Through a series of illustrations and text, Aufero Dolori explores a scenario where trauma can be surgically removed from the body. A nameless protagonist is shown undergoing the surgery in the aftermath of the apocalypse, the morality and consequences of this condition are left open. I choose animation as the medium for this project because I wanted to be able to draw each detail of it myself. The process of creating each frame by hand in the program Clip Studio Paint felt akin to how the fictionalized Aufero Dolori surgery would let an individual have nearly perfect control over how they interpreted their past, thus molding their own mentality to their liking. I found myself mimicking the idea of control that I was exploring through the protagonist through my own conduction of the work.
Author: Olympia Martin
Meriem Bennani
Meriem Bennani’s Fly is a homer-esque telling of the Kaleidoscopic perspective of the name sake, it is unique in that we do not observe the animated protagonist (the fly) but we instead inhabit the fly’s vision as a kind of proxy.
Stephanie Dinkins
Stephanie Dinkins “Secret Garden” is an Alice in Wonderland esque exploration of afrofuturism and identity.The animations she creates explore the surreal, dream like psyche with AI. where the animations create a surreal dream like psyche exploration of the AI.
Takeshi Murata
Takeshi Murata’s Om Rider is a genre-bending, high energy colorful yet dark 3D animated short film centered in a tropical wasteland . He combines tropes such as film noir, sci fi, and italian giallo. His main character the wolf occupies a rebellious space, and embodies the rebellious composition of the video in of itself, his counterpart being a conservatively dressed old man. The protagonists treks the desert on his motorbike and to compose edm music in the desert, his high octane movements contrast the stillness of the man. Through relatively new forms of media, 3D animation and EDM, Murata explores ideas of old and new values.
Jacolby Satterwhite
In Jacolby Satterwhite’s Reifying Desire, he creates new identities while simultaneously combing his own life into his narrative through his mother’s illustrations. Satterwhite transcends a single medium of animation, in his world the characters and the world are rendered in viscous 3D renders while simultaneous occur the line drawings.
Satterwhite explores politics and the black body, he combines a love letter to his mother and his past self with afrofuturism and 90’s inspired game graphics. In as diverse and complex of the different mediums, Satterwhite experts conducts a symphony of personal trauma and Sci Fi imagery, he choreographs his catharsis through a cinematic epic.
Samson Young
Samson Young’s Palazzo Gundane (homage to the myth-maker who fell to earth) is a story following a jobless musician. Young reimagines the world these musicians inhabit, exploring ideas of struggle and realism., it is Young’s reimaging of the world they would inhabit. He explores the ideas of struggle and realism in his work.
Olympia Martin
The root word of “animation” is the latin anima, which roughly translates into breath. With this in mind, the history of animation itself began not with even drawing, but with puppets and cut out paper, with animators being seen as reinstalling life into the inorganic, akin to Dr. Frankenstein with his monster. The first recognized animated movies being the Argentenian cut out paper film El Apostol in 1917 and German director’s Lotte Reiniger’s silhouette animation “The adventure of Prince Achmet” in 1927. The prior being a political satire mocking Argentina’s then president, the later being a 5 act fantastical courtship. The very first stories to be passed down from generation to generation were not written or drawn, but were spoken. Both the act of telling a story and creating an animation, involve the release of this anima whether it be the breath of the speaker or the animator putting breath into their own work.
These 6 works are being displayed together as they all display a unique interpretations of narrative with animation. From the exploration of ancient vs modern ideals of a hero in Takeshi Murata’s work, to the Afrofuturism of Stephanie Dinkin’s work. Each piece displays a subversion of the low brow status of animation, telling complex stories and narratives. The auteur like quality of animation, the fact that all the materials such as character design, setting, and lighting can feasibly be created by a singular individual adds both to the specificity of what the artist is meant to show. These artists use the specific choices of character design for sometimes humorous, sometimes horrifying experiences.