Title: “For the Love of Toast”: An evening of bread and all things toasted—An interactive exhibit at the Museum of Food and Drink (MoFad)
Media and technology: Interactive Projection Mapping
Dimension: Exterior of MoFad: ~40×9 ft, Interior spaces vary
Description: Museum of Food and Drink (MoFad) invite you to an evening of all things toast.
Attendees will be imme
rsed in a sensory showcase of interactive art exhibits, short film screenings, bread tastings, and historical connections to bread. Guests will experience baking demos from local businesses, explanations of the science involved breadmaking, and the chemical reactions that take place within the oven to make the bread.
When arriving, guests will be greeted by moving toast projections on the front exterior of the building. The images will be taken directly from the animation “For the Love of Toast.” The projections will also be interactive: as the attendees enter the field of projection, the toasts will move around them
.All exhibits will be interactive. Guests will get to use our “Smell” machine to learn about the chemical compounds in the smells of breadmaking: yeast, sourdough, toasted bread, burnt bread, cinnamon, fire, smoke, wheat, and rye.
Toast art exhibits will fill the space: bread sculptures, a photo collection of Religious toasts featuring toasted images of Jesus and Mary, and an exhibit of bread labels from the early 1800’s to today.
There will also be a discussion of how food is embedded in our cultural history and the American colloquialisms that involve bread: “Bread and butter” and “The greatest thing since sliced bread,” and how they became parts of our everyday language.
Benefits and outcomes:
People will gain a better understanding of the history and science behind breadmaking and toast. Local bakeries and breadmakers will also get exposure and make personal connections with potential clients.
I feel like the Badger from the book “Bread and Jam for Frances.” I love toast an obscene amount, and I often make up songs to sing while eating it. Coincidence? I think not.
Badger Frances + Jam
Human Frances + Jam
This final animation will be my Ode to toast.
The Plot Proposal: “For the Love of Toast”
Intro: Person is in their kitchen, putting bread into the toaster. The suspense builds as they wait for the toast to be done. IT is taking a long time. This scene is created using hand drawn 2D animation or rotoscoping.
Development: In a delirious desperation, the person starts to see toast and toasters everywhere. The fridge is a toaster, the door is a toaster—even the house is a toaster! (insert hallucinogenic Phenakistiscope sequence).
Turn: The persons is sucked inside of the toaster, being toasted (perhaps this could be a claymation sequence?).
Conclusion: The persons pops out of the toaster. The toast eats the person. The person is crispy.
The end.
My objectives for this project:
Become better acquainted with Aftereffects
Create a scene that uses:
a Phenakistoscope animation OR
some sort of claymation
Practice with morphing scenes together
implement creative transitions from one scene to the next
On the evening of May 15th, 2017, The Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C. was bathed in light. While the display only lasted about 10 minutes before being shut down, both passerby’s and tourists were able to witness it, taking photos and videos as souvenirs. While may artists use projection mapping techniques to create a visual aspect to music shows, Robin Bell is using projection mapping as a medium for political protest. In the wake of a new political landscape, Bell is using projection mapping to stage monumental installations on government buildings. In his guerrilla-protest piece entitled, “Emoluments welcome”, Bell displays a juxtaposition of images against the trump hotel.
The Words “Emoluments Welcome” are the banner above the entryway to the hotel, atop a background of Turkish and Russian flags scrolling horizontally in a loop. The faux-fluorescent sign that says “Open 24 hours” brings to mind that of a seedy motel instead of the “regal” Trump brand. The emolument clause from the constitution is then projected, calling into question the legality of the properties of the businessman turned president. Then, In case there was any confusion regarding the meaning of the installation or the artists political stance, the words “Pay Trump bribes here” are also projected onto the face of the building.
His projections, while not explicit animations, do use similar techniques to animated projection mapping. He is using light to create a visual narrative while employing an architectural surface as a canvas. He also makes sure that the words and banners of each scene fit perfectly atop of the entryway of the Hotel, so there had to have been some knowledge of software and composition.
“Le Clitoris” by Lori Malépart-Traversy is a short film that addresses the subject of female sexuality in a humorous and lighthearted way. Malépart-Traversy personifies the sexual organ (the main character) by turning it’s roots into legs and giving it a simple face and small arms. The narrator takes us through the film, while the main character reacts to every piece of new information presented.
Created using gouache on paper, the soft palette of pinks and greys mimic the overall soft tone of the animation. The use of line is minimal, and the overall presentation is simple and straightforward. In this instance, form and content work quite well together.
By making a cute-ish animation, rather than a live-action film, Melépart is able to achieve a few things: First, the information can be presented in a way that is funny, yet informative, and suitable for a large spectrum of ages. For instance, this animation could be a great asset for teaching young people about sex and reproductive organs. Secondly, because animation does not have to abide by the laws of anatomy, Melépart is able to remove the clitoris from the body, personify it, and allow it to walk around. To shoot this with live footage would likely be grotesque and off-putting. Thirdly, because the clitoris is personified, the viewer can perceive is as an actual character, rather than a body part. This allows the viewer to potentially make an emotional connection to the character and feel a bit of empathy. Lastly, Melépart is able to address the male influence in “discovering” the clitoris throughout history without being too sarcastic or didactic.
Because “Le Clitoris” is presented in such a gentle way, the viewer can easily learn about female anatomy, and get a brief history lesson about the last 500+years of patriarchy.
Emile Cohl’s Phantasmagorie is considered one of the most important and influential films in early animation. Cohl, an artist in Paris in the early 1900’s, made over 250 short animations and films, many of which share a similar “morphing chalkboard” aesthetic. In discussing it’s artistic innovation, one must consider how and why it was made, as well as its messages about society in 1900’s Paris.
At first glance, Phantasmagorie appears to be a simple chalk and blackboard line drawing. The animation was actually created using over 700 drawings—black lines on white paper—with the image printed as a negative to achieve the “blackboard” effect, and also aided by a few frames that incorporate paper cutouts. These drawings were then shot with stop-motion photography to create a seamless transition from one frame to the next. The intentionality of this effect is a direct jab at the Vaudevillian caricature style which was popular in Paris at the time.
The main character, a clown figure, is “drawn” by Cohl, and then proceeds to weave in and out of different scenarios and the scene morphs from one scene to the next. This could be viewed as an early form of special effects. Cohl shows the viewer 1.5 minutes of seamless and impossible transformations—particularly impressive is the scene where the police officer dissolves into thin air. The artists hand can also be seen in the film as well, both as an intentional element—as seen in the beginning and end— and as a ghost image as scenes flicker past. This creates an interaction between a 2D environment and a 3D world — The drawings and the creator. In showing his hand, Cohl asserts his dominance as an omnipresent creator— in the beginning of the animation, he draws the character, bringing him to life, while at the end, he glues the broken character back together, bringing him back to life.
In the book Larry Cohen: The Radical Allegories of an Independent Filmmaker, “…caricature played a very important role both in animation and early cinema as a critical ideological weapon against conformist tendencies in bourgeois society.” Like most art of the early 20th century, the role of women in Phantasmagorie is passing or nonexistent. The only woman in the film is depicted in a theatre, and portrayed as more of an obstacle for the male viewer than a casual moviegoer. The man sitting behind her removes this female “obstacle” by first plucking the feathers from her hat, and then lighting her on fire with a cigar. This not only reinforces male dominance in society, but alludes to the popular belief that women should not be in the public sphere.
The only other scene that could include an (unseen) female figure is near the end of the animation where the elephant morphs into a building. There is speculation that the elephants eye turns into a sort of “red light district” sort of marker, that would signify the presence of a brothel. The main character quickly looks around before entering the building, as if making sure that he has not been seen. The police officer—a constant presence in the film—could be a not-so-subtle reference to the police presence in Paris at the time, specifically in the case of crackdown on “unsafe” brothels”. After being locked in the building by the officer, the main character jumps out of the building, presumably, rather than being locked inside a brothel with “unsafe” women.
Phantasmagorie, despite it’s attempts to poke fun at the bourgeoisie status quo, neglects to defy any societal gender norms. Women are portrayed as a hazard to the public world, while the main —male— character travels in and out of each scene without restrictions. It’s hard to deny the brilliance and imagination of Cohl, but it’s even harder not to view Phantasmagorie as a both a relic of early animation, as well as of an outdated societal ideal.
