Handmade Puppets in the Digital Age
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Technology 'At a time when 3D printing can manufacture guns or replicate machines with moving parts, the reminder of the hand-made object, with its brilliant imperfections and anomalies, is a thing to celebrate’
http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/brilliant-imperfections
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Henson Company The lure of traditional puppetry is in its physicality – something that strikes a chord with the human viewer. The Muppets and other shows like it have touched the lives of millions across the world, and the reason is a simple one: the human element of a puppeteer’s hand can bring a sense of life and character to an object that digital work can sometimes lack. There’s a tangible connection between the object and human, imbuing the inanimate with all the warmth of a person; while the digital disconnect between a VFX artist’s keyboard and the final output can make the capture of a convincing
being a significant challenge.
https://www.redshift3d.com/blog/no-strings-attached-jim-hensons-creature-shop-delivers-digital-puppetry-with-redshift
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Henson Company “We always strive to keep puppetry innovative. Although Jim Henson is known as a puppeteer, he was primarily an inventor, always exploring new ideas like combining animatronics with puppetry in projects like The Dark Crystal long before the digital age. https://www.redshift3d.com/blog/no-strings-attached-jim-hensons-creature-shop-delivers-digital-puppetry-with-redshift
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Aardman "They've got a very open attitude towards keeping up to date on what's going on in the commercial world, virally, digitally and with the latest technology. We've got to be on the ball to survive, but without losing the heart of what we're about. "We still have that love of clay," Park says. "I've always felt that each film we make has to seem like -- and be -- the work of an artist.� http://www.wired.co.uk/article/aardman-morphs
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Smallfilms “And perhaps something of Postgate and Firmin’s method does live on, or has been renewed, in the digital age. Their adherence to salvaging and recycling things, using their hands to turn unassuming objects into a brilliant kind of folk art, still speaks to the modern audience.” https://www.creativereview.co.uk/the-art-of-smallfilms/
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Animism The belief that natural objects such as rivers and rocks possess a soul or spirit. Anima is the Latin word for “soul” or “spirit.” Even inanimate objects have a soul. Animation and puppetry is bringing inanimate objects to life. (Animator/Puppeteer as ’God’) (Creation Myths)
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Laika "When we started Laika 10 years ago, we could see the writing on the wall. Stop-motion animation was basically taking its last, dying breath. We had to come up with a way, if we wanted to continue to make a living in this medium that we loved, to bring it into a new era, to invigorate it.� Travis Knight, CEO
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Handmade Puppet Dreams The joy of shows is not so much the character that is created but the way a puppeteer brings brings the materials to life and transforms them in front of your eyes. Handmade Puppet Dreams
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Aura “Again, by extension, one might speak of the puppet’s aura as well, with the puppet conceived of as a ‘work of art’ that, as with all works of art, ‘has its basis in ritual, the location of its original use’ (224)” https://www.jstor.org/stable/1146776
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Worship / Value "Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art," Benjamin writes, "is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be" ([1933] 1969:220) Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Physicality and tangibility vs digital CGI (no physical existence)
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Wabi-Sabi The art of imperfection, handmade. Characterized by asymmetry, irregularity, simplicity, economy, austerity—modesty & intimacy — wabi-sabi values natural objects & processes as emblems of our transitory existence. Rust, woodgrain, freckles — the texture of life. https://taicarmen.wordpress.com/2014/03/31/wabi-sabi-the-beauty-of-imperfection/
The quality that is absent in digital puppetry.