The Five Minute Museum: A Stop Motion Animation Shows the History of Civilization at Breakneck Speed

in Animation, Comedy, Fashion, History, Museums | November 13th, 2020

Exper­i­men­tal direc­tor and ani­ma­tor Paul Bush’s 2015 short film The Five-Minute Muse­um, above, is the dizzy­ing anti­dote to stand­ing, foot­sore, in front of a vit­rine crowd­ed with Ancient Greek amphoras or exquis­ite­ly craft­ed pock­et watch­es and won­der­ing, not about his­to­ry, cul­ture or the nature of time, but whether you can jus­ti­fy spend­ing $15 for an under­whelm­ing cheese and toma­to sand­wich in the muse­um cafe.

It’s a break­neck stop motion jour­ney through the his­to­ry of civ­i­liza­tion via six muse­um collections—three in Lon­don and three in Switzer­land.

Pre­sent­ed pri­mar­i­ly as stills that flash by at a rate of 24 per sec­ond, Bush groups like objects togeth­er, “there­by allow­ing the tri­umphs of human endeav­or to be seen even in far cor­ners of the land, by the bedrid­den, the infirm and the lazy.”

His sense of humor asserts itself the minute an assort­ment of ancient shards appear to ren­der them­selves into not just a state of whole­ness, but an entire up close soci­ety in close-up. It doesn’t take long for these ves­sels’ clash­ing of war­riors to give way to a com­pos­ite por­trait of idle youth, whose flir­ta­tions are stoked by a num­ber of man­ic pipers in rapid suc­ces­sion, and Andy Cow­ton’s orig­i­nal music and sound design.

It’s a shock when Bush slows down and pulls back to show the source objects in their muse­um cas­es, qui­et as a tomb, the sort of dis­play most vis­i­tors blow past en route to some­thing sex­i­er, like a dinosaur or a block­buster exhib­it requir­ing timed entry tick­ets.

Oth­er high­lights include a live­ly assort­ments of guns, hats, chairs, and plas­tic toys.

If you start feel­ing over­whelmed by the visu­al inten­si­ty, don’t wor­ry. Bush builds in a bit of a breather once you hit the clocks, the bulk of which pre­sum­ably hail from the Bey­er Clock and Watch Muse­um in Zurich.

The inge­nious ani­mat­ed short was 10 years in the mak­ing, a fact the artist mod­est­ly down­plays:

It’s very sim­ple. Sim­ple sto­ry, a sim­ple tech­nique and that’s what I like. Poet­ry should be a lit­tle bit stu­pid. This is what Pushkin says, and I try and make my films a lit­tle bit stu­pid as well.

In addi­tion to the Bey­er Clock and Watch Muse­um, you’ll find the fea­tured arti­facts housed in the British Muse­um, the Vic­to­ria and Albert Muse­um, London’s Muse­um of the Home (for­mer­ly known as the Gef­frye Muse­um) as well as the Lucerne His­tor­i­cal Muse­um and the Bern His­tor­i­cal Muse­um.

Expect a much slow­er expe­ri­ence.

via Aeon

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

A Vir­tu­al Tour Inside the Hayao Miyazaki’s Stu­dio Ghi­b­li Muse­um

Watch Art on Ancient Greek Vas­es Come to Life with 21st Cen­tu­ry Ani­ma­tion

Take a Vir­tu­al Tour of 30 World-Class Muse­ums & Safe­ly Vis­it 2 Mil­lion Works of Fine Art

Take Immer­sive Vir­tu­al Tours of the World’s Great Muse­ums: The Lou­vre, Her­mitage, Van Gogh Muse­um & Much More

Where to Find Free Art Images & Books from Great Muse­ums, and Free Books from Uni­ver­si­ty Press­es

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Help your­self to her free down­load­able poster series, encour­ag­ing cit­i­zens to wear masks. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Terry Gilliam Reveals the Secrets of Monty Python Animations: A 1974 How-To Guide

in Animation | November 6th, 2020

Before he direct­ed such mind-bend­ing mas­ter­pieces as Time Ban­dits, Brazil and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, before he became short-hand for a film­mak­er cursed with cos­mi­cal­ly bad luck, before he became the sole Amer­i­can mem­ber of sem­i­nal British com­e­dy group Mon­ty Python, Ter­ry Gilliam made a name for him­self cre­at­ing odd ani­mat­ed bits for the UK series Do Not Adjust Your Set. Gilliam pre­ferred cut-out ani­ma­tion, which involved push­ing bits of paper in front of a cam­era instead of pho­tograph­ing pre-drawn cels. The process allows for more spon­tane­ity than tra­di­tion­al ani­ma­tion along with being com­par­a­tive­ly cheap­er and eas­i­er to do.

Gilliam also pre­ferred to use old pho­tographs and illus­tra­tions to cre­ate sketch­es that were sur­re­al and hilar­i­ous. Think Max Ernst meets Mad Mag­a­zine. For Mon­ty Python’s Fly­ing Cir­cus, he cre­at­ed some of the most mem­o­rable moments of a show chock full of mem­o­rable moments: A pram that devours old ladies, a mas­sive cat that men­aces Lon­don, and a mus­tached police offi­cer who pulls open his shirt to reveal the chest of a shape­ly woman. He also cre­at­ed the show’s most icon­ic image, that giant foot dur­ing the title sequence.

On Bob God­frey’s series Do It Your­self Film Ani­ma­tion Show, Gilliam delved into the nuts and bolts of his tech­nique. You can watch it above. Along the way, he sums up his thoughts on the medi­um:

The whole point of ani­ma­tion to me is to tell a sto­ry, make a joke, express an idea. The tech­nique itself doesn’t real­ly mat­ter. What­ev­er works is the thing to use. That’s why I use cut-out. It’s the eas­i­est form of ani­ma­tion I know.

He also notes that the key to cut-out ani­ma­tion is to know its lim­i­ta­tions. Grace­ful, ele­gant move­ment à la Walt Dis­ney is damned near impos­si­ble. Swift, sud­den move­ments, on the oth­er hand, are much sim­pler. That’s why there are far more behead­ings in his seg­ments than ball­room danc­ing. Watch the whole clip. If you are a hard­core Python enthu­si­ast, as I am, it is plea­sure to watch him work. Below find one of his first ani­mat­ed movies, Sto­ry­time, which includes, among oth­er things, the tale of Don the Cock­roach.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2014.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Ter­ry Gilliam: The Dif­fer­ence Between Kubrick (Great Film­mak­er) and Spiel­berg (Less So)

The Mir­a­cle of Flight, the Clas­sic Ear­ly Ani­ma­tion by Ter­ry Gilliam

A Young Jim Hen­son Teach­es You How to Make Pup­pets with Socks, Ten­nis Balls & Oth­er House­hold Goods (1969)

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow.

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A Quay Brothers Animation Explains Anamorphosis, the Renaissance Illusion That Hides Pictures within Pictures

in Animation, Art, Religion, Science | November 2nd, 2020

First appear­ances can be deceiv­ing.

Take physi­cist Emmanuel Maig­nan’s 1642 fres­co in a cor­ri­dor of Rome’s Trinità dei Mon­ti monastery.

Viewed head on, it appears to be a some­what uncon­ven­tion­al land­scape in which one of the few remain­ing branch­es of a muti­lat­ed tree spreads over a city, far in the dis­tance. Streaky clouds sug­gest heavy weath­er is brew­ing.

Stroll to the end of the cor­ri­dor and take anoth­er look. You’ll find that the tree has con­tract­ed, and the clouds have recon­fig­ured them­selves into a por­trait of Saint Francesco of Pao­la, pray­ing beneath its boughs.

It’s a prime exam­ple of oblique anamor­pho­sis, an image that has been delib­er­ate­ly dis­tort­ed by an artist well versed in per­spec­tive, with the end result that the image’s true nature will only be revealed to those view­ing the work from an uncon­ven­tion­al point.

The Quay Broth­ers’ doc­u­men­tary short, above, a col­lab­o­ra­tion with art his­to­ri­an Roger Car­di­nal, uses a com­bi­na­tion of their delight­ful­ly creepy sig­na­ture pup­pet stop motion, as well as ani­mat­ed 3‑D cut outs, to lift the cur­tains on how the human eye can be manip­u­lat­ed, using prin­ci­ples of per­spec­tive.

Anamor­pho­sis may not seem like such a feat in an age when a num­ber of soft­ware pro­grams can pro­vide a major assist, but why would Renais­sance artists put them­selves to so much extra trou­ble?

The Quay Broth­ers delve into this too.

Per­haps the artist was inject­ing a bit of social crit­i­cism, like Hans Hol­bein the Younger, whose 1533 por­trait, The Ambas­sadors, includes a secret anamor­phic skull. This could be tak­en as a jab at the excess­es of the wealthy young diplo­mats who pro­vide the painting’s sub­ject, except that the one who com­mis­sioned the work, Jean de Din­teville, prized the mot­to “Memen­to mori.”

Maybe he know­ing­ly ordered up the naked death’s head to go along with his ermine and bling, an exam­ple of hav­ing one’s cake and eat­ing it too, and yet anoth­er dizzy­ing head trip for those view­ing the paint­ing from the intend­ed angle.

(Betcha didn’t have to work too hard to guess the skull’s loca­tion, though…)

Or an artist might choose to employ anamor­pho­sis as a brown paper wrap­per of sorts, as in the case of Erhard Schön’s erot­ic wood­block prints.

Else­where, the goal was to empha­size patience, reflec­tion, and cleav­ing to a pious path by reward­ing those who craned their necks toward a spir­i­tu­al peep­hole with an appro­pri­ate­ly reli­gious view.

(Pity the poor pil­grim who stepped up expect­ing Erhard Schön…)

For a 21st-cen­tu­ry take on anamor­phic art, have a look at the work of the graf­fi­ti col­lec­tive TRULY | Urban Artists here.

The Quay Broth­ers’ short film, “De Arti­fi­ciali Per­spec­ti­va, or Anamor­pho­sis,” has been made avail­able on The Met Muse­um’s YouTube chan­nel.

via Aeon

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Opti­cal Poems by Oskar Fischinger, the Avant-Garde Ani­ma­tor Despised by Hitler, Dissed by Dis­ney

Watch Mar­cel Duchamp’s Hyp­not­ic Rotore­liefs: Spin­ning Discs Cre­at­ing Opti­cal Illu­sions on a Turntable (1935)

The Anatom­i­cal Draw­ings of Renais­sance Man, Leonar­do da Vin­ci

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Studio Ghibli Puts Online 400 Images from Eight Classic Films, and Lets You Download Them for Free

in Animation, Art | September 24th, 2020

Japan’s Stu­dio Ghi­b­li has long been pro­tec­tive of their intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty, with Hayao Miyaza­ki and his team over­see­ing how their char­ac­ters are mer­chan­dized, as well as care­ful­ly mak­ing sure for­eign dis­tri­b­u­tion of their films stay faith­ful to the orig­i­nal. (Miyaza­ki famous­ly–although apoc­ryphal­ly–sent Miramax’s Har­vey Wein­stein a katana sword along with a note read­ing “No Cuts,” because the mogul and all-around bad per­son was noto­ri­ous for recut­ting Asian films for west­ern audi­ences).

It’s not that you can’t get tons of Ghi­b­li mer­chan­dise—there’s a Totoro beer if you’re inter­est­ed—it’s that Stu­dio Ghi­b­li likes con­trol. Which makes this huge hi-res image dump from the stu­dio a sur­pris­ing gift. Ear­li­er this year they released a series of back­grounds to spice up your Zoom meet­ings. And now they’ve just released 400 images from eight of their films, with plen­ty more to come.

You can do what you want with these 1920x1080 jpgs, with one caveat from pro­duc­er Toshi Suzu­ki: “Please use them freely with­in the scope of com­mon sense.”

The stu­dio is not releas­ing all their clas­sics in one go, how­ev­er. Among the famous Spir­it­ed Away and Ponyo, there’s art from films that bare­ly got screen­ings in the States: Tales from Earth­sea (2006), From Up on Pop­py Hill (2011), and When Marnie Was There (2014).

Look, they can’t all be Totoros, and Stu­dio Ghi­b­li has deliv­ered plen­ty of sweet roman­tic dra­mas along with its more fan­tas­tic films. If you are curi­ous, Net­flix and HBO­Max are stream­ing pret­ty much the whole cat­a­log.

Which is a sur­prise, as Miyaza­ki has long banned Ghibli’s films from stream­ing. As Suzu­ki told reporters in a March announce­ment:

“First of all, Hayao Miyaza­ki doesn’t know exact­ly what video stream­ing ser­vices like Net­flix are. He doesn’t use per­son­al com­put­ers, he doesn’t use smart­phones. So when you men­tion dig­i­tal dis­tri­b­u­tion to him, he just doesn’t get it.”

He added:

“Hayao Miyaza­ki is cur­rent­ly mak­ing a movie but it’s tak­ing a real­ly long time. When that hap­pens, it’s only nat­ur­al that it will require a lot of mon­ey too. I told him this can cov­er the pro­duc­tion costs for that movie. When I said that, he said “Well, there’s noth­ing I can do then.”

As long as we enjoy the films “with­in the scope of com­mon sense,” I hope Miyaza­ki will have noth­ing to wor­ry about. Enter the image archive here.

via Nerdist

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Vir­tu­al Tour Inside the Hayao Miyazaki’s Stu­dio Ghi­b­li Muse­um

For the First Time, Stu­dio Ghibli’s Entire Cat­a­log Will Soon Be Avail­able for Dig­i­tal Pur­chase

Hayao Miyaza­ki Picks His 50 Favorite Children’s Books

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the Notes from the Shed pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, and/or watch his films here.

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William Blake’s Paintings Come to Life in Two Animations

in Animation, Art, Museums, Poetry | September 4th, 2020

The poet and painter William Blake toiled in obscu­ri­ty, for the most part, and died in pover­ty.

Twen­ty some years after his death, his rebel­lious spir­it gained trac­tion with the Pre-Raphaelites.

By the dawn­ing of the Age of Aquar­ius, Blake was ripe to be ven­er­at­ed as a counter-cul­tur­al hero, for hav­ing flown in the face of con­ven­tion, while cham­pi­oning gen­der and racial equal­i­ty, nature, and free love.

Reclin­ing half-naked on a “a fab­u­lous couch in Harlem,” poet Allen Gins­burg had a hal­lu­ci­na­to­ry encounter where­in Blake recit­ed to him “in earth­en mea­sure.”

Dit­to poet Michael McClure, though in his case, Bob Dylan’s “Gates of Eden” served as some­thing of a medi­um:

I had the idea that I was hal­lu­ci­nat­ing, that it was William Blake’s voice com­ing out of the walls and I stood up and put my hands on the walls and they were vibrat­ing.

Blake’s work (and world view) con­tin­ues to exert enor­mous influ­ence on graph­ic nov­el­ists, the­ater­mak­ers, and cre­atives of every stripe.

He’s also a dab hand at ani­ma­tion, col­lab­o­rat­ing from beyond the grave.

The short above, a com­mis­sion for a late ‘70s Blake exhi­bi­tion at The Tate, envi­sions a roundtrip jour­ney from Heav­en to Hell. Ani­ma­tor Sheila Graber parked her­self in the Sculp­ture Hall to cre­ate it in pub­lic view, pair­ing Blake’s line “Ener­gy is Eter­nal delight” with a per­son­al obser­va­tion:

Whether we use it to cre­ate or destroy—it’s the same ener­gy. The prac­tice of art can turn a per­son from a van­dal to a builder!

More recent­ly, the Tate gave direc­tor Sam Gains­bor­ough access to super high-res imagery of Blake’s orig­i­nal paint­ings, in order to cre­ate a pro­mo for last year’s block­buster exhi­bi­tion.

Gains­bor­ough and ani­ma­tor Renald­ho Pelle worked togeth­er to bring the cho­sen works to life, frame by frame, against a series of Lon­don build­ings and streets that were well known to Blake him­self.

The film opens with Blake’s Ghost of a Flea emerg­ing from the walls of Broad­wick Street, where its cre­ator was born, then stalk­ing off, bowl in hand, ced­ing the screen to God, The Ancient of Days, whose reach spreads like ink across the grit­ty facade of a white brick edi­fice.

Sey­mour Mil­ton’s orig­i­nal music and Jas­mine Black­borow’s nar­ra­tion of excerpts from Blake’s poem “Auguries of Inno­cence” seem to antic­i­pate the fraught cur­rent moment, as does the entire poem:

Auguries of Inno­cence

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heav­en in a Wild Flower 

Hold Infin­i­ty in the palm of your hand 

And Eter­ni­ty in an hour

A Robin Red breast in a Cage

Puts all Heav­en in a Rage 

A Dove house filld with Doves & Pigeons

Shud­ders Hell thr’ all its regions 

A dog starvd at his Mas­ters Gate

Pre­dicts the ruin of the State 

A Horse mis­usd upon the Road

Calls to Heav­en for Human blood 

Each out­cry of the hunt­ed Hare

A fibre from the Brain does tear 

A Sky­lark wound­ed in the wing 

A Cheru­bim does cease to sing 

The Game Cock clipd & armd for fight

Does the Ris­ing Sun affright 

Every Wolfs & Lions howl

Rais­es from Hell a Human Soul 

The wild deer, wan­dring here & there 

Keeps the Human Soul from Care 

The Lamb mis­usd breeds Pub­lic Strife

And yet for­gives the Butch­ers knife 

The Bat that flits at close of Eve

Has left the Brain that wont Believe

The Owl that calls upon the Night

Speaks the Unbe­liev­ers fright

He who shall hurt the lit­tle Wren

Shall nev­er be belovd by Men 

He who the Ox to wrath has movd

Shall nev­er be by Woman lovd

The wan­ton Boy that kills the Fly

Shall feel the Spi­ders enmi­ty 

He who tor­ments the Chafers Sprite

Weaves a Bow­er in end­less Night 

The Cat­ter­piller on the Leaf

Repeats to thee thy Moth­ers grief 

Kill not the Moth nor But­ter­fly 

For the Last Judg­ment draweth nigh 

He who shall train the Horse to War

Shall nev­er pass the Polar Bar 

The Beg­gars Dog & Wid­ows Cat 

Feed them & thou wilt grow fat 

The Gnat that sings his Sum­mers Song

Poi­son gets from Slan­ders tongue 

The poi­son of the Snake & Newt

Is the sweat of Envys Foot 

The poi­son of the Hon­ey Bee

Is the Artists Jeal­ousy

The Princes Robes & Beg­gars Rags

Are Toad­stools on the Misers Bags 

A Truth thats told with bad intent

Beats all the Lies you can invent 

It is right it should be so 

Man was made for Joy & Woe 

And when this we right­ly know 

Thro the World we safe­ly go 

Joy & Woe are woven fine 

A Cloth­ing for the soul divine 

Under every grief & pine

Runs a joy with silken twine 

The Babe is more than swadling Bands

Through­out all these Human Lands

Tools were made & Born were hands 

Every Farmer Under­stands

Every Tear from Every Eye

Becomes a Babe in Eter­ni­ty 

This is caught by Females bright

And returnd to its own delight 

The Bleat the Bark Bel­low & Roar 

Are Waves that Beat on Heav­ens Shore 

The Babe that weeps the Rod beneath

Writes Revenge in realms of Death 

The Beg­gars Rags flut­ter­ing in Air

Does to Rags the Heav­ens tear 

The Sol­dier armd with Sword & Gun 

Palsied strikes the Sum­mers Sun

The poor Mans Far­thing is worth more

Than all the Gold on Africs Shore

One Mite wrung from the Labr­ers hands

Shall buy & sell the Misers Lands 

Or if pro­tect­ed from on high 

Does that whole Nation sell & buy 

He who mocks the Infants Faith

Shall be mockd in Age & Death 

He who shall teach the Child to Doubt

The rot­ting Grave shall neer get out 

He who respects the Infants faith

Tri­umphs over Hell & Death 

The Childs Toys & the Old Mans Rea­sons

Are the Fruits of the Two sea­sons 

The Ques­tion­er who sits so sly 

Shall nev­er know how to Reply 

He who replies to words of Doubt

Doth put the Light of Knowl­edge out 

The Strongest Poi­son ever known

Came from Cae­sars Lau­rel Crown 

Nought can Deform the Human Race

Like to the Armours iron brace 

When Gold & Gems adorn the Plow

To peace­ful Arts shall Envy Bow 

A Rid­dle or the Crick­ets Cry

Is to Doubt a fit Reply 

The Emmets Inch & Eagles Mile

Make Lame Phi­los­o­phy to smile 

He who Doubts from what he sees

Will neer Believe do what you Please 

If the Sun & Moon should Doubt 

Theyd imme­di­ate­ly Go out 

To be in a Pas­sion you Good may Do 

But no Good if a Pas­sion is in you 

The Whore & Gam­bler by the State

Licencd build that Nations Fate 

The Har­lots cry from Street to Street 

Shall weave Old Eng­lands wind­ing Sheet 

The Win­ners Shout the Losers Curse 

Dance before dead Eng­lands Hearse 

Every Night & every Morn

Some to Mis­ery are Born 

Every Morn and every Night

Some are Born to sweet delight 

Some are Born to sweet delight 

Some are Born to End­less Night 

We are led to Believe a Lie

When we see not Thro the Eye

Which was Born in a Night to per­ish in a Night 

When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light 

God Appears & God is Light

To those poor Souls who dwell in Night 

But does a Human Form Dis­play

To those who Dwell in Realms of day

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Enter an Archive of William Blake’s Fan­tas­ti­cal “Illu­mi­nat­ed Books”: The Images Are Sub­lime, and in High Res­o­lu­tion

William Blake Illus­trates Mary Wollstonecraft’s Work of Children’s Lit­er­a­ture, Orig­i­nal Sto­ries from Real Life (1791)

William Blake’s Mas­ter­piece Illus­tra­tions of the Book of Job (1793–1827)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Orson Welles Narrates Animations of Plato’s Cave and Kafka’s “Before the Law,” Two Parables of the Human Condition

in Animation, Literature, Philosophy | July 14th, 2020

You’re held cap­tive in an enclosed space, only able faint­ly to per­ceive the out­side world. Or you’re kept out­side, unable to cross the thresh­old of a space you feel a des­per­ate need to enter. If both of these sce­nar­ios sound like dreams, they must do so because they tap into the anx­i­eties and sus­pi­cions in the depths of our shared sub­con­scious. As such, they’ve also proven reli­able mate­r­i­al for sto­ry­tellers since at least the fourth cen­tu­ry B.C., when Pla­to came up with his alle­go­ry of the cave. You know that sto­ry near­ly as sure­ly as you know the ancient Greek philoso­pher’s name: a group of human beings live, and have always lived, deep in a cave. Chained up to face a wall, they have only ever seen the images of shad­ow pup­pets thrown by fire­light onto the wall before them.

To these iso­lat­ed beings, “the truth would be lit­er­al­ly noth­ing but the shad­ows of the images.” So Orson Welles tells it in this 1973 short film by ani­ma­tor Dick Oden. In his time­less­ly res­o­nant voice that com­ple­ments the pro­duc­tion’s haunt­ing­ly retro aes­thet­ic, Wells then speaks of what would hap­pen if a cave-dweller were to be unshack­led.

“He would be much too daz­zled to see dis­tinct­ly those things whose shad­ows he had seen before,” but as he approach­es real­i­ty, “he has a clear­er vision.” Still, “will he not be per­plexed? Will he not think that the shad­ows which he for­mer­ly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?” And if brought out of the cave to expe­ri­ence real­i­ty in full, would he not pity his old cave­mates? “Would he not say, with Homer, bet­ter to be the poor ser­vant of a poor mas­ter and to endure any­thing rather than think as they do and live after their man­ner?”

Pla­to’s cave was­n’t the first para­ble of the human con­di­tion Welles nar­rat­ed. Just over a decade ear­li­er, he engaged pin­screen ani­ma­tor Alexan­dre Alex­eieff (he of Night on Bald Moun­tain and and “The Nose,” pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture) to illus­trate his read­ing of Franz Kafka’s sto­ry “Before the Law.” The law, in Kafka’s telling, is a build­ing, and before that build­ing stands a guard. “A man comes from the coun­try, beg­ging admit­tance to the law,” says Welles. “But the guard can­not admit him. May he hope to enter at a lat­er time? That is pos­si­ble, said the guard.” Yet some­how that time nev­er comes, and he spends the rest of his life await­ing admis­sion to the law. “Nobody else but you could ever have obtained admit­tance,” the guard admits to the man, not long before the man expires of old age. “This door was intend­ed only for you! And now, I’m going to close it.”

“Before the Law” describes a grim­ly absurd sit­u­a­tion, as does Welles’ The Tri­al, the film to which it serves as an intro­duc­tion. Adapt­ed from anoth­er work of Kafka’s, specif­i­cal­ly his best-known nov­el, it also con­cerns itself with the legal side of human affairs, at least on the sur­face. But when it becomes clear that the crime with which its bureau­crat pro­tag­o­nist Josef K. has been charged will nev­er be spec­i­fied, the sto­ry plunges into an alto­geth­er more trou­bling realm. We’ve all, at one time or anoth­er, felt to some degree like Joseph K., per­se­cut­ed by an ulti­mate­ly incom­pre­hen­si­ble sys­tem, legal, social, or oth­er­wise. And can we help but feel, espe­cial­ly in our high­ly medi­at­ed 21st cen­tu­ry, like Pla­to’s immo­bi­lized human, raised in dark­ness and made to build a world­view on illu­sions? As for how to escape the cave — or indeed to enter the law — it falls to each of us indi­vid­u­al­ly to fig­ure out.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear John Malkovich Read Plato’s “Alle­go­ry of the Cave,” Set to Music Mixed by Ric Ocasek, Yoko Ono & Sean Lennon, OMD & More

Plato’s Cave Alle­go­ry Ani­mat­ed Mon­ty Python-Style

Plato’s Cave Alle­go­ry Brought to Life with Clay­ma­tion

The Phi­los­o­phy of The Matrix: From Pla­to and Descartes, to East­ern Phi­los­o­phy

Franz Kafka’s Exis­ten­tial Para­ble “Before the Law” Gets Brought to Life in a Strik­ing, Mod­ern Ani­ma­tion

Kafka’s Night­mare Tale, “A Coun­try Doc­tor,” Told in Award-Win­ning Japan­ese Ani­ma­tion

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

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The World According to Le Corbusier: An Animated Introduction to the Most Modern of All Architects

in Animation, Architecture, History | June 23rd, 2020

Among mod­ern archi­tects, was any archi­tect ever so moder­ni­ty-mind­ed as Charles-Édouard Jean­neret, bet­ter known a Le Cor­busier? Like many cul­tur­al fig­ures well-known out­side their field — Franz Kaf­ka, George Orwell, David Lynch — his name has long since been adjec­tivized, though nowa­days the term “Cor­bu­sian” is sel­dom used as a com­pli­ment. Many a self-described oppo­nent of mod­ern archi­tec­ture, what­ev­er they con­sid­er mod­ern archi­tec­ture to be, points to Le Cor­busier as the orig­i­na­tor of all the inhu­man­i­ty of build­ings designed over the past 90 years, and espe­cial­ly the sec­ond half of the 20th cen­tu­ry: their drab col­ors (or lack there­of), their depress­ing aus­ter­i­ty, their for­bid­ding scale, their dark cor­ri­dors, their leaky roofs. But how much, real­ly, is he to blame?

“Le Cor­busier rec­om­mend­ed that the hous­es of the future be ascetic and clean, dis­ci­plined and fru­gal,” says The Book of Life, the com­pan­ion site to Alain de Bot­ton’s School of Life. Remem­bered as an archi­tect but both an artist and engi­neer at heart, he thought that “true, great archi­tec­ture – mean­ing, archi­tec­ture moti­vat­ed by the quest for effi­cien­cy – was more like­ly to be found in a 40,000-kilowatt elec­tric­i­ty tur­bine or a low-pres­sure ven­ti­lat­ing fan” than in the cap­i­tals of old Europe. For inspi­ra­tion he looked to mod­ern machines, espe­cial­ly those that had begun appear­ing in the sky in his youth: “he observed that the require­ments of flight of neces­si­ty rid air­planes of all super­flu­ous dec­o­ra­tion,” says de Bot­ton in the ani­mat­ed School of Life primer above, “and so unwit­ting­ly trans­formed them into suc­cess­ful pieces of archi­tec­ture.”

Hence Le Cor­busier’s infa­mous pro­nounce­ment that “a house is a machine for liv­ing in,” which first appeared in his 1923 man­i­festo Vers une archi­tec­ture (Towards an Archi­tec­ture). Le Cor­busier was a writer — and a painter, and a fur­ni­ture design­er, and an urban plan­ner — as much as he was an archi­tect. “The prob­lem is that both his detrac­tors and his acolytes want to believe that his writ­ten man­i­festos, urban­is­tic visions, utopi­an ide­olo­gies and the­o­ries are com­pat­i­ble with his build­ings,” writes Jonathan Meades, some­time archi­tec­tur­al crit­ic and full-time res­i­dent of Le Cor­busier’s Unité d’habi­ta­tion apart­ment block in Mar­seilles. But “Le Cor­busier, writer, has lit­tle in com­mon with Le Cor­busier, mak­er of the century’s most pro­found­ly sen­su­ous, most mov­ing archi­tec­ture”: one was a “self-adver­tis­ing pro­pa­gan­dist,” the oth­er “an artist-crafts­man of peer­less orig­i­nal­i­ty.”

Le Cor­busier’s head­line-mak­ing urban-renew­al pro­pos­als includ­ed, Meades writes, “the destruc­tion of the Right Bank in Paris and its replace­ment with ranks of cru­ci­form sky­scrap­ers”; he also pro­posed demol­ish­ing Man­hat­tan, as de Bot­ton says, “to make way for a fresh and more ‘Carte­sian’ attempt at urban design.” Le Cor­busier’s utopi­an dreams of colos­sal sky­scrap­ers placed in the mid­dle of vast green park­land and sur­round­ed by ele­vat­ed free­ways led, in this telling, to “the dystopi­an hous­ing estates that now ring his­toric Paris, the waste­lands from which tourists avert their eyes in con­fused hor­ror and dis­be­lief on their way into the city.” But if cities can still use Le Cor­busier’s plan­ning ideas as a neg­a­tive exam­ple, they have more to learn from the pos­i­tive exam­ple of his aes­thet­ic sen­si­bil­i­ty, which remains exhil­a­rat­ing today, even amid a kind of moder­ni­ty the man him­self could nev­er have imag­ined.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch 50+ Doc­u­men­taries on Famous Archi­tects & Build­ings: Bauhaus, Le Cor­busier, Hadid & Many More

Vis­it the Homes That Great Archi­tects Designed for Them­selves: Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Cor­busier, Wal­ter Gropius & Frank Gehry

An Espres­so Mak­er Made in Le Corbusier’s Bru­tal­ist Archi­tec­tur­al Style: Raw Con­crete on the Out­side, High-End Parts on the Inside

Every­thing You Ever Want­ed to Know About the Beau­ty of Bru­tal­ist Archi­tec­ture: An Intro­duc­tion in Six Videos

The Mod­ernist Gas Sta­tions of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe

Mod­ernist Bird­hous­es Inspired by Bauhaus, Frank Lloyd Wright and Joseph Eich­ler

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

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Studio Ghibli Producer Toshio Suzuki Teaches You How to Draw Totoro in Two Minutes

in Animation, Art, Film, K-12 | May 22nd, 2020

This is some­thing you can do at home. Every­one, please draw pic­tures —Toshio Suzu­ki

There’s no short­age of online tuto­ri­als for fans who want to draw Totoro, the  enig­mat­ic title char­ac­ter of Stu­dio Ghibli’s 1988 ani­mat­ed fea­ture, My Neigh­bor Totoro:

There’s a two-minute, non-nar­rat­ed, God’s-Eye-view with shad­ing…

A detailed geom­e­try-based step-by-step…

A ten-minute ver­sion for kids that uti­lizes a drink­ing glass and a bot­tle cap to get the pro­por­tions right pri­or to pen­cil­ing, ink­ing, and col­or­ing…

But none has more heart than Stu­dio Ghi­b­li pro­duc­er Toshio Suzu­ki’s sim­ple demon­stra­tion, above.

The paper is ori­ent­ed toward the artist, rather than the view­er.

His only instruc­tion is that the eyes should be spaced very far apart.

His brush pen lends itself to a freer line than the tight­ly con­trolled out­lines of Stu­dio Ghibli’s care­ful­ly ren­dered 2‑D char­ac­ter designs.

This is Totoro as Zen prac­tice, offered as a gift to cooped-up Japan­ese chil­dren, whose schools, like so many world­wide, were abrupt­ly shut­tered in an effort to con­tain the spread of the nov­el coro­n­avirus.

via MyMod­ern­Met

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hayao Miyazaki’s Stu­dio Ghi­b­li Releas­es Free Back­grounds for Vir­tu­al Meet­ings: Princess Mononoke, Spir­it­ed Away & More

A Vir­tu­al Tour Inside the Hayao Miyazaki’s Stu­dio Ghi­b­li Muse­um

Build Your Own Minia­ture Sets from Hayao Miyazaki’s Beloved Films: My Neigh­bor Totoro, Kiki’s Deliv­ery Ser­vice & More

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Her lat­est project is an ani­ma­tion and a series of free down­load­able posters, encour­ag­ing cit­i­zens to wear masks in pub­lic and wear them prop­er­ly. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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