Art

"Animation can explain whatever the mind of man can conceive. This facility makes it the most versatile and explicit means of communication yet devised for quick mass appreciation."

"About 15,000 young Jamaicans will benefit from training, digital work opportunities and seed investments to boost the digital and animation industries in the country as a result of a US$ 20 million loan for a Youth Employment in Digital & Animation Industries Project approved today by the World Bank Board of Directors. “This project facilitates Jamaica’s linkage into one of the fastest growing sectors in the global economy,” said Jamaica’s Minister of State for Science, Technology, Energy & Mining, Julian Robinson. “It is our strongest national thrust to date to mobilize the considerable creative and entrepreneurial talent among our youth towards earning our way to a brighter future.” Global animation is a growing industry currently valued around US$ 220 billion per year. International companies are increasingly looking at Jamaica as a country of choice for outsourcing animation production. As part of its “Vision 2030 Jamaica” plan, the government is looking at the information and communication technology (ICT) sector as playing a central role in the transformation of the country over the next two decades, moving Jamaica from being a consumer to also become a producer of digital platforms and content. "Youth unemployment in Jamaica is about 30 percent. This initiative spearheaded by the Government is about providing opportunities for new talents to get new skills, find jobs or become entrepreneurs,” said Sophie Sirtaine, World Bank Country Director for the Caribbean. “For the technology sector to become an engine for growth and employment, it requires the right environment with training opportunities and the right partnership between Governments, private sector and young people”, she added."

"Yoshiaki Nishimura, a former Miyazaki stalwart who produced the Oscar-nominated The Tale of The Princess Kaguya, said the industry was struggling to “face up to a lack of animators, bad working conditions and perhaps a lack of creativity”."

"Three of the 10 feature films in the running for top prize at the world’s most important animation festival in Annecy in France – which ends on Saturday – are from Japan. The country is the only real challenger to Hollywood’s dominance of the labour-intensive genre."

"Animated porn has a long, international history—from the erotic woodblock prints of Japan’s Heian period to some of the earliest animated erotic cartoons of the Roaring Twenties (because of course once the moving picture came along, porn came with it). So if hentai and anime communities still thrive online and there are sites dedicated to Disney-inspired porn, it seems a shame that more people don’t talk about what makes this type of erotica so great. Clinical psychologist David Ley, PhD, author of Ethical Porn for Dicks, says that “animated erotica has been underground for a long time, largely because it’s often misunderstood.” Not only are cartoons something we regularly associate with childhood, but the style of a lot of pornographic cartoons is such that some characters featured may appear to be under the age of consent. “Though I might question how exactly you determine the age of a fictional animated character,” Ley added in an email to Glamour."

"Animation in itself is an art form, and that's the point I think always needs clarification. True animation exists without any background, or any color, or any sound, or anything else; it exists in your hand. And you can take it and flip it. [...] What makes animation is the fact that you have a series of drawings that move. You don't even have to have a camera, you see; animation exists without it. If you want to broaden your audience, or make it more colorful or add music, then you put it under a camera one frame at a time, and then you run it at the same speed as you flip it, and then you have animation. If it depends basically upon soundtrack, or basically upon music, or color, graphic design, or anything else to sustain itself, then it is not unique to animation."

"With animation because you can draw anything and do anything and have the characters do whatever you want the tendency is to be very loose with the boundaries and the rules. But what's great about all these different [cartoon] shows that are on now is they all have their own rules and they stick to them. And in my opinion the ones that don't make it, the ones that fall by the wayside, are the ones that aren't aware of that idea, that you have to have your own rules and boundaries. If anything is possible then I think the audience doesn't care."

"̇ It’s wonderful. It takes a long time, but you have all of this luxury of choice, which you don’t have in live action. You can design your own movie stars. Especially if you’re anal like I am, for someone who is a control freak, animation is torture and heaven at the same time. I worked as production designer on Epic as well, so I got to carve weapons out of nutshells and toothpicks. It’s like getting to make the coolest toy soldiers ever. And they’re paying me."

"If you were to concoct a plan for entertainment-industry success in the digital age, Condry notes, it would probably not involve the painstaking development of hand-drawn cartoons. “It’s incredibly difficult, and not very lucrative” for the artists, says Condry, who visited dozens of anime studios, workshops and artists while researching the book over the last eight years. “It’s one of the most labor-intensive forms of media there is.” Entertainment companies do not necessarily make huge profits off anime, which was an issue motivating Condry’s study; as he puts it, “How can things that don’t make money go global?” The answer is that anime producers create many series and watch closely for what catches on — and then, once the characters in a series become a “platform” for audience participation, may cash in through toys, games and other forms of entertainment. “What distinguishes anime,” Condry says, “is the degree of openness the copyright holders have to give the fans a chance to re-work the characters” and other elements of the original cartoons. He adds: “The ‘Gundam’ producers, when shown work created by fans, just said, ‘That might be the way it is.’”"

"Their first feature, Sex Agent - 0069, took almost a year to complete. But these days, the brothers say they can make a feature in about four months – the same time it takes a studio to put together a live-action DVD. "We've been doing environments for many years, and we can create any environment someone wants in a couple of days," Tahl says, matter-of-factly. "The more we practice doing the animation, the faster we get.""

"While the South African animation community is large compared to other countries in Africa, it is still small from a global perspective. There are about 20 established animation and vfx studios in the country, according to estimates, mostly small (two to three people) or medium in size. A few larger studios, with staffs of 30 to 35, dominate the commercial, vfx and long-form character animation sectors, but smaller studios can be profitable by specializing in commercials or motion graphics."

"I think [adult studios] are afraid of CG coming into the market because it will affect them, and they aren't able to do it themselves because they do not have the creativity or the skills," says Darron. "If they do hire someone, they're not willing to put up the budget or give it the financial backing required."

"“Most institutions,” explains Leila Bourdoukan, former executive manager at Cinema do Brasil, “the culture secretaries, Brazil’s minister of culture and the state governments, have specific supports for animation. Animation is a labor-intensive activity which provides work for young people.”"

"Animation offers a medium of story telling and visual entertainment which can bring pleasure and information to people of all ages everywhere in the world."

"The costumes, character design and extreme violence without consequences that you still see in cartoons are holdovers from black-face minstrelsy."

"Although anime fans’ degree of sexism tended to be lower than both college students and a community sample, we hypothesized and found that consumption of anime in general is positively related to both benevolent and hostile sexism. In other words, while anime fans generally do not support sexist attitudes, viewing anime is associated with greater sexism. We predicted, and found, that a preference for hentai in particular mediated the relationship between consumption and hostile sexism. Furthermore, we predicted, and found, that preference for action and mecha genres mediated the relationship between consumption and benevolent sexism. Two unexpected results were also observed. First, a preference for slice of life anime also mediated the relationship between consumption and benevolent sexism. One possible explanation is that slice of life anime often contains portrayals of relationships that may well include sexism in everyday interactions. Second, a preference for the drama genre mediated the relationship between consumption and both hostile and benevolent sexism, with drama negatively predicting both dimensions of sexism. It may be possible that anime in the drama genre more accurately portrays the sexes and the nature of their relationships (e.g., trouble or discord in a romantic relationship), although it is surprising that these results differed so considerably from the slice of life genre. Future research is needed to disentangle these results and better understand what, precisely, leads one to positive associations with sexism and the other to negative associations. Taken together, the results support the notion that consumption of anime is associated with sexist attitudes, though the relationship is specific to particular anime genres."

"After graduation, Tezuka became a full-time cartoonist and hit the big time with Astro Boy, about a robot boy who is rescued by a sympathetic doctor. In 1963, Astro Boy became the first homegrown animated cartoon to air in Japan, giving birth to the billion-dollar anime industry. Tezuka had created one of Japan’s most enduring post–World War II cultural exports. But in the late 1960s people started to complain that cartoons were rotting kids’ brains and teachers began enforcing a “no comics” rule in the classroom. Tezuka’s cutesy animated television shows, so novel in the 1950s, became laughable during the 1960s. Tezuka responded by creating some of the most outrageously racy, controversial, morbid adult-oriented comics, ever."

"I also think the very fundamental elements like drawing and sketching are still very important. One thing that I found very helpful is to appreciate things around me more often. You can be in a bus looking around, you see this child talking to her mother. If you think about animating a character to move like that child, you will realize life is amazing. You have all these natural, spontaneous character movements in front of you everyday. To capture that is a lot of hard work when you animate. Remember that plastic bag in American Beauty? We sometimes look at people around us and studied the movements and charateristics. Please try, you'll realize it's amazing."

"The film industry is one of the important cultural and creative industries in Uzbekistan, including animated films. Animated films are recognized as a complex industry playing a critical educational role. Numerous sociological studies claim that modern cartoons and animated films are capable not only of influencing the child’s behaviour, but also influence the formation of his/her worldview."

"Japan will just no longer be the center of world animation. Maybe in five years, Taiwan will be such a center."

"Two decades ago, there was hardly a Brazilian animation industry to speak of. Ten years back, a small handful of stalwart directors were struggling to gain international notoriety and impact TV, festivals and box offices domestically and abroad with low budgets and a lot of hard work. Today, Brazilian animation is thriving on all fronts, and in some cases, is even outpacing live-action in budget and ambition. In 1951, Brazil’s first-ever animated feature, “Amazon Symphony,” was released; since that time 43 other toon features have joined its ranks. One feature every year-and-a-half is hardly anything to write home about, but according to Marta Machado of Brazilian animation house Otto Desenhos, 19 of those pictures have come in the last five years, and another 25 features are currently in production."

"The piercing movement is off to a good start, and I like the idea behind it: self-esteem through self-mutilation. I've always said, when in doubt, punch a hole in yourself."

"Also, there was a remarkable display of objects that primitive humanity had allegedly thrust through various parts of their bodies—some of them extremely sensitive—for decorative effect. I shuddered slightly at the thought: self-mutilation, though everyone's right, had always taken me aback."

"A walk down 14th street is more amazing than any masterpiece of art."

"Tami Peterson has always been hyper-critical of my performance art. I mean she even delivered a speech in the quad about it called "Imogene: What do You Mean?" I mean, how could she do that to me? I've always been so nice to her!"

"T he psychedelic community has not yet recognized or named itself as a community. We are well behind gays and black people and all those other mi-...we are still trying to figure out if we are a community. And if we are a community, and we have a domain of action, I think where it lies - it's not that we are all supposed to become dope dealers, it's that we are all supposed to become artists; that the transformation of culture through art is the proper understanding of what you can do with psychedelics besides blow your own mind. And I really think, you know, what we need to do is put the art-pedal to the floor, and understand that this is art - we are involved in some kind of enormous piece of performance art called Western civilization and, you know, it's been a C-minus performance so far... And they are just about to reach out with the hook and drag us offstage, unless we begin pulling rabbits out of the hat pretty furiously."

"James Franco has turned much of his adult life into performance art that feels equal parts sincere and con game, and it would seem he'd be well cast as Oscar Diggs, a small-time illusionist and unabashed serial liar working the dusty back roads of Kansas in 1905. The problem is, Franco's a lot more believable playing slimy than sincere, and the part requires him to do both. It's a steady but less-than-captivating performance. … Much of Oz the Great and Powerful centers on Oscar's transformation from me-first slickster to the Wizard of Oz, aka Man Behind the Curtain. With Oscar relying heavily on the inventions of Thomas Edison, his hero back on Earth, to pull off his biggest trick ever, Oz the Great and Powerful finally breaks free of its beautiful but artificial trappings and becomes a story with heart in the final act. Thing is, we know Oz and its wizard and those witches and the Munchkins are destined for a far greater adventure a little ways down the Yellow Brick Road. The landscape won't be as amazingly gorgeous and the witches won't be able to fly about and hurl fireballs with the ferocity they display here, but it will be a much more magical adventure all the same."

"THE LAWS OF SCULPTORS"

"(Performance) art is, perhaps, the first art phenomenon to clearly demonstrate that modern art has become antiquated. Modern art is based upon a single assumption. That the artwork is only what it is. It is not a picture or a metaphor for something else. It is, say, a photograph, first and only. Or, perhaps, it is a painting, first and only. This assumption still looms above us all. We automatically accept it. We fall back upon it whenever we have a problem in criticizing, accepting, or understanding a work of art."

"My first concert - apart from Beethoven at School and Satie at the opening of my exhibition in Kleve in 1960 - was at the gallery Parnass in Wuppertal in 1963. Dressed like a regular pianist in dark grey flannel, black tie and no hat, I played the piano all over – not just the keys – with many pairs of old shoes until it disintegrated. My intention was neither destructive nor nihilistic. “Heal like with like” – similia similibus curantur – in the homeopathic sense. The main intention was to indicate a new beginning.. ..or simply a revolutionary act. This was my first public Fluxus appearance."

"If a performance artist started going on about England and our culture like that-in fact that's happened to Gilbert and George, they are about the only ones I know that have done anything of this sort. It seems to me that both yourself and other artists can talk about flags and America and all this… you can play with these ideas, you may not believe in it, that you can play such a close game with them without anyone being offended."

"There is a definite prejudice towards men who use femininity as part of their palate; their emotional palate, their physical palate. Is that changing? It’s changing in ways that don’t advance the cause of femininity. I’m not talking frilly-laced pink things or Hello Kitty stuff. I’m talking about goddess energy, intuition and feelings. That is still under attack, and it has gotten worse."

"Music videos were in short supply at the beginning of the 80s, so MTV played whatever they could get their hands on. Many record companies in America didn’t believe in MTV and weren’t willing to provide music videos at their own cost. A bulk of the music videos MTV played came from Europe where record companies made short promotional films for their artists to be played on video jukeboxes - a popular new piece of technology at the time. With only 250 music videos being played over a 24-hour period, the early artists of MTV got a lot of exposure thanks to a combination of repetition and desperation."

"While a polemical argument in prose may reach tens of thousands of the usual suspects - formally educated people who like to follow such texts - the video version reached far beyond that audience."

"When I started in video I was one of two or three dozen video artists in 1970. And now, to paraphrase Andy Warhol, everyone's a video artist. Video, through your cellphone and camcorder, has become a form of speech, and speech is not James Joyce. It's great, and to be celebrated, but it has to find its own level."

"The launch of cable television redefined television in the 1980s. While there was an obvious audience for 24-hour news and movies, making CNN and HBO almost sure-things from launch, music videos weren't looked upon as having much value at all. When MTV launched with cheap music videos, nobody anticipated that it would revolutionise entertainment."

"For all the power of video and film, I am not giving up my pen. I am just much more likely to try to link essays to webcasts or videos. The best way for these two media to move forward, to inform and make change, is in tandem; together they are more than the sum of their parts."

"All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value."

"Just as the spinning and gathering of wool serve as the raw material for a weave, so the artist working with video selects images to serve as the basic substance of the work. All technology, in its capacity to instantly reproduce, store, and retrieve information, has moved continually in a direction that seeks to free us from laboring with our hands by giving us greater conceptual freedom to organize, select, and judge."

"By 1990, movies were either rented or sold at much more reasonable prices directly to consumers (known as sell-through). Video rentals reached a plateau, but video sell-through sales continued to grow. By 1992, the value of video sell-through sales exceeded the domestic theatrical box office for the first time. Home video caused a significant downward shift in the box office; for instance, the domestic box office represented 80% of studio revenues in 1980, but by 1992 it decreased to no more than 25%."

"Video killed the radio star."

"Performance Art is a loosely defined area of artistic exploration, i.e, the artistic counterpart of a scientific research program. It encompasses a wide range of activity involving an ever-widening variety of artists with diverse styles, methods, and concerns. Had we set ourselves the task of characterizing the ambitions of performance artists, we should have had to abandon hope of saying something instructive about the import and intention of this nontraditional school. Generalizations are suspect at this stage."

"In a phenomenal growth spurt that has reshaped the $10-billion-a-year video business, Blockbuster has gone from 19 stores nationally to nearly 1,300 in three years...."

"Blockbuster’s early value proposition when it opened its first store 25 years ago was relatively revolutionary, as it provided consumers local access to thousands of movie titles all in one place. It was by no means the first video rental company, but it achieved scale in a way no one else did, using its vast reach to dominate the video rental landscape and drive hundreds of local mom-and-pop video stores out of business. For many, Blockbuster provided the convenience of a one-stop shop for nearly any video title one would hope to watch. But over the years, viewers and viewing habits have changed in a way that made Blockbuster less relevant. It’s no longer enough to provide users with a way to get content from a store down the street; nowadays, they want access to that content in their living rooms. At first the mail, and then online video gave them that access."

"When you see yourself on video, do you like what you see? I've yet to meet someone who says yes."

"When the first anime-genre videos were released in 1990-91 through mail order and direct sales to the comic-book fandom specialty stores, it was understood by this market that these were animated equivalents of movies like The Terminator and Die Hard, full of explosions, blood-'n-guts, adult dialogue, and often a brief risqué nude scene. Around 1994 the anime videos expanded into the major video mass-market chains and became accessible to the general public, which tends to assume automatically that all animated cartoons are safe for children. This resulted in the necessity for warning advisories on the video boxes such as "Contains violence and nudity;" "Contains brief nudity and mature situations. Parental discretion advised;" and, "Recommended for Mature Viewers." But these did not yet include explicit sexual titles."

"I make videos."

"As one industry insider argued, "Saving Private Ryan suffers on [video] cassette. If you see it at home, you are by no means as impressed with it as you were in the movie theater. And Shakespeare in Love is a more intimate picture, it plays well on cassette. It may actually be enhanced by watching it at home."" In response, Dreamworks' marketing chief, Terry Press countered: "That goes to a larger issue. You're a member of the Motion Picture Academy, not the television video academy. These movies are meant to be seen in movie theaters, all of them. They're not meant to be stopped and started and paused when the phone rings or to feed the dog.""

"Every video I'm in, every magazine cover, they stretch you; they make you perfect. It's not real life."

"People want to watch whatever video they want to watch whenever they want to watch."