Them
The longer we look at the moving cubes in Vilém Novák’s 3D animation (1981), the stronger the impression we have that they act and communicate with one another.
It’s like watching members of a foreign tribe. We look in awe at the movements and the gestures. We think that we have understood, but then we are immediately lost. Novák’s animation is a parallel reality that shakes the certainties of our own.
- These animations mean a kind of Rorschach test for me,00:00:38.268
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- as their visual is minimized,00:00:43.294
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- so the shapes consist just of blocks00:00:48.343
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- and colours are just shades of grey.00:00:52.647
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- Predominating is the movement00:00:55.820
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- and interesting is,00:01:00.148
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- that it wasn't created by me - a human00:01:03.159
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- but it's a result of an artificial evolution.00:01:07.534
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- I replicated the evolution by an original work00:01:11.691
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- of Karl Sims who was the first one00:01:18.214
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- to make the 3D artificial evolution in the 90ies00:01:22.548
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- and he became quite famous for it00:01:27.858
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- and visual of the animations remains the same.00:01:30.506
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- The possibility of creating artificial beings00:01:33.465
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- is indeed fascinating00:01:37.401
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- but I was rather interested in00:01:39.357
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- the reaction of the viewers00:01:44.715
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- as it invokes feelings which aren't there at all00:01:48.148
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- because it was created without any feelings,00:01:53.794
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- the beings are not alive,00:01:58.060
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- they aren't even animated,00:01:59.762
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- they were trained purely for speed, jumping00:02:02.311
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- or searching something00:02:06.661
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- and are just primitive results of an algorithm.00:02:09.069
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- If viewers can see there any feelings00:02:14.986
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- and I've heard today someone saying00:02:17.824
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- "Look, a dead dog residing in its dead mother screwing all the time",00:02:20.339
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- so this is something that would never occur to me as I was creating it00:02:24.370
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- but I am glad about it.00:02:33.082
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- There was of course some projection for me00:02:35.295
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- when I was watching it, some things crossed my mind00:02:37.985
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- and it influenced the editing as well00:02:42.070
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- but at the same time I can see how differently it impresses00:02:44.103
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- other people, although some subjects are always repeated.00:02:47.018
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- The sound was created by Yael Ben Horin00:03:21.788
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- or more precisely, I asked her for a text00:03:26.101
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- that would imitate an unusual sort of corporeity00:03:29.479
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- or something it radiates00:03:38.624
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- but at the same time I didn't want it to be anyhow specific00:03:41.265
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- So it is a sort of a poem00:03:45.920
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- that is reedited and fitted to the animation00:03:48.505
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- and it accompanies all the animations00:03:52.753
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- and broadly allows to stimulate something in the picture,00:03:57.336
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- but it isn't directly related to it.00:04:03.492