11.20.2008
Things - Jennifer Whalen Animates a Horse from Bre Pettis on Vimeo.
Jennifer Whalen wanted a horse that could walk around and so she went and found a Muybridge animation from the 1870’s and traced the shapes in inkscape to create a design. Then she lasercut the shapes and we used istopmotion to make them walk all over her… and a buffalo to walk all over Bre.
The wikipedia entry for Muybridge is very colorful and worth a read!
If you get the bug to make physical animations, you can start with these designs! Go download the horse and buffalo designs on thingiverse!
You can download a big hd file here or a smaller iphone sized file. If you subscribe in iTunes you can get the videos downloaded automatically!
Ooo! You could make a 3D Zoetrope!
I mean, cut out many objects and layer them along the z axis, like theatre flats.
I love Muybridge stuff. 20 years or so ago when I was in collij, I reanimated some of his sequences on my Amiga 2000 after having cut the guys out from their backgrounds in Deluxe Paint.
And just to tie things together with Jennifer’s other cutout object… I went to the University of Bison, I mean, Buffalo.
This was realy fun, especially with the out takes!
Muybridge is so popular for animations because the work isn’t under copyright any longer. One of my AZ colleagues, Steve Gompf, used to animate Muybridge sequences and then combine them into bizarre creatures, like a centaur, or a baby with bird wings, etc. The photos are great for making loops, so he’d create a looping video feed and install it on a tiny screen inside a retro-looking “televisor,” which he’d claim was a precursor to the television. He’d make up realistic sounding histories about them as well. some people see them and get the joke, others think they’re real. Here’s an example of what one looks like: http://www.teleseum.org/collection/1898.php And here’s a radio interview with Steve: http://kjzz.org/news/arizona/archives/200505/televisor Couldn’t find one of his animations online, what a shame.
Jennifer’s lasercut shapes and animations are super - tons of fun!
very clever. you may’ve already read this, but rebecca solnit’s River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West is an excellent read.
she is awesome!