Continued from previous comment... Frédéric Back is one of the few that made animation a medium in which I felt serious work could be done when I started looking at alternatives to my natural media “life.” There is an honesty and poetry in his work that takes his work far far beyond mere entertainment, it is not a surprise to me that he had to work in Canada in order to find support for his work. At face value, his films are not commercial and would likely not have received the support they needed if they had been attempted elsewhere. He is one of a kind, and one that will no doubt have made a difference in animation, but also in something larger as well (“Life?”). As for the “worth” of single frames from his work, I think they actually do stand up as genuine art works, see for yourself: www.awn.com/gallery/back/overview.html I better stop here, this is getting to be so long! You may consider moving this discussion to the comments section of my part 5 article, or even to private email, I doubt anybody reads comments to an article that was published last July?

To Anik Rosenblum. You say: “Thank you for your kind response, as I understand from it (without being secure about my intellectual abilities to absorb it adequately), that you consider animation as art only when it deals with abstract images (I am sure you will correct me here about my terminology). Character animation for you can not be art because there is no exploration level to a task of bringing a character from pose A to pose B, which is not the purpose, but the main element of character animation.” Anik, I most certainly do not privilege “abstract” over “figurative,” but I definitely am expecting animation to show us images that are other than what one finds in “paint by numbers” books. It is really pathetic to see how most animation are made by way of images that are a dime a dozen, pulled straight from “recipe books” disseminated by “how-to” gurus and pseudo artists! Whether you are an “artist” or an animator, you are creating your image one stroke at a time, one breath at a time. What happens in this “here and now” is essential to what the drawing connects with, what it makes visible, and yet, unless one pays the price of admission to the awareness of that which happens at this precise moment (which is often the awareness that one does not really know what is going on;-), one is merely drawing images that are pulled from those recipe books and/or from the store of clichés and innuendoes our culture is so full of. Animation as art ought to dig deeper than that if it claims to be more than mere “animation plumbing,” but to me, it seldom does. We need to reopen the box we got in on the heels of Disney and such, and reconnect with what we would be doing if we did not see through those “Disney colored goggles.” One of my closest friends (and a terrific animator) is Martine Chartrand. She won the “Golden Bear” award for short films at the Berlin Film Festival with her great animation “Ame Noire” (Black Soul). Martine is totally absorbed by the narrative, but she treats it so very competently in her paintings on glass, she is one of the better examples I can think of that can marry the obligations of the story with a concern for the quality of the form of the images. If there is one aspect of working with visuals that Martine and I agree upon, it is the need for us to have images come from “within,” we both greatly value the help provided us by “fortuitous accidents.” There will be a short excerpt of Martine’s work in my next article. What really lacks quality in “habitual animation” comes from animators having had very little training in the fine art of drawing. Not “drawing as it pertains to the needs of animation as an established language,” but drawing as a means to discover and explore the unknown that our reality is. Any serious drawing done “from life” is bound to lead one to an awareness of the ambiguity of it all, ambiguity that is so very sorely lacking in most ”habitual animation.” Every time I visit an art school that caters to animation’s needs for figure drawing, I see appalling drawings that only pay lip service to the “notion” of “figure drawing done from life.” They are riddled with recipes, held back by the intentionality of the students, the teachers, and the school, totally limited by and to what most people think "drawing for animation" should look like.. Once one has tasted the privileged tool drawing is when one is opened to the mysterious in the ordinary, nothing short of what was tasted will do. I have said all along that art schools should first and foremost make it possible for their students to taste this mystery, but it is unfortunately obvious to me that most remain at the level of teaching “how to” and now, trying to meet the needs of potential employers in the animation industry. Art, which had been for so long the last refuge of the “misfits” is now too becoming just another way of fitting in, at least as far as the animation departments are concerned. You continue: “At least all the examples of animated work you have mentioned are abstract. However I think that maybe you have a wrong approach to the appreciation of the animation medium, maybe the drawing in animation is not the purpose, but only a tool, and the art is contained not in it, but in the artist's personal approach to storytelling and character creation. It doesn't mean that the drawing and movement idea has to follow the same simplistic formula that it unfortunately usually does in animation, and I am really glad that there are such artists as the ones you have mentioned that give the drawing this exploration dimension, but in my opinion in animation sometimes you also can explore the visual storytelling or character perceiving, paying less attention to the drawing, treating it only as a tool.” Animation needs not be so hooked on storytelling, there are other ways, and those other ways could actually be a source of renewal for story telling itself, a genre that is becoming staler and staler. Look, animators are, for the most art, drawing as if Cézanne, Pollock and Giacometti never existed, and they are telling stories as if Proust, Joyce and Beckett never existed either! Surely, we can do better than that, we can open our work and our self to the fragmentation of our experience of life, we can bring into our work all the flipping forward and backward in time that constantly happens in our mind, we can accept and make visible all the metamorphosis that constitute our experience of the visible world. Most “habitual animation” is a huge lie, an enormous deception that only caters to the need to increase the deception! A real vicious circle. Another friend, Sharon Katz, is trying to find ways to approach character animation without falling into the “Muybridge’s Curse,” I will also show some of her work in my next article (you can see some samples of her work here: www.sharonkatz.net). You say: “What do you think about such animators as Paul Fierlinger, O.R.Blechman or Frederic Bach, do you consider their work art? They do put a lot of their "deeper self" into their films, but it's still character animation, a single frame from it is meaningless. Animation maybe is a much more infantile art form than the Fine Art, but is not the same thing and cannot be always treated the same way.” ** NOTE-continued on next comment **

Thank you for your kind responce, as I understand from it (without being secure about my intellectual abilities to absorb it adequately), that you consider animation as art only when it deals with abstract images (I am sure you will correct me here about my terminology). Character animation for you can not be art because there is no exploration level to a task of bringing a character from pose A to pose B, which is not the purpose, but the main element of character animation. At least all the examples of animated work you have mentioned are abstract. However I think that maybe you have a wrong approach to the appreciation of the animation medium, maybe the drawing in animation is not the purpose, but only a tool, and the art is contained not in it, but in the artist's personal approach to storytelling and character creation. It doesn't mean that the drawing and movement idea has to follow the same simplistic formula that it unfortunatelly usually does in animation, and I am really glad that there are such artists as the ones you have mentioned that give the drawing this exploration dimension, but in my opinion in animation sometimes you also can explore the visual storytelling or character perceiving, paying less attention to the drawing, treating it only as a tool. What do you think about such animators as Paul Fierlinger, O.R.Blechman or Frederic Bach, do you consider their work art? They do put a lot of their "deeper self" into their films, but it's still character animation, a single frame from it is meaningless. Animation maybe is a much more infantile art form than the Fine Art, but is not the same thing and cannot be always treated the same way. But I definitely salut you for opening this discussion and writing such a deep thought provoking interesting article about it. Also, you slightly misquoted me in your previous answer, probably because of my bad writing. By "inbetween" I meant a drawing that comes between two key drawings, and by "inbetweening" I meant the work of creating those secondary drawings.

To Anik Rosenblum You say: “I totally agree with you that most of the animation have nothing to do with art or self-expression, neither do the drawings used in this medium.” Anik, I have long been convinced that art has very little to do with self expression. Expression is a given in art, one can’t avoid but have the work express “something.” So to me, art is much more about exploration than about expression, why try so hard to "put in" something that is always already there? You continue: “But how can a drawing have this dimension of exploration in a medium where it has to be redrawn and duplicated with gradual changes and readjustments in order to create the desirable effect of movement or transformation? How much of our personal vision can we put into drawings that have to be within a reasonable time, and how unbeaten drawings can each represent a unique searching experience? I mean it as a real question, not as a disagreement, maybe you can suggest an approach. Can you give an example of an animated film that you like?” Anik, this is one of, if not the best question asked yet in the context of my articles, so no, I do not perceive it at all as a disagreement (and what's wrong with disagreement anyway?;-). Seeing that you write from Montréal, you must be familiar with Pierre Hébert and his work? Pierre is very concerned about one fundamental of animation, the one that constitutes the re-invention of cinema with every frame (my words). In that sense, if animation is to be truly an art form, it must reinvent the wheel constantly, and the answer to your great question can only reflect one solution, yours! The fact is, animation does reinvent the wheel all the time, but only a few animators are truly aware of that, most take the form they exploit totally for granted. I am not avoiding the issue by not replying "dorestly" to your question, I am trying to point to the sense I have that if “each one of us is a brand new point of view on the world” (as Merleau-Ponty said so well), surely, each one of us is also a brand new point of view on animation. Very few people invest in this though, most people try to fit in the pre-established form of “habitual animation.” I sense a real concern about “how to invest our personal vision in drawings that have to be within a reasonable time” in you, I however wonder if you need to stay confined to the notion of “reasonable time” at all? That could be, for you, the start of a new way of working, something that would help us all see something that could not have existed if you had not done it. I explain a little bit about my process in a reply to comments made about my part 5 article, I talk about the application that makes it possible for me, so far, to work according to what I am here talking about, “Studio Artist.” Here’s the (partial) url to the reply in which I talk about that and other related things, just write http:// in your browser’s location field and copy paste the following: mag.awn.com/index.php3?ltype=comments2&article_no=1601#970 As for animation works that I like, it so happens that my next article will be all about that, with lots of clips from people that I highly respect. One name that stands out for me as I find her work to be the start of a tradition that has not been really fulfilled till now is Mary Ellen Bute, and there’s one good article on her at AWN. No clip though, again, write http:// followed by: www.awn.com/mag/issue1.2/articles1.2/moritz1.2.html If you are really concerned about trying to find ways by which you could, in animation, explore that which you seem to be responding to in what I am talking about, I would suggest you try a very simple and possibly short animation, without any external pressure whatsoever, no deadline, even letting it run for as long as it pleases, don’t close its durtion, leave that wide open, connecting as much as you are able to with the way you probably were as a child when you were looking at clouds, seeing castles and rabbits and more, focusing on what Picasso talked about, “becoming more interested in what you find than in what you were looking for.” And instead of constantly trying to force the work to conform to a pre-established form, follow the hints one gets as soon as one drops one's “ideas,” and see where that may take you. Happy “floating.”

I totally agree with you that most of the animation have nothing to do with art or selfexpression, neither do the drawings used in this medium. But how can a drawing have this dimension of exploration in a medium where it has to be redrawn and duplicated with gradual changes and readjustments in order to create the desirable effect of movement or transformation? How much of our personal vision can we put into drawings that have to be inbetweened within a reasonable time, and how inbetween drawings can each represent a unique searching experience? I mean it as a real question, not as a disagreement, maybe you can suggest an approach. Can you give an example of an animated film that you like?

I am happy to draw; thats all i know I am happy to paint; thats all i feel I am happy NOT to explain; thats all i "think" Do we really have to dissect our happiness ? Do we really have to dissect Art? Do we really have to tell why ? why must we? Y Y Y Y Y

Very interesting Jean - I was a bit stuck, trying to do something which was becoming very dull, due to that feeling that the original idea was changing and was ready to give up, (I sould have been seeing new potential) but will now return revitalised! An important part of the message I parallel this way - its not that we need to jump from all we know into a void and produce something from beyond that which seems known, so much as we need to work with what we have 'now' (today) and broaden it - pushing boundaries out (as we live and learn). Technique becomes almost irrelavent, as we have no idea where we are ultimatley heading! Thanks again Jean, I will look up Maurice Merleau-Ponty Simon

The titles to the paintings absolutely objectified the otherwise superb drawings, thus killing much of the possbilities of (and brought about as a personal experience) imagination and connection that was initially privileged by Jean's endeavors. A death by closure brought to a work that is otherwise ever expanding. It is so funny. must a painting have a name to it in order for it to be complete? Again an irony set against the preberbal experience that Jean is bringing to our awareness through his writing. ;-)