Online Culture - 'a e s t h e t i c' & Re-appropriation of Animation

A couple of days ago I encountered a music genre called 'vaporwave' which first originated around 2010 and was released on the internet, at first the the music genre was meant to be satirical, a jibe at consumerist society and so-called pretentious musical genre's. It consists of  audio samples from retro instructional videos and 808 drum machine production styles.
Album covers and artist names featured retro reference imagery and names such as 'Macintosh Plus' an artist who you could say became a meme for the genre of vaporwave.
Through investigating this online phenomena and musical genre I discovered this video whereby The Simpsons have been reappropriated into a kind of 80/90's montage akin to cinematography of miami vice. I think this works because The Simpsons began in the late 80's and kept the fashions of that time attributed to the characters we see in the series.
I find it interesting how an online movement revolving around the retro, and fashions of the 80's/90's has been able to re-appropriate imagery and audio into something that embodies what the consumerist society has become in its; old, grainy, washed out, tired look.

Animated GIF's

Animated GIF's I feel can act in a number of ways and be split into different categories such as; comedy, art, advertisement, political commentary etc. I also think that as with any form of animation, GIF's have the ability to be used in whatever context you would like them to be used in.
However it is important to recognise that GIF's may not be suitable in every context, a example would be that you would shy away from using GIF's in a presentation to corporate clients.

Tools For Documentation and Experimentation - Research

I have acquired a point and shoot film camera for extra documentation and experimentation purposes such as, using film photographs to produce an animation, developing ideas for stylisation of different environments e.g capturing certain qualities/values of light and tone.


I have also decided to further my documentation and experimation by making use of an old camcorder for the nice grainy visual quality that I like and that I am exploring currently.

External Project - Stage Visuals 2 - Research

Through my research into VHS mixing and editing styles I have altered the footage of my animation to mimic that of an old altered VHS tape by altering the colour channels in the channel mixer fx option in premiere. I have also added more sharpness to the image to receive that grainy effect that video cassettes give off.
Through this experimentation I feel i am now able to apply this combination of different effects into more aspects of personal professional practice and other modules aswell.

External Project - Stage Visuals - Research

Here is another piece of work that is for an external project that will be used by an artist to use as background projection. This short animation will feature as part of a series of different loops made by using frame by frame animation. The artist has requested that the work be not too considered and leaning more towards the rough aesthetic.
I have taken on this work to deepen my understanding of what frame by frame animation can be and the different effects that can arise through experimentation in this process.
There will be a vague narrative to these animations, of a homeless man's struggle.

Copyright Seminar - Research (OUAN402)

I felt it necessary to document on this blog the seminar on copyright due to the nature of future work i may produce, using various clips from different sources and how i might steer clear of any legal issues regarding copyright laws.

External Collective Project - Posibility of Motion Graphics - Research (OUAN402)

 These images have been developed from sketches in my sketchbook. Partly inspired by Michael Craig-Martin and the work of Nazusk, a sheffield based artist.
These pieces are part of a body of personal work that i am developing alongside my studies as part of a collective that is in the early stages of formation.
An idea I had whilst creating these pieces started by asking myself if i could make these pieces move some how, turning them into motion graphics. I shall start by first making some GIF's out of these images for simplicity and reflect on how effective that was as a motion graphic promoting the collective.

Arthur Lipsett - Research - (OUAN402)

Arthur Lipsett was a film maker who enjoyed collecting various clips footage and audio, he translated these found pieces of footage and audio into audiovisual collages, though they are abstract you can certainly detract from them the atmosphere that Lipsett was trying to bring across to the audience.
I chose to research in to Lipsett for his video & audio collage work as I am curious as to how i might go about bringing the collage element of my own work into my animation practice.
By researching into other practitioners who have 'cut and stitched' moving image and audio together it will help me to form practical and technical ideas about how I might go about bringing in this element into my own work.

CDT Crew - Youtube - VHS mash ups and editing style (OUAN402)

CDT (Crazy Dave Tapes) is an online entity that creates video mixtapes featuring found VHS footage and other audiovisual ephemera. The types of clips that usually feature in the mixtapes are of old novelty TV ads, cheap movie remakes/rip-offs, 'cheesy' kung-fu and action movies, budget horror movies, public access TV segments and more.
What interests me about this work is the raw, rough stitched together aesthetic that is incorporated into the work. It tries to make something that is a bridge between entertainment and art, something which I myself would like to experiment with and a direction that i see my own practice moving towards.
Because most of the footage is of old VHS movies and ephemera, there seems to be a comment on how far we have come with technology and special effects and these mixtapes seem to make a spectacle of that. Looking at these mixtapes and analyzing them I have noticed that there is a method to the madness in terms of editing and layering up footage and audio, the creators have made sure that there is a fluidity to the sequence of different clips and by doing that the viewer isn't waiting for something to happen but rather, bombarded with a stream of moving imagery and audio.
I shall experiment with video collage and try and think of ways that i can bring  this element together within my own practice of animation, responses will be documented as part of the process of reflection and my own primary research.