The body is the puppet

After getting the idea for the title of this blog post, I realized it reminded me of one of the greatest conceptual artists of all time, a.k.a. the grandmother of performance art, Marina Abramović. Anyone not familiar with her work, I warmly invite you to get acquainted with her through the documentary Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present or if possible, get even closer by going to some of her exhibitions. For me, seeing her work up close is as you can almost feel her presence, especially if she is not in the artwork itself. She gets through. She is direct and loud. This is why she heavily influenced the perception of an artwork, by using her own body as a form of art instead of repeating the well-known brush and paint practice.

Marina Abramović's Rhythm 0 Exhibit at the Museum of Parallel Narratives in Barcelona in 2011 (photograph by Rafael Vargas)

By association, I want to use her philosophical approach to try to explain the idea behind: the body is the puppet in stop-motion. Apparently, during performances, Marina uses the power of the crowd which gives her strength to push herself to the limit and by doing this she uncovers an unleashed potential found in her state of mind as a performer. By this method, she both affirms her identity through the audience and what is more, she gets the audience involved who often become an archetypical embodiment of the nature of humanity.

So, I think therein lies a reason why we enjoy watching and making films about ourselves (both direct and indirect). Our bodies become an object, as in Marina’s performances and that context becomes very interesting to observe because you can project and immerse yourself within another body. Quite probably it’s what voyeurs do, and if given the opportunity each of us has an urge to act upon these tendencies, but the fear of getting caught keeps us docile. So, to a certain point, we all indeed are inherently voyeuristic. Pornography wouldn’t be such a big hit otherwise. Not to mention Facebook.

Henceforth I am sharing some examples of pixelation animation where the authors used their bodies as puppets in inspiring ways, and I purposely picked recent smart, but underrated works, instead of the well-known legends such as Cohl, Svankmayer, McLaren, etc... 

                                         

Don't know what - A Film by Thomas Renoldner

(https://vimeo.com/412906856)

Fundamentally, we go deeper and become more profound after reviving our past and future via the universal intimate images of our bodies. Because, actually all we do is mimic nature through ourselves. Basically, if you ask me it’s what we came here to do: leave a mark, give something to this world, and in return learn something new about ourselves.

                                                                         Doxology - A Film by Michael Langan

Going back to the point: besides being mystically drawn to seeing ourselves through others, it is in reality cheaper and rather eco-friendly to use a human puppet than to build millions of expressions from transparent silicone colored with layers of paint and refinement and animate them distressfully for a relatively extended period of time. Why do so much work and create endless grotesque expressions of a face? We already have it, each one of us is individually gifted with it and we are all quite dissimilar to one another, so I suspect that even if you draw a very original character design you could probably find a similarity when you look at the mirror. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great to build a puppet (favorably made from recycled materials) and explore expressions, emotions, and, essentially, oneself through an inanimate object. It helps you to understand the basics of animation. I agree 100%. But once you are done with that, I encourage you to make a lamp out of it and when you are well satisfied, try to use your own body as a puppet next time. And I am not talking necessarily full nude material if you are uncomfortable with your body image, but also echocardiography, dentist materials, radiation memorabilia, grandparents getting wrinkles, family albums, kids growing teeth, you name it… just get all of those pixels together and make something fantastical as you can do with your puppet. Because you already have the talent. Now it’s just time to change the material. And the practice. And learn how to animate anew. I know all of that. But it’s worthwhile. Not to mention profitable. Also, perhaps you could make your ancestors happy by imprinting your own image into your creation. You shall represent an unpolished Earth embodied personally. And that might be very interesting. Because you will give perfection through imperfection.

 

 Clay Pigeon- A Film by Miloš Tomić

While working on my new animation I realized how every painstaking effort to animate an object myself is a bad version of time-lapsing flowers in full growth. Just give it a chance.  It will be worthwhile. I promise.