An Animated History of Dogs, Inspired by Keith Haring

in Animation, Biology, Education, K-12, Nature, Science | April 5th, 2019

That quiv­er­ing teacup Chi­huahua…

The long-suf­fer­ing Labrador whose child-friend­ly rep­u­ta­tion has led to a life­time of ear tug­ging and tail pulling…

The wheez­ing French bull­dog, whose own­er has out­fit­ted with a full wardrobe of hood­ies, tutus, rain slick­ers, and paja­mas…

All descend­ed from wolves.

As anthro­pol­o­gist and sci­ence edu­ca­tor David Ian Howe explains in the ani­mat­ed TED-Ed les­son, A Brief His­to­ry of Dogs, above, at first glance, can­is lupus seemed an unlike­ly choice for man’s best friend.

For one thing, the two were in direct com­pe­ti­tion for elk, rein­deer, bison, and oth­er tasty prey wan­der­ing Eura­sia dur­ing the Pleis­tocene Epoch.

Though both hunt­ed in groups, run­ning their prey to the point of exhaus­tion, only one roast­ed their kills, cre­at­ing tan­ta­liz­ing aro­mas that drew bold­er wolves ever-clos­er to the human camps.

The ones who will­ing­ly dialed down their wolfish­ness, mak­ing them­selves use­ful as com­pan­ions, secu­ri­ty guards and hunt­ing bud­dies, were reward­ed come sup­per­time. Even­tu­al­ly, this mutu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial tail wag­ging became full on domes­ti­ca­tion, the first such ani­mal to come under the human yoke.

The intense focus on pure­breds did­n’t real­ly become a thing until the Vic­to­ri­ans began host­ing dog shows. The push to iden­ti­fy and pro­mote breed-spe­cif­ic char­ac­ter­is­tics often came at a cost to the ani­mals’ well­be­ing, as Neil Pem­ber­ton and Michael Wor­boys point out in BBC His­to­ry Mag­a­zine:

…the improve­ment of breeds towards ‘per­fec­tion’ was con­tro­ver­sial. While there was approval for the greater reg­u­lar­i­ty of type, many fanciers com­plained that stan­dards were being set on arbi­trary, large­ly aes­thet­ic grounds by enthu­si­asts in spe­cial­ist clubs, with­out con­cern for util­i­ty or the health of the ani­mal. This meant that breeds were chang­ing, and not always for the bet­ter. For exam­ple, the mod­ern St Bernard was said to be a beau­ti­ful ani­mal, but would be use­less in Alpine res­cue work.

Cat-fanciers, rest assured that the oppo­si­tion received fair and equal cov­er­age in a feline-cen­tric TED-Ed les­son, pub­lished ear­li­er this year.

And while we applaud TED-Ed for spark­ing our curios­i­ty with its “Brief His­to­ry of” series, cov­er­ing top­ics as far rang­ing as cheese, numer­i­cal sys­tems, goths, video games, and tea, sure­ly we are not the only ones won­der­ing why the late artist Kei­th Har­ing isn’t thanked or name checked in the cred­its?

Every canine-shaped image in this ani­ma­tion is clear­ly descend­ed from his icon­ic bark­ing dog.

While we can’t explain the omis­sion, we can direct read­ers toward Jon Nelson’s great analy­sis of Haring’s rela­tion­ship with dogs in Get Leashed:

They’re sym­bol­ic of unan­swered ques­tions, preva­lent in the 80s: “Can I do this?” “Is this right?” “What are you doing?” “What is hap­pen­ing?” Dogs stand by peo­ple, bark­ing or danc­ing along, some­times in pre­car­i­ous sce­nar­ios, even involved in some of Haring’s explic­it­ly sex­u­al work. Dogs are nei­ther approv­ing nor dis­ap­prov­ing of what peo­ple do in the images; their mouth angle is neu­tral or even hap­py. In some cas­es, human bod­ies wear a dog’s head, pos­si­bly stat­ing that we know only our own enjoy­ment, unaware, like a dog, of life’s next stage or the con­se­quences of our actions.

Vis­it Eth­no­cynol­o­gy, David Ian Howe’s Insta­gram page about the ancient rela­tion­ship between humans and dogs.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

An Ani­mat­ed His­to­ry of Cats: How Over 10,000 Years the Cat Went from Wild Preda­tor to Sofa Side­kick

Dis­cov­er David Lynch’s Bizarre & Min­i­mal­ist Com­ic Strip, The Angri­est Dog in the World (1983–1992)

Pho­tos of Famous Writ­ers (and Rock­ers) with their Dogs

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her in New York City April 15 for the next install­ment of her book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Watch Seder-Masochism, Nina Paley’s Animated, Feminist Take on the Passover Holiday: The Animated Feature Film Is Free and in the Public Domain

in Animation, Gender, Law, Religion | March 25th, 2019

Seder-Masochism, copy­right abo­li­tion­ist Nina Paley’s lat­est ani­mat­ed release, is guar­an­teed to ruf­fle feath­ers in cer­tain quar­ters, though the last laugh belongs to this trick­ster artist, who shares writ­ing cred­it with ”God, Moses or a series of patri­ar­chal males, depend­ing on who you ask.”

Bypass­ing a com­mer­cial release in favor of the pub­lic domain goes a long way toward inoc­u­lat­ing the film and its cre­ator against expen­sive rights issues that could arise from the star-stud­ded sound­track.

It also lets the air out of any affront­ed par­ties’ cam­paigns for mass box office boy­cotts.

“The crit­i­cism seems equal­ly divid­ed between peo­ple that say I’m a Zion­ist and peo­ple that say I’m an anti-Zion­ist,” Paley says of This Land Is Mine, below, a stun­ning sequence of trib­al and inter-trib­al car­nage, mem­o­rably set to Ernest Gold’s theme for the 1960 epic Paul New­man vehi­cle, Exo­dus.

Released as a stand-alone short, This Land Is Mine has become the most viewed of Paley’s works. She finds the oppos­ing camps’ equal out­cry encour­ag­ing, proof that she’s doing “some­thing right.”

More both­er­some has been Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Gen­der Stud­ies Mimi Thi Nguyen’s social media push to brand the film­mak­er as trans­pho­bic. (Paley, no fan of iden­ti­ty pol­i­tics, states that her “crime was, months ear­li­er, shar­ing on Face­book the fol­low­ing lyric: ‘If a per­son has a penis he’s a man.’”) Nguyen’s actions result­ed in the fem­i­nist film’s ouster from sev­er­al venues and fes­ti­vals, includ­ing Ebert­fest in Paley’s home­town and a women’s film fes­ti­val in Bel­gium.

What would the ancient fer­til­i­ty god­dess­es pop­u­lat­ing both art his­to­ry and Seder-Masochism have to say about that devel­op­ment?

In Seder-Masochism, these god­dess fig­ures, whom Paley ear­li­er trans­formed into a series of free down­load­able GIFs, offer a most­ly silent rebuke to those who refuse to acknowl­edge any con­cep­tion of the divine exist­ing out­side patri­ar­chal tra­di­tion.

In the case of Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor Nguyen, per­haps the god­dess­es would err on the side of diplo­ma­cy (and the First Amend­ment), fram­ing the dust-up as just one more rea­son the pub­lic should be glad the pro­jec­t’s lodged in the pub­lic domain. Any­one with access to the Inter­net and a desire to see the film will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to do so. Called out, maybe. Shut down, nev­er.

The god­dess­es sup­ply a depth of mean­ing to this large­ly com­ic under­tak­ing. Their ample curves inform many of the pat­terns that give motion to the ani­mat­ed cutouts.

Paley also gets a lot of mileage from repli­cat­ing super­nu­mer­ary char­ac­ters until they march with ant-like pur­pose or bedaz­zle in Bus­by Berke­ley-style spec­ta­cles. Not since Paul Mazursky’s Tem­pest have goats loomed so large in cin­e­mat­ic chore­og­ra­phy…

Paley’s use of music is anoth­er source of abid­ing plea­sure. She casts a wide net—punk, dis­co, Bul­gar­i­an folk, the Bea­t­les, Free to Be You and Me—again, fram­ing her choic­es as par­o­dy. “Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here” accom­pa­nies the sev­enth plague of Egypt (don’t both­er look­ing it up. It’s hail.) Ringo Starr’s famous “Hel­ter Skel­ter” aside (“I’ve got blis­ters on my fin­gers!”) boils down to an apt choice for plague num­ber six. (If you have to think about it…)

The ele­ments of the Seder plate are list­ed to the strains of “Tijua­na Taxi” because… well, who doesn’t love Herb Alpert and the Tijua­na Brass?

Paley’s own reli­gious back­ground is of obvi­ous inter­est here, and as with her pre­vi­ous fea­ture, Sita Sings the Blues—also in the pub­lic domain—the auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal ele­ment is irre­sistible. A 2011 audio record­ing pro­vides the excuse to por­tray her father, Hiram, who died the year after the inter­view was con­duct­ed, as a Mon­ty Python-esque God. The senior Paley was raised in an obser­vant Jew­ish house­hold, but lost faith as a young man. An athe­ist who want­ed his chil­dren to know some­thing of their her­itage, Passover was the one Jew­ish hol­i­day he con­tin­ued to cel­e­brate. (He also for­bade the kids from par­tic­i­pat­ing in any sort of sec­u­lar Christ­mas activ­i­ties.)

A wist­ful God with the com­plex­ion of a dol­lar bill, Hiram is at times sur­round­ed by put­ti, in the form of his par­ents, his con­tentious Uncle Her­schel, and his own sweet younger self.

For these scenes, Paley por­trays her­self as a spir­it­ed “sac­ri­fi­cial goat.” This char­ac­ter finds an echo at film’s end, when “Chad Gadya,” the tra­di­tion­al Passover tune that brings the annu­al seder to a rol­lick­ing con­clu­sion, is brought to life using embroi­der­ma­tion, a form Paley may or may not have invent­ed.

Per­haps Paley’s most sub­ver­sive joke is choos­ing Jesus, as depict­ed in Juan de Juanes’ 1652 paint­ing, The Last Sup­per, to deliv­er an edu­ca­tion­al blow-by-blow of Passover rit­u­al.

Actu­al­ly, much like Audrey Hep­burn in My Fair Lady and Natal­ie Wood in West Side Sto­ry, Jesus was ghost-voiced by anoth­er performer—Barry Gray, nar­ra­tor of the mid­cen­tu­ry edu­ca­tion­al record­ing The Moishe Oysh­er Seder.

As you may have gleaned, Paley, despite the clean ele­gance of her ani­mat­ed line, is a max­i­mal­ist. There’s some­thing for every­one (except­ing, of course, Mimi Thi Nguyen)—a gleam­ing gold­en idol, a ball bounc­ing above hiero­glyph­ic lyrics, actu­al footage of atroc­i­ties com­mit­ted in a state of reli­gious fer­vor, Moses’ broth­er Aaron—a fig­ure who’s often shoved to the side­lines, if not left out­right on the cut­ting room floor.

We leave you with Paley’s prayer to her Muse, found freely shared on her web­site:

Our Idea

Which art in the Ether

That can­not be named;

Thy Vision come

Thy Will be done

On Earth, as it is in Abstrac­tion.

Give us this day our dai­ly Spark

And for­give us our crit­i­cisms

As we for­give those who cri­tique against us;

And lead us not into stag­na­tion

But deliv­er us from Ego;

For Thine is the Vision

And the Pow­er

And the Glo­ry for­ev­er.

Amen.

Watch Seder-Masochism in its entire­ty up top, or down­load it here. Pur­chase the com­pan­ion book here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Sita Sings the Blues Now on YouTube

Cel­e­brate the Women’s March with 24 God­dess GIFs Cre­at­ed by Ani­ma­tor Nina Paley: They’re Free to Down­load and Remix

Watch Nina Paley’s “Embroi­der­ma­tion,” a New, Stun­ning­ly Labor-Inten­sive Form of Ani­ma­tion

Intro­duc­tion to the Old Tes­ta­ment: A Free Yale Course 

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her in New York City for the next install­ment of her book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain, this April. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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An Archive of Animations/Cartoons of Ancient Greece & Rome: From the 1920s Through Today

in Animation, Comedy, Comics/Cartoons, History, Literature | March 22nd, 2019

Ancient Greece and Rome have pro­vid­ed fer­tile hunt­ing grounds for ani­mat­ed sub­ject mat­ter since the very incep­tion of the form.

So what if the results wind up doing lit­tle more than frol­ic in the pas­toral set­ting? Wit­ness 1930’s Play­ful Pan, above, which can basi­cal­ly be summed up as Sil­ly Sym­pho­ny in a toga (with a cute bear cub who looks a lot like Mick­ey Mouse and some flame play that pre­fig­ures The Sorcerer’s Appren­tice…)

Oth­ers are packed with his­to­ry, myth­ic nar­ra­tive, and peri­od details, though be fore­warned that not all are as visu­al­ly appeal­ing as Steve Simons’ Hoplites! Greeks at War, part of the Panoply Vase Ani­ma­tion Project.

Some series, such as the Aster­ix movies and Aesop and Son—a sta­ple of The Rocky and Bull­win­kle Show from 1959 to 1962—have been the gate­ways through which many his­to­ry lovers’ curios­i­ty was first roused.

(Russ­ian ani­ma­tor Ana­toly Petrov’s erot­ic shorts for Soyuz­mult­film may rouse oth­er, er, curiosi­ties, and are def­i­nite­ly NSFW.)

And then there are instant clas­sics like 2004’s It’s All Greek to Scoo­by in which “Shag­gy’s pur­chase of a mys­te­ri­ous amulet only serves to cause a pes­ter­ing archae­ol­o­gist and cen­taur to chase him.”  (Ye gods…)

Senior Lec­tur­er of Clas­si­cal and Mediter­ranean Stud­ies at Van­der­bilt, Chiara Sul­prizio, has col­lect­ed all of these and more on her blog, Ani­mat­ed Antiq­ui­ty.

Begin­ning with the 2‑minute frag­ment that’s all we have left of Win­sor McCay’s 1921 The Cen­taurs, Sul­prizio shares some of her favorite car­toon rep­re­sen­ta­tions of ancient Greece, Rome, and beyond. Her areas of pro­fes­sion­al spe­cial­iza­tion—gen­der and sex­u­al­i­ty, Greek com­e­dy, and Roman satire—are well suit­ed to her cho­sen hob­by, and her com­men­tary dou­bles down on his­tor­i­cal con­text to include the his­to­ry of ani­ma­tion.

The appear­ance of car­toon stars like Daffy Duck, Tom and Jer­ry, and Pop­eye fur­ther demon­strates this antique sub­ject matter’s stur­di­ness. TED-Ed and the BBC may view the genre as an excel­lent teach­ing tool, but there’s noth­ing stop­ping the ani­ma­tor from shoe­horn­ing some fab­ri­ca­tions in amongst the bux­om nymphs and buff glad­i­a­tors.

(Raise your hand if your moth­er ever sac­ri­ficed you on the altar to Spinachia, god­dess of spinach, in hopes that she might unleash a mush­room cloud of super-atom­ic pow­er in your puny bicep.)

You’ll find a num­ber of entries fea­tur­ing the work of Japan­ese and Russ­ian ani­ma­tors, includ­ing Ther­mae Romae, part of the jug­ger­naut that’s sprung from Mari Yamazaki’s pop­u­lar graph­ic nov­el series and Icarus and the Wise Men from the leg­endary Fyo­dor Khitruk, whose retelling of the myth sent a mes­sage about free­dom from the Sovi­et Union, cir­ca 1976.

Begin your decade-by-decade explo­rations of Chiara Sulprizio’s ani­mat­ed antiq­ui­ties here or sug­gest that a miss­ing favorite be added to the col­lec­tion. (We vote for this one!)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Art on Ancient Greek Vas­es Come to Life with 21st Cen­tu­ry Ani­ma­tion

18 Clas­sic Myths Explained with Ani­ma­tion: Pandora’s Box, Sisy­phus & More

An Ani­mat­ed Recon­struc­tion of Ancient Rome: Take A 30-Minute Stroll Through the City’s Vir­tu­al­ly-Recre­at­ed Streets

25 Ani­ma­tions of Great Lit­er­ary Works: From Pla­to, Dos­to­evsky & Dick­in­son, to Kaf­ka, Hem­ing­way & Brad­bury

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her in New York City for the next install­ment of her book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain, this April. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Mythos: An Animation Retells Timeless Greek Myths with Abstract Modern Designs

in Animation | March 20th, 2019

Design­er Stephen Kelle­her and ani­ma­tor Chris Guy­ot present “Mythos,” an ani­ma­tion that tells time­less stories–Greek myths–with sim­ple abstract designs. Here’s how they describe this project where the ancient unex­pect­ed­ly meets the mod­ern:

For cen­turies the Greek Myths have been used as cau­tion­ary tales and teach­ing tools for peo­ple both young and old. These sto­ries con­vey deep wis­dom about the human con­di­tion which con­tin­ue to res­onate with us. I want­ed to hon­or these ancient sto­ries by inter­pret­ing them in the age of the pix­el and gif.

The chal­lenge was to com­mu­ni­cate these com­plex sto­ries in the most min­i­mal way pos­si­ble while retain­ing their essence. By hav­ing each vignette loop seam­less­ly, the time­less and peren­ni­al nature of these sto­ries are rein­forced. Ulti­mate­ly these ani­ma­tions serve as visu­al short­hand for ancient truths which are as rel­e­vant today as they were when first told.

Sisy­phus:

After numer­ous trans­gres­sions, Zeus decid­ed to pun­ish the deceit­ful king Sisy­phus once and for all by forc­ing him to push a huge enchant­ed boul­der up a steep hill. As soon as he reached the top, the boul­der would roll back down to the base of the hill, con­demn­ing Sisy­phus to an eter­ni­ty of frus­trat­ed labor.

Icarus:

King Minos impris­oned Icarus in a tow­er along­side his father, the mas­ter crafts­man Daedalus. As a means of escape Daedalus cre­at­ed a set of wings made of feath­ers and wax for his son but warned him not to fly too close to the sun. Icarus did not how­ev­er heed his father’s advice. His wings dis­solved and Icarus fell into the sea below and drowned.

Perse­phone:

The daugh­ter of Zeus and Deme­ter, Perse­phone was abduct­ed by the god of the under­world Hades. Although Zeus inter­vened and brought her back to the land of the liv­ing, Perse­phone was bound to Hades for four months of each year. In her grief, Deme­ter would make the soils bar­ren there­by cre­at­ing win­ter while Persephone’s return would mark the start of the spring.

Nar­cis­sus:

As pun­ish­ment for mor­tal Nar­cis­sus’ cru­el treat­ment of the nymph Echo, he was cursed by Neme­sis, the god­dess of revenge. She led him to a pool where upon see­ing his own reflec­tion, he became besot­ted with his image and was unable to leave. Fix­at­ed, starv­ing and in despair, he fell into the pool and drowned.

Midas:

Hav­ing done a great ser­vice for the god Diony­sus, King Midas was grant­ed one wish of his choos­ing. He wished that every­thing he touched would turn to gold. Upon turn­ing food, water and even his own daugh­ter to gold how­ev­er, he soon real­ized his fool­ish­ness and prayed to Diony­sus to undo his wish. Diony­sus took pity on King Midas and duly undid the wish.

The­seus:

A Greek hero of many adven­tures, The­seus is best known for his defeat of the Mino­taur. Under the decree of King Minos, every year four­teen young Athe­neans were sac­ri­ficed to the Mino­taur — a mon­strous half bull, half man who resided deep with­in the Labyrinth. Not only was The­seus able to slay the Mino­taur but he also suc­cess­ful­ly escaped the com­plex Labyrinth, solid­i­fy­ing his leg­end.

Enjoy…

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

via Aeon

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Short Video Intro­duc­tion to Hilma af Klint, the Mys­ti­cal Female Painter Who Helped Invent Abstract Art

36 Abstract Cov­ers of Vin­tage Psy­chol­o­gy, Phi­los­o­phy & Sci­ence Books Come to Life in a Mes­mer­iz­ing Ani­ma­tion

Free Cours­es on Design from the Famous Cal­i­for­nia Design Firm IDEO Start This Week

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An Animated Introduction to the Famous Thought Experiment, the “Trolley Problem,” Narrated by Harry Shearer

in Animation, Philosophy | March 13th, 2019

You don’t have to get too deep into the study of ethics before you run across the trol­ley prob­lem. It comes up so read­i­ly that it hard­ly needs an intro­duc­tion: a run­away train is on course to col­lide with and kill five peo­ple work­ing on the tracks, but you can pull a lever that will switch it to anoth­er sec­tion of track on which stands only one per­son. Do you pull it? Accord­ing to a pure­ly util­i­tar­i­an inter­pre­ta­tion, you should, since one life lost sure­ly beats five lives lost. But faced with the deci­sion, real indi­vid­u­als tend to strug­gle: not pulling the lever feels like let­ting five peo­ple die, but pulling it feels like mur­der­ing one.

What if you could stop the train by push­ing one espe­cial­ly large indi­vid­ual off a bridge into the train’s path, stop­ping it but killing him? Few say, or at least admit, that they would do it. But why not? The Har­ry Shear­er-nar­rat­ed ani­ma­tion above, a part of BBC Radio 4 and The Open Uni­ver­si­ty’s series on the his­to­ry of ideas, con­sid­ers what our respons­es reveal about how we think eth­i­cal­ly.

“What the trol­ley prob­lem exam­ines is whether moral deci­sions are sim­ply about out­comes, or about the man­ner in which you achieve them,” says Shear­er. “Lots of peo­ple say they would switch the points, but they would­n’t push the man off the bridge. Are they sim­ply incon­sis­tent… or are they on to some­thing?

The TED-Ed video just above, writ­ten by edu­ca­tor Eleanor Nelsen, gets deep­er into what they might be on to. “The dilem­ma in its many vari­a­tions reveals that what we think is right or wrong depends on fac­tors oth­er than a log­i­cal weigh­ing of the pros and cons,” says Nelsen. “For exam­ple, men are more like­ly than women to say it’s okay to push the man over the bridge. So are peo­ple who watch a com­e­dy clip before doing the thought exper­i­ment. And in one vir­tu­al real­i­ty study, peo­ple were more will­ing to sac­ri­fice men than women.” The study of “Trol­ley­ol­o­gy,” a sub­ject since Philip­pa Foot first artic­u­lat­ed the prob­lem in 1967, now finds “researchers who study autonomous sys­tems” col­lab­o­rat­ing with philoso­phers “to address the com­plex prob­lem of pro­gram­ming ethics into machines.” Alter­na­tive­ly, of course, they could just put the ques­tion to the near­est two-year-old.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Can I Know Right From Wrong? Watch Phi­los­o­phy Ani­ma­tions on Ethics Nar­rat­ed by Har­ry Shear­er

What Is Free­dom? Watch Four Phi­los­o­phy Ani­ma­tions on Free­dom & Free Will Nar­rat­ed by Har­ry Shear­er

48 Ani­mat­ed Videos Explain the His­to­ry of Ideas: From Aris­to­tle to Sartre

Oxford’s Free Course A Romp Through Ethics for Com­plete Begin­ners Will Teach You Right from Wrong

Watch a 2‑Year-Old Solve Philosophy’s Famous Eth­i­cal “Trol­ley Prob­lem” (It Doesn’t End Well)

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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An Animated Introduction to the Chaotic Brilliance of Jean-Michel Basquiat: From Homeless Graffiti Artist to Internationally Renowned Painter

in Animation, Art | March 4th, 2019

By the late 1970s, New York City had fall­en into such a sham­bol­ic state that nobody could have been expect­ed to notice the occa­sion­al streak of addi­tion­al spray paint here and there. But some­how the repeat­ed appear­ance of the word “SAMO” caught the atten­tion of even jad­ed Low­er Man­hat­tan­ites. That tag sig­ni­fied the work of Al Diaz and Jean-Michel Basquiat, the lat­ter of whom would cre­ate work that, four decades lat­er, would sell for over $110 mil­lion at auc­tion, a record-break­ing num­ber for an Amer­i­can artist. But by then he had already been dead for near­ly 20 years, brought down by a hero­in over­dose at 27, an age that reflects not just his rock-star sta­tus in life but his increas­ing­ly leg­endary pro­file after it.

“Born in 1960 to a Hait­ian father and a Puer­to Rican moth­er, Basquiat spent his child­hood mak­ing art and mis­chief in Boerum Hill,” Brook­lyn, says Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land art his­to­ry pro­fes­sor Jor­dana Moore Saggese in the ani­mat­ed Ted-Ed intro­duc­tion above. “While he nev­er attend­ed art school, he learned by wan­der­ing through New York gal­leries, and lis­ten­ing to the music his father played at home.”

He seems to have drawn inspi­ra­tion from every­thing around him, “scrib­bling his own ver­sions of car­toons, com­ic books and bib­li­cal scenes on scrap paper from his father’s office” (lead­ing to a method that has some­thing in com­mon with William Bur­roughs’ cut-up tech­niques). He also spent a great deal of artis­ti­cal­ly for­ma­tive time laid up in the hos­pi­tal after a car acci­dent, por­ing over a copy of Gray’s Anato­my giv­en to him by his moth­er, which “ignit­ed a life­long fas­ci­na­tion with anato­my that man­i­fest­ed in the skulls, sinew and guts of his lat­er work.”

A skull hap­pens to fea­ture promi­nent­ly in that $110 mil­lion paint­ing of Basquiat’s, but he also made lit­er­al­ly thou­sands of oth­er works in his short life, hav­ing turned full-time to art after SAMO hit it big on the Soho art scene. The day job he quit was at a cloth­ing ware­house, a posi­tion he land­ed, after a peri­od of unem­ploy­ment and even home­less­ness, when the com­pa­ny’s founder spot­ted him spray-paint­ing a build­ing at night. Suc­cess came quick­ly to the young Basquiat, but it cer­tain­ly did­n’t come with­out effort: still, when we regard his paint­ings today, don’t we feel com­pelled by not just what Saggesse calls a dis­tinc­tive “inven­tive visu­al lan­guage” and hyper-ref­er­en­tial “phys­i­cal evi­dence of Basquiat’s rest­less and pro­lif­ic mind,” but also of the glimpse they offer into the rare life lived at max­i­mum pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, max­i­mum inten­si­ty, and max­i­mum speed?

To delve deep­er into the world of Basquiat, you can watch two doc­u­men­taries online: Basquiat: Rage to Rich­es, and Jean Michel Basquiat-The Radi­ant Child.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Take a Close Look at Basquiat’s Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Art in a New 500-Page, 14-Pound, Large For­mat Book by TASCHEN

The Odd Cou­ple: Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, 1986

Google Puts Online 10,000 Works of Street Art from Across the Globe

Big Bang Big Boom: Graf­fi­ti Stop-Motion Ani­ma­tion Cre­ative­ly Depicts the Evo­lu­tion of Life

The Cre­ativ­i­ty of Female Graf­fi­ti & Street Artists Will Be Cel­e­brat­ed in Street Hero­ines, a New Doc­u­men­tary

How to Jump­start Your Cre­ative Process with William S. Bur­roughs’ Cut-Up Tech­nique

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Jim Morrison Declares That “Fat is Beautiful” .… And Means It

in Animation, Food & Drink, Health, Life, Music | March 1st, 2019

There’s a bit of cog­ni­tive dis­so­nance in a young rock god giv­ing voice to the fat pride move­ment some four decades after his death.

Years before social media ampli­fied celebri­ty weight gain cov­er­age to the realm of nation­al news, The Doors’ lead singer, Lizard King Jim Mor­ri­son, was the sub­ject of intense bod­i­ly scruti­ny.

The musician’s drug of choice—alcohol—swiftly added some extra cush­ion­ing to the sexy, shirt­less young lion image pho­tog­ra­ph­er Joel Brod­sky man­aged to cap­ture in 1967.

That lean, leather-pant­ed ver­sion is the one the Mor­ri­son direc­tor Patrick Smith went with for the Blank on Blank ani­ma­tion above, using audio from a 1969 inter­view with the Vil­lage Voice’s Howard Smith (no rela­tion).

Occa­sion­al­ly ani­ma­tor Smith bal­loons the 2‑D Morrison’s bel­ly for humor­ous effect, but let’s be frank. By today’s stan­dards, the 5’11 Mor­ri­son, who by his own esti­mate tipped the scales at 185lb, was hard­ly “fat.”

Pleas­ing­ly plump per­haps…

Fill­ing out…

Eat­ing (and drink­ing) like some­one whose bank account did­n’t require belt tight­en­ing.

His com­pas­sion toward gen­er­ous­ly pro­por­tioned bod­ies like­ly sprang from ear­ly expe­ri­ence.

As pho­tog­ra­ph­er Lin­da McCart­ney recalled in Lin­da McCartney’s The Sixties—Portrait Of An Era:

He … told me that he’d grown up as a fat kid that no one want­ed to know and that this had caused him a lot of emo­tion­al pain.

Then he explained what had brought it all to the sur­face. Appar­ent­ly he had been walk­ing around Green­wich Vil­lage that morn­ing and a girl who he knew as a child had spot­ted him and start­ed going crazy over him. That both­ered him because he sensed the hypocrisy of it all. When he was a fat mil­i­tary brat these peo­ple had reject­ed and ignored him but now, because of his new pub­lic image, they were fawn­ing over him.

That “new pub­lic image” is the one most of us think of first when think­ing of Jim Mor­ri­son, but as a flesh and blood exem­plar, it was unsus­tain­able. Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Brod­sky reflects:

The shot on the inner sleeve of the Great­est Hits album was pret­ty near the end, I think. By that time, he was so drunk he was stum­bling into the lights and we had to stop the ses­sion. Mor­ri­son nev­er real­ly looked that way again, and those pic­tures have become a big part of The Doors’ leg­end. I think I got him at his peak.

Mor­ri­son didn’t dwell on child­hood mis­eries in his Vil­lage Voice inter­view, nor did he show any self-loathing or regret for physiques past.

Rather, he gave voice to the pos­i­tive effects of his increased size. He felt like a tank, a beast—a body of con­se­quence.

(To con­sid­er the impli­ca­tions of bod­i­ly size for a female in Morrison’s world, have a look at car­toon­ist Péné­lope Bagieu’s Cal­i­for­nia Dreamin’: Cass Elliot before the Mamas and The Papas.)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

“The Lost Paris Tapes” Pre­serves Jim Morrison’s Final Poet­ry Record­ings from 1971

The Last Known Pho­tos of Jim Mor­ri­son, Tak­en Days Before His Death in Paris (June 1971)

The Doors Play Live in Den­mark & LA in 1968: See Jim Mor­ri­son Near His Charis­mat­ic Peak

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her in New York City March 11 for the next install­ment of her book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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18 Classic Myths Explained with Animation: Pandora’s Box, Sisyphus & More

in Animation, History, K-12, Life, Literature | February 22nd, 2019

Greek myths have an incred­i­ble shelf life.

We may not retain all the play­ers’ names or the intri­ca­cies of the var­i­ous plot lines, but the cre­ative pun­ish­ments the gods—Zeus, in particular—visited upon those who dis­pleased them have pro­vid­ed mod­ern mor­tals with an endur­ing short­hand for describ­ing our own woes.

Tempt­ed to sneak a peek inside a lover’s diary? Take a tee­ny swig from the liquor cab­i­net whilst hous­esit­ting? Go snoop­ing in your teenager’s Inter­net his­to­ry?

DON’T DO IT, PANDORA!!!

But if curios­i­ty com­pels you to explore beyond the famous punch­lines of mythology’s great­est hits, TED-Ed’s ani­mat­ed Myths from Around the World series is a rec­om­mend­ed rum­mage.

Aver­ag­ing around five min­utes per tale, each episode is packed tight as a snake in a can of mixed nuts. Pre­pare to be sur­prised by some of the tid­bits that come spring­ing out.

Take Pandora’s box, above.

(Actu­al­ly it was a jar, but why quib­ble?)

Not to unleash too many major spoil­ers, but how many of us remem­bered that the thing con­tained a bit of good along with all that evil?

Or that the ves­sel she wasn’t allowed to open was but one of many gifts the gods bestowed upon her at birth? In fact, Zeus gave her two presents, that pret­ty box, jar, what­ev­er, and—wait for it—an irre­press­ibly inquis­i­tive nature.

Or the close con­nec­tion between Pan­do­ra and Prometheus? Zeus con­ceived of Pan­do­ra as a ret­ri­bu­tion for Prometheus steal­ing fire and return­ing it to earth.

Remem­ber Prometheus?

No, not the guy who’s doomed to spend his life rolling a mas­sive rock uphill, only to have it roll back down before he reach­es the top. That’s Sisy­phus, as in Sisyphean task, like laun­dry or clean­ing the cat lit­ter.

Prometheus is the Titan who winds up chained to a rock so Zeus can send a hun­gry vulture—some say eagle—to devour his liv­er once a day.

(Which kind of puts the cat lit­ter in per­spec­tive.)

In addi­tion to ancient Greek crowd pleasers, the 18-episode Myths from Around the World playlist delves into the famil­iar stuff of Norse, Chi­nese, and ancient Egypt­ian leg­ends, as well as less wide­ly known Cam­bo­di­an and Irish tales.

Each video’s descrip­tion has a link to a full Ted-Ed les­son, with the usu­al com­ple­ment of quizzes, resources and oppor­tu­ni­ties for teacher cus­tomiza­tion.

Watch the full playlist here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Myth of Sisy­phus Won­der­ful­ly Ani­mat­ed in an Oscar-Nom­i­nat­ed Short Film (1974)

Greek Myth Comix Presents Homer’s Ili­ad & Odyssey Using Stick-Man Draw­ings

Con­cepts of the Hero in Greek Civ­i­liza­tion (A Free Har­vard Course) 

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her in New York City for the next install­ment of her book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain, this March. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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