#Inspired by Jack Stauber’s library

[dreamsb0u]

mild unrealistic blood warning

In the midst of silly Cinder posts there’s this shit

[vespidclan]

This begs the question. Icy do YOU remember your kithood?

loosely inspired by Jack Stauber’s ‘Library’

(also mildly really lazy cuz I finished half of it last night hah)

[dreammeiser]

Is there any inspiration you got from other creators? Love your work BTW, it’s so beautiful to look at!💜

EEEE Thank you so much! Oh man, creators that had a big impact on me have been Ian Worthington (Big Top Burger), Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink (Welcome to Night Vale), Joel Guerra (ENA), Becky Sloan and Joe Pelling (Don't Hug Me I'm Scared), Jack Stauber (you probably know his song 'Buttercup' but he makes animations too!), Scott Benson and Bethany Hockenberry (Night in the Woods), and ConcernedApe (Stardew Valley).

I want to create things that make me feel the way their works do-- Everything I make is me trying to capture feelings I want to remember.

You should definitely look them up to get a good little sample of DAWM's vibes, or just to see what's been walking around in my mind library as I make this series. :o)

[rosie-kairi]

Struck with inspiration last night, speedran making this animatic because of it

(audio from Jack Stauber’s “Library”)

[painted-kneecaps]

How to Smell Like an Avatar of Fear

-A Comprehensive List-

From a hobbyist perfume collector and avid TMA listener

Did you know that smell, out of all the five senses, is the one most linked to memory and emotion? With my help, you too can invoke a sense of unease in the minds of friends, enemies and strangers everywhere !!

DISCLAIMER: I have not tried every, or even most, of the perfumes on this list. However, I have purchased and enjoyed perfumes from all of the houses listed.

-The Buried-

Name: Geosmin

House: Osmofolia

Scent profile: wet aldehydes, ozone, geosmin, fresh water, petrichor, soil

-The Corruption-

Name: Pile of green goo

House: Death and Floral

Scent profile: Partially rotting wood and oakmoss, white oudh, deep & enchanting crushed rose resins

-The Dark-

Name: The Raven

House: Alkemia

Scent profile: Ebony heartwood, black amber, black pepper, blackseed (habbatul barakah), black Bengal cardamon, black ink, nigella (black coriander), black iris, violet leaves, and leather. 

-The Desolation-

Name: A City On Fire

House: Imaginary Authors

Scent profile: Cade oil, Spikenard, Cardamom, Clearwood, Dark Berries, Labdanum, Burnt Match

-The End-

Name: Bones melting together

House: Death and Floral

Scent profile: Dusty dry bone dust accord, coffin wood, bergamot

-The Extinction-

Name: Industrial Sabotage

House: Alkemia

Scent profile: A cataclysmic wreckage of burnt wires; twisted melted steel; shattered machinery, and gunpowder. 

-The Eye-

Name: Book of Shadows

House: Alkemia

Scent profile: A biblichor of eldritch books - heavy parchment paper, ancient iron oak gall ink, crumbling leather bindings, and wafts of rare incenses.

-The Flesh-

Name: Writer’s Blood

House: Alkemia

Scent profile: iron-tinged blood, a manuscript soaked in spilled black coffee, and an overturned tin of rolling tobacco.

-The Hunt-

Name: The wolf only needs luck to find you once

House: Death and Floral

Scent profile: Crisp forest night air, lunar musk, large drifting oakwood trees, the musky scent of a trailing shadow.

-The Lonely-

Name: The people you love become ghosts inside of you

House: Death and Floral

Scent profile: Heavenly musk, lingering funeral flowers, cold scent of vanilla in an empty corridor, handprints on a foggy window

-The Slaughter-

Name: The Highwayman

House: Alkemia

Scent profile: Sweat stained black leather, night air, a dirt road under galloping hooves, tobacco, bloodstained lace, gunpowder

-The Spiral-

Name: Finally A Star

House: Osmofolia

Scent profile: The glitz of cardamom and sparkling grapefruit stars, outer space ozone, dreamy tuberose, searing gunpowder, and a ham hock for a head. Inspired by Jack Stauber's song The Ballad of Hamantha.

-The Stranger-

Name: Wax museums

House: Death and Floral

Scent profile: Sweet and warm liqueur, elegant suede, black currant, beeswax absolute, magnolia heart

-The Vast-

Name: With the fishes and the dead

House: Death and Floral

Scent profile: Black squid ink and mile long oceans. Black ambergris, black labdanum absolute, salty ocean water, and black pits of stretched out emptiness.

-The Web-

Name: Dustsceawung

House: Alkemia

Scent profile: The scent of forbidden explorations and an olfactory meditation on dust: attic air, the inside of old trunks, abandoned haylofts, library stacks, and abandoned buildings.

[mrsvoid]

POV: You’re Ursaal

An old doodle. I was inspired by Jack Stauber’s clay short The Library, I drew Thragg within it

[indigo-aquarium]

tlou au lore doodle

inspired by Library by Jack Stauber

[taskacupid]

pika comic inspired by library by jack stauber

[yakaashistudio]

VIDEO ART - Artist research

Stan Brankhage

- Mothlight

Upon first viewing, one experiences a fast paced sequence of split second images of what appear to be scanned textures of things such as leaves, twigs, dirt and moth wings. Brakhage created ‘Mothlight’ by physically sticking these textures onto a strip of translucent camera film and running the film through a projector - the textures are then magnified and played at a rate that is a slideshow projection of the collected materials. I was intrigued by the way Brakhage has used real elements of a moth’s world (materials from nature) and the moth itself to create a journey depicting what a moth would see between birth and death (the flooding light on the screen is akin to a moth coming to light)

- Dante’s Quartet

Once more in this film Brakhage can be seen physically altering the film roll by scratching into and painting over it. The eerily altered imagery is played at a rate of 24 images per second (24fps) additionally the didgeridoo audio that was added connotes to focus and meditation - a sound that can be used to enhance or in this case contradict the mood of the piece of film.

Laura Prouvost

- it, heat, hit (2010)

Prouvost’s whispery narrated film sequences usually evoke feelings of confused cautiousness as they tackle darker more worrying topics underneath a veil of abstract clay formations and footage. The style of her stop motion clay segments are reminiscent of Jack Stauber’s clay characters that play on the uncanny valley.

- Wantee excerpt (2013)

Her soft whispering pulls the viewer in to engage in the visuals, only to startle them with a sudden increase in pace or volume of the footage. Additionally, Prouvost’s combination of lyrics with connoted imagery (e.g. ‘the water was so cold’ + footage of a snowy landscape) allows the viewer to make connections between the sound and image in their minds. The synchronicity between the dripping sounds and clip is flashing up on screen flashing up creates an organic sense of rhythm.

Provost’s unnerving use of stop frame clay animation is similar to the work of Jack Stauber, an independent video artist and musician that has inspired me a lot in both art and music.

Jack Stauber 

- library (2020) 

Stauber’s combination of human actors’ bodies with stylised clay heads makes for unnerving scenes with non cohesive motions. The way in which the clay of the faces appears to twitch and shift during animation while the bodies move smoothly and naturally strikes the viewer by appealing to the uncanny valley (when something appears somewhat human, but not quite human enough to be genuine). This creates a deeply unsettling yet familiar connection to the characters in his videos.

- Cooking with Abigail (2019)

The layering of various images and footage to create realised scenes is something Stauber achieves in a manner like no other. In ‘Cooking with Abigail’ the kitchen scene is comprised of a cartoon-style background illustration, a series of overlaid patterns and occasional superimposed footage of hands, a human actor performing the body motions and his statement clay head. The way in which he is able to make this varying types of footage and images blend together in a sensical way makes his style incredibly unique.

Roger Beebe

- Strip Mall Trilogy

I was particularly interested in part 2 of the Strip Mall trilogy because of the shift in tone between the photos taken throughout the daytime and the photos taken into the night. The shift in the lighting and colouring of the photos along with the slowing of the rate of photos and tempo of the audio. This gradual change adjusts the viewer into the ambience of the night much like the daytime naturally progresses into night.

The overlapping sounds of bustling footsteps, automated voices and traffic creates an anxious atmosphere in the first part of SMT. The reason behind this, I believe is to recreate the feelings of stress and disorientation one experiences when walking through a crowded strip mall.

Connection to:

James Richards: sound and image > using audio to repurpose or enhance the image or disorientate the viewer by contradicting the visuals.

In my final video experimentation I want to focus on the way in which the audio and visuals will interact as this is something I haven’t considered a lot so far. I am inspired by Richards’ theory surrounding the use of sound and image as the sounds can be paired with specifically contrasting visuals to create a sense of disorientation that borders on surrealism. My take on this will link to my theme of cabin fever by combining footage of spacious outdoor scenes with the dense sounds I have recorded inside my room such as the droning extractor fan and dripping taps.

Christian Marclay

- Video Quartet excerpt #1

Using other media to create something original: Marclay had a team of researchers collect footage of music and instrument performances from all time periods and areas of media and combined them to create an original piece of music and a spectacle. The end result was transformative in nature and proved that you can use other’s footage and media in a way that makes it a new piece of art.

- 48 War Movies (Venice Art Biennale 2019)

Marclay edited 48 war films together and played them all at once, but only showing the outermost boarders of each video, playing the visuals and audio over one another to create a cacophony of movement, dialogue and explosions. The purpose of this undeniably unpleasant experience for the viewer was to use the media’s portrayal of the war to imitate the actual feeling of being at war. I found the way I which it was almost impossible to decipher what the video piece was before the explanation intriguing as it left a lot of room for creative interpretation.

[hatimbcaptsone]

artist bio

hatim benhsain is a comic-maker, a game developer, a 2d visual artist, and a music composer. he attends nyu abu dhabi where he is pursuing a ba in interactive media with minors in computer science and music technology. he has also studied game design in the game center at tisch in new york and japanese at waseda university, tokyo. he has worked on satirical cartoons, a library field guide, and a web-based street food-themed comic delivery system. currently, he’s working on his senior thesis project, a 2d adventure game about mythology, grief, and navigating the afterlife. in the past, he founded a band and played the keyboard and made illustrations for the nyuad arts center and a book about tourism in japan. his inspirations include the works of kieron gillen, jack stauber, neil gaiman, shu takumi, lena raine, toby fox, worthikids, anaïs mitchell, and masaaki yuasa.

artist statement

i write and draw comics that take place in fantastical sci-fi reflections of our world where cryptids cohabitate with mortals and robots have angst, but things are otherwise pretty much the same. by stretching out panels and playing around with composition and layouts i like to defamiliarize and emphasize the weirdness of the mundane moments of everyday life. in one of my last comics, a janitor robot originally built for war seeks a therapist after finding itself obsolete and struggling to find a purpose when peace is resolved.

i also make video games, which are, most of the time, 2d adventure games that borrow jrpg elements. while i use comics to explore life and the way we feel about it, my video games are usually reinterpretations of our interactions with the world we live in and the ones we dream about. to express this, music is a powerful tool. i like music that shifts, speeds up, and repeats to alter the gameplay, imply story elements, and form a more complete experience. recently, i reimagined the myth of orpheus in a game where you play as a ghost who goes to free their friend from prison. there is no combat involved, but if you meet one of the pig-bat guards, they may let you through if you sing beautifully enough to them. i wanted the music to play an important role, so i also made it the mechanic to choose dialog options, and i made the ghost (and the pigs) sound differently depending on which part of the background music is currently playing.

my stories take on many topics, and i rarely stick to just one. sometimes, they’re about food, our attachments to it, what the way we prepare it says about us, and the reasons we do. they often involve folklore, mythology, and strange characters that only exist because of the people who believe in them. i take interest in death, rebirth, our different conceptions of the afterlife, and why we choose - or not - to imagine them. most of all though, my stories deal with the stories that we tell, the power that they hold, and the blurry lines between reality, media, and the media within. 

every few weeks, i ask myself why i chose this path. i could be doing something more useful; an engineer, a doctor, or a firefighter. i fall into anxiety, hopelessness, and depression about what the future holds for me. but then, i read, play, or hear a story i enjoy, and life becomes slightly more bearable. when i create my characters, i always give them one or more of the struggles - the existential dread, the ennui, or the general human struggle - that i deal with. by sharing them with the world, i hope that i, too, can help others feel slightly less alone.

[yakaashistudio]

EXPERIMENTAL ANIMATION - Artist research

The artists I have explored below will inform me in the creation of my experimental animation sequences.

Oskar Fischinger

Fischinger was a German-American abstract animator, filmmaker and painter, notable for creating abstract musical animation many decades before the appearance of computer graphics and music videos.

An Optical Poem (1938) - to create ‘An Optical Poem’ Fischinger manipulated hundreds of paper cutouts hung on invisible wires and shot a frame at a time in close synchronisation with Franz Liszt’s rhapsody. While this animation sequence is simplistic in it’s visuals, Fischinger was a pioneer of the experimental animation genre as there had never been anything like this done before. The way in which the paper circles moved with the rhythm of the music was beyond any real world justification, allowing for the viewer to simply experience the colours and allow their imagination to interpret it. For example, when I was watching ‘An Optical Poem’ I saw the pink, red and cream circles to be teacups dancing on a tea table and the elongated semi circles looked to me like fish swimming, while the actual intention of Oskar was to symbolise a journey through outer space. It is this versatility of experience found in these sequences that I believe is the crux of experimental animation and is embodied by Fischinger.

Jan Švankmajer

Jan Švankmajer is a retired Czech filmmaker and artist whose work spans several media. He is a self labelled surrealist known for his stop-motion animations and features, which have greatly influenced other artists such as Terry Gilliam, the Brothers Quay and many others. Švankmajer has gained reputation over several decades for his distinctive use of stop-motion technique, and his ability to make surreal, nightmarish and yet somehow funny pictures.

FAUST trailer - The trailer for His movie FAUST contains many scenes that vary in environment, pacing, subject matter and media. The trailer appears to seamlessly transitions] the viewer from a sunny field in which human ballerinas are raking the grass, to a dimly lit shack in which a clay stop-motion animated head appears to have its flesh change to form a skull. With a lack of dialogue, the trailer relies heavily on the obscure fast pace visuals that builds intrigue and investment in the narrative

One feature of Švankmajer’s work that I found particularly engaging was the way in which he combined elements of puppeteering, stop motion animation and human acting to create a surreal environment that teeters on the boundary between real and unreal. This combination can be seen in modern artists today such as Jack Stauber.

Jack Stauber

- library (2020) 

Stauber’s combination of human actors’ bodies with stylised clay heads makes for unnerving scenes with non cohesive motions. The way in which the clay of the faces appears to twitch and shift during animation while the bodies move smoothly and naturally strikes the viewer by appealing to the uncanny valley (when something appears somewhat human, but not quite human enough to be genuine). This creates a deeply unsettling yet familiar connection to the characters in his videos.

- Cooking with Abigail (2019)

The layering of various images and footage to create realised scenes is something Stauber achieves in a manner like no other. In ‘Cooking with Abigail’ the kitchen scene is comprised of a cartoon-style background illustration, a series of overlaid patterns and occasional superimposed footage of hands, a human actor performing the body motions and his statement clay head. The way in which he is able to make this varying types of footage and images blend together in a sensical way makes his style incredibly unique.

Alice Cohen

Alice Cohen is a Brooklyn based artist and musician. Her animated films often feature beautiful imagery and exquisite patterns moving and overlapping with spontaneous energy. Her lovingly accumulated source material evokes the imagery of lost eras. Silent film actors, Victorian families, plants and animals from some natural paradise, hippies, space-age architecture and medieval castles all co-exist, often in the form of cut-out photocopies from books and magazines, as well as drawings, material, found objects and video footage.

- ‘Swaying Plants’ (2019)

The traditional approach that Cohen takes to her stop-motion animations creates a lively bouncy in her subjects as they move around the screen which compliments the atmosphere that the music creates. The way in which she balances the colours and textures on screen is something I believe should not believe overlooked and must require a lot of trial and error/planning. I am inspired by the diverse variety of textures that exist in her videoscape and would like to create a similar effect in my trial animations.

Adam Beckett

- ‘Kitsch in Synch’ (1975)

Beckett’s animation ‘Kitsch in Synch’ is a high energy abstract animation that combines the pioneering method of Oskar Fischinger with shapes and colours inspired by Henry Matisse. What I find most engaging about Beckett’s animation sequence is the way he is adeptly able to create movement and vive in a way that synchronises with the steadily increasing tempo of the music. This is something I would like to explore in my animations.

Stephen Ong

My favourite experimental animator/artist that I have looked at during this project is Stephen Ong. The illustration based animator crafts playful, mesmerising loops and short films. One of my favourite of Ong’s animations features a series of shots of someone jogging, the way in which the various sections of the screen expand and deflate mimics that of someone’s heavy breathing which brings an organic sense of movement to the piece that connects with the subject matter. Additionally, Ong crafted a looping animation that displayed various emoticons in which the mouth and eyes bounced around their respective frame to form different parts of the individual expressions. The way in which he repurposes each solid to serve different purposes in each emoticon I believe is a cornerstone of experimental animation as it prevents a defined purpose/expectation from being assigned to a subject on screen.

I observed that Ong’s short film ‘Stellar’ was almost a modern day reimagining of Fischinger’s ‘An Optical Poem’ as it tackled the idea of soaring through outer space but with modernised techniques of animating. The use of squash and stretch in the eyeball and other projectiles adds a childish vibrance to the video, increasing my engagement with it as an audience member through its visual appeal.