rubberEraser

Arty things.  I make them. 

“Until It Bleeds”, for Moving Image I, 2011

Flash animation for projection

Final For Moving Image: Fall 2011

Test run: set up documentatio

“Yet to be titled I & II”: charcoal, soft pastel, paint, & masking tape on paper

“Until It Bleeds” Projected Flash animation, accryllic, canvas tile

This project presented us with the task of creating a piece which inquired some sort of ephemera (sculpture, drawings, props/performance) or strictly based on installation. The video itself consists vector-based geometric forms moving along an unseen, assumably slightly distorted grid.  

So, I’ve been searching high and low for this cartoon I remember seeing on Cartoon Network long ago.  Remember CN pre adult swim?  Late nights, they’d just play a bunch of Anime, Space Ghost, Cartoon Planet and this show called Toon Heads which I LOVED.  A half hour of forgotten animated shorts from Bob Clampett, Leon Schlesinger and Disney from way back in the day…i was in heaven.                                                      

Animation throughout the 1920s up through the cold war paved quite a path for political satire in cartoons.  I mean, who doesn’t have a favorite Bugs Bunny short or Silly Symphony remembered from childhood?  It’s a bit unnerving watching Adolf Hitler animated in this fashion and not only voiced by Mel Blanc, but very nearly in the same character as the beloved Bugs!  Then I remembered South Park, specifically, the episide “Osama Bin Laden Has Farty Pants” from Trey Parker and Matt Stone.  Eric Cartman pays tribute to these old propaganda cartoons by tormenting Osama Bin Laden as Bugs Bunny does to Elmer Fudd.  I realize that animation has been doing this all along and this format and style of animated short should never go away.  In all the endearment of Steamboat Willie and Carabelle Cow, the men who first created these shorts were, in fact, grown men who were aware of the WWII social climates.  Sure they were making fun loving characters for the joy of it, but they did also have something to say.                              

One note of interest I’ll point out and then be done, is that I was surprised to discover that “Falling Hare” was released first in 1943 and THEN Ol’ Adolf made his Merrie Melodies debut the following year in ‘44.  I always thought it the other way around.  I figured they had to “clean up” the “crude” Adolf for public audiences, but this also says something about the crowd for home cartoons were made and who was creating them.  These animated shorts are one of the most lasting voices of political satire. In the case of Warner Brothers and very early Disney, they also manage to remain relevant although the circumstances and societies have changed.                                                   

Here’s a link to “Falling Hare” since I can’t figure out how to embed two vids in one post.  Watch ‘em back to back.  Or maybe watch this one first, i don’t really care.  They’re both fantastic.                                                                                                         

http://youtu.be/JU_JuIqsdLI                                                                                                     

Enjoy!

-M