Animation and Improvisation

This paper is a discussion of the research I have undertaken in developing a process of audio-visual composition based in the methodologies of ‘direct animation’ and musical improvisation. The central thesis project is Improvisation no. 1: Cumulative Loops, a work that might be described as audio-visual music, consisting of hand-drawn image sequences and music generated together in a cumulative and improvisatory process. Additional studio works related to this thesis include Bagirmi Beat, a sound composition achieved through frame-by-frame mark-making on the optical track of film, and nine experimental Motion Studies that investigate the audio-visual relationship between hand drawn animation and sound. Innovations emerging from my studio experiments include the pantographic brush array and an accompanying system of paper ‘filmstrips’. While all of the works incorporate these analog tools and materials, they are essentially digital media, made with and presented on computers, speakers and video displays. Speaking to the convergence of visual art and music in digital media and the possibilities for an individual artist therein, the works invite the viewer-listener to consider the place of materiality and the hand-made in the digital age. My methodology is based upon the notion that the fundamental correlation between image and sound is time. Arbitrary transpositions between, for example, pitch and color are less important than establishing in my mark-making process the conditions under which a musician might improvise. These conditions and the activities engaged with therein become the primary work while the resulting media ‘objects’ remain as testaments to the act of improvisation. Through the production and discussion of these works I address the importance of drawing in the ontology of animation and I explain the significance of human gesture, mark making and empathy in my practice. Referencing contemporary philosophical thought in the emerging area of improvisation studies, I position my audio-visual compositions within the idiomatic traditions of jazz music. Navigating the contradictions between pre-determination, spontaneity, chance and control, I present a body of work that speaks to the apparent paradox of improvisation in animation.