:: GussetBLOG ::

:: Wednesday, November 11, 2009 ::

Reform: Link Dump

THE IMPACT OF ENGLISH LIBEL LAW ON FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
A REPORT BY INDEX ON CENSORSHIP & ENGLISH PEN
9 OCTOBER 2009

BHA on BBC Consultation
"We want an end to the privileged status and position of religions and religious broadcasting by the BBC, and for some programmes about humanism or from a humanist perspective to be broadcast. In spite of legislation making clear that religions and beliefs, including non-religious beliefs such as Humanism, should be treated equally in terms of broadcasting, the BBC continues to resist doing so.
We want the BBC to fulfil its obligations and include Humanist programmes in its broadcasting!"

Radio 4 Front Row from Tues, available to stream for a week
"Lord Mandelson recently announced the government's plans for tackling illegal file sharing online. Under new measures, repeat offenders who ignore warning letters could have their internet connection removed. High-profile figures including Lily Allen and Radiohead's Ed O'Brien have been weighing into the debate over what approach the government and music industry should take to tackle the problem. Minister for Digital Britain Stephen Timms, CEO of UK Music Feargal Sharkey and Cory Doctorow, the journalist and supporter of copyright liberalisation, discuss the issues surrounding the file sharing debate."
Plus a report on Health & Safety vs cartoon violence.

Labels: Animation, Humanism, News, P2P, Politics, Religion, science

:: Dan 11.11.09 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
...

Lifetracks 03 : Antoni Maiovvi
"For the next installment of Lifetracks, we sent the call out to our man in Berlin, the infamous italo maestro Antoni Maoivvi. Maiovvi has been busy spreading the synth l'amour across Europe and beyond, with second album Shadow Of the Bloodstained Kiss due for release on August 3, an imaginary soundtrack to a long-lost 80s giallo."



The Guardian: Tech Weekly: On the road in Bristol
"We find out about Bristol's hot tech talent including South West Screen, Mobile Pie, Aardman Animations, Simon Games and more"

http://www2.planet-mu.com/forums/general?t=65396
[CF027] Oxynucid & Mrs Jynx - Symbiotix EP Free Download



The Midnight Writer: Night Photography Podcast [feedburner]

Pete says:
"Hi all,
Just got back from a rainy holiday, but while I was away a new Skip to the End appeared. This one is the result of radio interference/collaboration with London based podcast Radio Clash (http://www.mutantpop.net/radioclash/).
Basically every 15mins of either podcast skips over to the other show. Therefore to hear the whole 60mins of Skip to the End you'll have to download my podcast from the usual www.thejuxtaposition.co.uk/skiptotheend.html and the Radio Clash podcast from http://www.mutantpop.net/radioclash/page/2/
Confused? You will be...
I was going to draw you a diagram, but maybe Tim explains it better on his page. Probably better to just listen to the music and not worry about where it comes from.
It was fun in the making and thanks to Tim for such excellent contributions, I know who got the better deal.
Next show at the end of August will be the 2nd anniversary show, Still shit to the end.
Pete"

Steak House: Groucho Marxx mix and free tunes

Labels: Animation, MP3, Photography

:: Dan 7.8.09 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
...

Craig McCracken on copyright (from 2000)

"Craig McCracken knew it was a Powerpuff World the day he was driving along and saw Powerpuff piñatas for sale on the roadside. He pulled over, not to say "Cease" or "Desist" but to buy some. He was excited! It was a pop-cultural seal of approval. When he found a fan selling homemade Powerpuff Pez dispensers, he was excited again. Because it’s one thing to sign contracts with toy makers and clothing manufacturers to commercially exploit your images, but it’s a whole other thing, and in its way a cooler thing, to be ripped off, to have one’s copyright violated. Piracy is the sincerest form of flattery. It’s the free-market reflection of the voice of the people. "The weirder, more bootleg obscure stuff is always my favorite," says McCracken, who likes all the official, less weird stuff as well."

Labels: Animation, Copyright

:: Dan 2.8.09 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
...

"It’s no secret that architecture has been hit by the recession (yes, even that impenetrable bastion of technical wizardry, jargon, theory, and - oh nevermind). 27-year old Seattle resident John Morefield can attest: he was laid off not once, but twice in a single year as projects dry up and small firms tighten budgets. So what’s a boy to do? Watch Peanuts cartoons and hang out at the local farmers’ market?

"Why yes indeedy. Morefield’s concept for Architecture 5¢ — edificially inspired by Charles Schulz’s psychiatrist booth for Lucy — is bringing architecture to the people, and people to the architecture. For a nickel, passerby can ask questions that range from simple (”What’s the best insulation to use next to concrete in a basement?”) to complex (”We have a 700-square foot Seattle bungalow and want to add a second story because we’re expecting our first child… Help!”)."

[full story on flavorwire]

As an aside, there's an architect I'm working with on a new school at the moment. In meetings he makes sound effects as he sketches the ideas being discussed. It reminds me of the animation sequences from Rainbow. It tickles me every time. More people should soundtrack their lives like this. (Skip to 2:30 in the video if you don't have a clue what I'm on about.)

Labels: Animation, architecture, TV

:: Dan 22.4.09 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
...

[thanks Carly]

Labels: Animation

:: Dan 9.4.09 [Arc] [1 comments] ::
...

Mrs P, Slim and I attended the Ray Harryhausen book signing, Q&A and Jason and the Argonauts screening at the Watershed on Thursday. Seeing the film on the big screen was great. I maintain that it still looks better than most of the CGI fests that we see today. It’s a shame model animation is such a dying art. And seeing the man in person, still sprightly and chipper for his 89 years, was an inspiration.

It was a shame that the lip-sync was a couple of frames out. (Or was it always like that!?) I could also criticise the continuity, the colour matching, the acting and the characterisation, but that’s all irrelevant. I never thought I would quote Tom Hanks but as he said when presenting Harryhausen with a special Academy Award, "Lots of people say Casablanca or Citizen Kane is the greatest film of all time... no way, it's Jason and the Argonauts!" And he was right.

Labels: Animation, Art, Film

:: Dan 14.3.09 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
...

RIP Oliver Postgate
He was an inspiration.
See my post on the Small Films screening at the Watershed in July.
It was a magical experience.

Bagpuss was a Miaoist

Labels: Animation, RIP

:: Dan 11.12.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
...

Music video for Shitmat "A Different Kind of War" (Death$ucker Records / Planet Mu Records) by Oliver Higgs. Check out the rest of his design work. Stunning.

Labels: Animation, Breakcore, Humour

:: Dan 23.11.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
...

"The Brothers Quay are among the few directors of animated film to have attained fame through the torturous and sometimes inconvenient road of auteur cinema. American by birth and English by adoption, the brothers, or rather twins Stephen and Timothy Quay, have, for more than twenty years, been making dazzlingly beautiful films that are at once disturbing and hermetic. Works which do not possess a definitive narrative path, but are immersed in a surreal, somnolent atmosphere caught half way between myth and nightmare."
Interview

In Absentia : part 1



In Absentia : part 2



[thanks Wei]

Labels: Animation

:: Dan 18.11.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
...

The .giferator
'a free automated animation based subliminal content absorption system for you'
The result of a search for gusset is here [781KB gif]. I haven't embedded it due to size and risk of seizures. Good to see our Ask Dr Kim album cover in there. It seems to scrape the first page of Google Image results.

Labels: Animation

:: Dan 9.11.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
...

Artist/culture jammer Jimmy Cauty's latest project: horrifically gory versions of classic animated cartoon cells
[via null device]

I've just bought one of these:


Not an entirely new idea (see Massimo Mattioli's "Squeak the Mouse" for example) but very nicely executed, if you forgive the phrase. But nice to see something other than Disney getting subverted for a change.

Talking of which, Grom recently linked to the stunning animationbackgrounds blog. This also focused a little too much on Disney for my liking. OK, so some of the artwork is amazing, but it's not the strange angled, hard lined, brightly coloured toons I grow up loving. Check the Warner Brothers and Tom and Jerry tags for that.




^ Click for large size.

P.S. Some of Cauty's 4th Class Stamps in my flickr stream.

Labels: Animation, Art

:: Dan 20.10.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
...

A character study of present and past cartoon characters by Michael Paulus

"Animation was the format of choice for children's television in the 1960s, a decade in which children's programming became almost entirely animated. Growing up in that period, I tended to take for granted the distortions and strange bodies of these entities.

"These Icons are usually grotesquely distorted from the human form from which they derive. I decided to take a select few of these popular characters and render their skeletal systems as I imagine they might resemble if one truly had eye sockets half the size of its head, or fingerless-hands, or feet comprising 60% of its body mass.

"These characters have become conventions that are set, defined, and well-known personas in our culture. Being that they are so commonplace and accepted as existing I thought I would dissect them like science does to all living objects - trying to come to an understanding as to their origins and true physiological make up. Possibly to better understand them and see them in a new light for what they are in the most basic of terms.

"I am currently offering a few of these for SALE"

Bubbles


Betty Boop


Marvin the Martian

Labels: Animation, Art

:: Dan 2.8.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
...

I attended the Phill, Bagpuss and Friends event as part of the Encounters short film festival at the Watershed yesterday.

Hosted by Phill Jupitus along with Loaf of The Dragons' Friendly Society and animator Brian Cosgrove the event celebrated the work of Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin of Smallfilms.

It was great to sit in a room full of nostalgic 30 to 50 somethings and enjoy these great pieces on animation again. Not that there is anything technically spectacular about them; it's the story telling, the pacing, the eccentricity, the music and the general mood that make them unique. Not to mention Oliver's voice.

There were a few things I'd never seen before. Like the "terrifying" Pogles episode "King of the Fairies" (watch when the witch appears). And I'd never even heard of Pingwings, which is brilliantly funny and touching at the same time, not just in it's naivety as they hadn't thought about the lighting problems shooting animation outdoors.

The BBC 4 documentary "Ivor the Engine" and the story of "Smallfilms" is on YouTube in three parts.

Oliver is now 84 years old and is in a retirement home so the event was being recorded for him. Keen to send him a message about how much his work is loved Phill Jupitus insists on all of the camera equipment being rearranged at the end so the whole audience can wave to him and send him their love. It was a funny, fantastical and heart warming afternoon.

Labels: Animation, Film, Review

:: Dan 28.7.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
...

The children meeting Satan (taken from The Mysterious Stranger)


Wikipedia , buy DVD (NTSC, R1), buy VHS
[via Breakwhore & Andrew Kpl on Hijack]

Labels: Animation

:: Dan 16.6.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
...

Charles says, "had a bit of time on my hands with nothing to do so i made godzilla a city to destroy."

Labels: Animation, Film, Sci-Fi

:: Dan 12.5.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
...

Food Fight is an abridged history of American-centric war, from World War II to present day, told through the foods of the countries in conflict. Watch as traditional comestibles slug it out for world domination in this chronologically re-enacted smorgasbord of aggression.



Breakdown of the foodstuffs
Breakdown of the actual battles portrayed in the film

Labels: Animation, Food, Humour, Politics, Video

:: Dan 12.3.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
...

Oddly I've just found an old (2003) Aphex video I've never seen before. Beautiful animation and nice long remix of one of the best tracks on Drukqs. Watch it.

Labels: Animation, Electronic Music, Video

:: Dan 10.3.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
...

"Wonder even sang a little dittie, with a harmonica, that was sung as if he were reciting the musical scales in ascending and descending order to the name of “Ba-rack O-ba-ma.”"
Stevie Wonder sings for Barack... and it sounds awful. What was he doing?

In my mind it works best sung to the tune of Long Distance Clara from Pigeon Street. He should have tried that.



[That wonderful example of Alan Rogers artwork is available as a print from easyart.com. Thanks for the bandwidth!]

Labels: Animation, Art, Humour, Music, News, Politics

:: Dan 6.2.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
...

"Braveheart meets Care Bears in psychedelic battle with peace as final winner. Animation by PandaPanther and Music by The Black Angels."

zuneartsdotnet

Labels: Animation

:: Dan 30.12.07 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
...

LIGHT UP BRISTOL - 17th / 21st December

Next week, College Green will undergo a magical transformation into five nights of Winter Wonderland. Using 6 of the world's most powerful projectors to dress up the whole of the Council House with light, this very unique "visual feast" will feature a selection of short video animations by some of Bristol's leading creative talent.

Antivj is very proud and excited to have been asked to be part of this and Crustea [Antivj / Cuisine] will be the only one to do a live performance every night, at 9.40pm.

LIGHT UP BRISTOL
College Green, Bristol city center
Monday 17th to Friday 21st December
Every night 6.30 to 10pm. Free!

More info:
www.blog.antivj.com
www.lightupbristol.co.uk

Labels: Animation, Bristol, graffiti, Visuals, VJ

:: Dan 14.12.07 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
...