Brainstorming the Critique

Identify and analyse the contribution of Muybridge, Marey and Faroki to the development of films, gaming and animation in Anselm Franke's 2014 article, a Critique of Animation.

Etienne-Jules Marey:

• French Physiologist
• Chronophotography: Definition of Chronophotograph a photograph or a series of photographs of a moving object taken to record and exhibit successive phases of the object's motion
• Invented the Sphygmograph, an instrument to record graphically the features of the pulse and variations in blood pressure.
• Studied animal movement through frames like that of Muybridge.
• His work was foundational for the moving image
• Created what would be the Mo-Cap suit, known as a striped tracksuit. Originally used to study the movements of the human body in movement. These suits were equipped with cameras and sensors.

Eadweard Muybridge:

• English Photographer
• Studied motion and motion-picture projection.
• Known for his photographic study on horse trotting to prove that all four legs of a horse are off the ground.

Harun Faroki:

• German Filmmaker
• Known for his political essay films
• He examined these political subjects while also openly confronting the inherently persuasive, manipulative properties of the cinematic medium.
• An apparent typical scene from a Harun Faroki film: "a factory worker has to insert prefabricated parts into a machine for further processing. A study of the movements of both humans and machines." Faroki wants his audience to ask questions about scene in his films, especially the whats and the whys.
• Faroki observed the advances in technology into what it is today and found the link between the advancement and the logic of production and war. He observed other notable things.

Relevant Paragraphs:

• A few years back, when Harun was beginning to draft the series Parallel, he was speaking of his interest in the technologies used in films like Avatar. In particular, motion-capture technology is somehow close to the techniques used by Marey: actors in special suits perform movements in spaces equipped with cameras and sensors. Human actors lend their gestures to what will later become a digitally animated character.
• Motion-capture technology is somehow close to the techniques used by Marey: actors in special suits perform movements in spaces equipped with cameras and sensors. Human actors lend their gestures to what will later become a digitally animated character.
• Harun spoke of how digital animation hit a limit (not unlike the “winter of artificial intelligence”) when it tried to reconstruct the human walk (again referring us back to Marey). It always looks mechanical, and never organically alive.

Reference:

Franke, A. (2014, November) A Critique of Animation. e-flux, Journal #59. Retrieved from https://www.e-flux.com/journal/59/61098/a-critique-of-animation/