I began using Autodesk Flipbook to animate my ideas for Sustainable futures, as I thought that by using video I could demonstrate how I prefer telling a story with my work. However, so far since I have been using the software I have made a range of experiments which can help me understand what works better in moving image and so on. They are all located here: https://www.instagram.com/hellz.humanz/
(I have also created Giphy account where I intend to share my animation on a different platform but I am currently waiting for my request for an artists account to be approved.)
By taking inspiration from other artists I have mentioned in previous blog posts like Otto Dix and Henrik Drescher these few animations are a way that I have been slowly experimenting with the animation software. The main ideas which I used in these for the Sustainable Futures project, is that we are going to drown in our own rubbish, it will take over the world and humans will end by the hand of their own waste. I came to this thought one day whilst I was driving on the motorway past a lay-by my eyes came across the most ridiculous amount of rubbish littering the trees and grass around it, if that was part of mundane day to day life for some and only a minuscule fraction of the rubbish we produce then in the long term how will we deal with the amount of waste globally?
The one named ‘Trash Talk’ was my first and probably my favourite. The way that it all fits together is the best in my opinion. I was thinking about phrases when going to bed to fit with my main idea of pollution and my mind settled on the term ‘trash talk’. From this I got the idea of a standoff between humans and a monster made out of our junk. The first part shows them coming meeting, coming to a halt face to face. I chose to focus in on certain body parts as it allowed me to focus in more on the detail and focus the viewer on that part rather than animating a whole body and the viewer getting lost in its complexity. This is followed by tense stare between the two, the two closeups of their faces are probably the best bits in mu opinion, I tried to make it as odd and off and unsettling as I could with bodily fluids etc. without losing the childish cartoony side of it. The dichotomy between the off nature of the story and the childish animation with bright colours is something I enjoy since it adds to the obscurity of it. This short concludes with the human’s skin peeling back in a gruesome way and exposing a skeleton made of junk, following the idea that our junk will consume us. This piece helped spark a style which I was satisfied with, however it took the longest.
That is something which I have been worrying about when creating these is that since it takes a while to create I am not producing enough work and I end up rushing pieces, since ‘Trash Talk’ I have not produced anything as good.
‘Crocodile tears’ was my next piece. I chose this phrase because I liked the idea of false tears, since humans are crying and moaning about the state of the world however these tears are hypocritical and false as we are the ones who created the mess. This one is definitely a lot darker than my first one. The picture is my own of Canary Wharf and I thought it would be perfect to stage some sort of huge rubbish monster as if they have taken over the world. The man with wings is Peacock Man, the way that all surviving humans will look when the rubbish takes over. Peacock Man looks like this as, like a peacock, he has many eyes but not to make himself look more grand but to increase his ability to be narcissistic and be the human of consumer society which we will become. Peacock man is the one crying, he is helpless to the strength of the rubbish man who easily picks his small fragile fly body up and take him with him.
‘Going Nowhere’ came about again from a phrase that I latched onto which best demonstrated the concept which I had built up to respond to the brief. This is because we are going nowhere with our attempts in order to change the environment. However this one was a lot more experimental as I had an idea and just wished to try and toy with it in a very short animation. This one is simple the words slide across the screen ontop of this grid inspired by Superstudio’s work of a plane where everything is flat and each square is equal. It provides a barren futuristic look and an idea into what the world may become. The words are pushed back by a small rubbish man who I had experimented with by combining photoshop and bringing that into an animation, this is because I work with both Photoshop and Autodesk and thought I should try and combine them and combine my skills. This cute figure then melts into blackness which takes the form of a skull which foreshadows the darkness which has the potential to happen and the reality of this piece of rubbish which is more inconspicuous than my big rubbish man. I chose to make him cuter and less foreboding than my Rubbish Man to demonstrate how many people do not consider the environment and how serious the problems are. Continuing my whole argument from my previous blog post which discusses the lack of care for the environment. Additionally if put it on a loop the small characters efforts are going nowhere, as many times as he pushes the words back they come back. There is a humorous side and a darker side to this.
‘Human trash’ (progress above) is more of an experiment than a piece. I’d used small pieces of photoshop in ‘Going Nowhere’ so that was already on my mind. Whilst experimenting in Photoshop in produced this image:
I like the way that the skin had warped in this, it’s something which aesthetically pleases me and what I like to use. There is something skin crawling about the though of something like that applied to human skin, human skin moving in that way like it’s a damp towel or so on, it is unsettling. I use this same kind of idea in ‘Trash Talk’ where the man’s skin peels off and in ‘Going Nowhere’ where the character melts. I therefore worked on this piece on a worksheet and went to cut out magazines to create these layers and rolls of flesh, whilst cutting out the pieces some landed in a satisfying position and I took a photo thinking not much of it.
However the next day I chose to use this photo and manipulate it in photoshop to create this melting look. It was a very quick brief experiment which is not perfect but I like the idea, there are things which I would change and might do it again. The phrase ‘Human Trash’ came about by how our rubbish will left behind even when we die away, our trash will be left exposed.
This project has been extremely helpful in shaping my own style and how I go about creating my own work and giving me space to experiment before FMP.
Holly Telfer FAD 