the following decade, like Chuck Jones and the team of Hanna-Barbera. Utilising a process called Syncro-Vox that superimposed the moving images of the voice-actors’ mouths on to a cartoon visage, a lot of live action and stock footage transitions, the studio could produce episodes at a fraction of the cost, and although this series seems crude and decidedly inanimate compared to the next generation (Jones derided that early stage as “illustrated radio” and it was really rather not much more than a comic strip) but in defense of this flatness, the stories were quite involving and imaginative and offered a chain of cliff-hanger chapters to be resolved Saturday mornings and had quite a cult following.
Before universal audiences were exposed to a reference in passing in the 1994 film Pulp Fiction—the flashback scene when a young Butch (Bruce Willis) is presented his treasured watch nearly left behind as they fled and there’s an cartoon Eskimo with a human mouth on the television set, there was a more garbled and chaotic and perhaps more localised with the 1987 incident called the Max Headroom Signal Interruption in Chicago. An unknown man with at least one accomplice (disguised as the recently created British character Max Headroom and as a French maid, respectively) hijacked two broadcast stations in the city—I guess as a demonstration to show that they could but no one knows as they were never caught and their identities are still a mystery, ranted on air and hummed the theme from Clutch Cargo and made a few references to its final episode—which seemed to resonate with the otherwise bewildered at home audience.
Sunday 28 June 2015
panorama or bread and butter
The fact, however, that the venues where such things are shared are mostly unabashedly commercial ventures, the legal wranglings, suits and disappeared images would be soon to follow. Given that they are the bread and butter of the industry of sharing and of the gadgets that make this level of snapshots and selfies possible such candid postcards prompted this discussion—and probably gave someone a whiff of money to be made, it strikes me as ironic and necessary that there might be a degree of cooperation between those prying giants of the internet and their usual antagonists, the libertine Wikipedia and your friendly neighbourhood Pirate Party. It is strange to think of them being potentially on the same side. I imagine that the social media networks would wither on the vine should the environment become as restrictive about broadcasting one’s whereabouts (with pictures) as bootleg has become. Should the lawyers get their way, what is to stop it from progressing to even natural monuments, claimed as trade-mark by states unable to glean any tax-revenue off of those same internet giants that get off scot-free (which really does mean duty-free, hors taxes) though profiting greatly with local operations? Be sure to let people know how you feel about this and photograph everything as that’s the new graffiti.