Young Polish animation once again: Dumała, Rybczyński, Wawszczyk

Last Friday in Wroclaw, Mirek and I lead the remix of a meeting about young Polish animation. It was the inauguration of the year of Polish animation, which is being coordinated by PWA. The meeting took place in the gallery Entropia. The gallery also houses Dziecięca Wytwórnia Filmowa (The Children's Film Studio), run by Alicja Jodko, where amazing animations are produced (unfortunately they can not be found online - maybe after the DVD with animations for children, PWA should release animations of children!).

We were given a nice surprise, when Zbigniew Rybczyński unexpectedly joined the two guests. I was reminded of Paweł Janicki's words who, during a lecture about art and coding, quoted Rybczyński: in order to do creative things with a computer one must be able to program. Indeed, the discussion was mainly about animation tools and techniques, about the computer as an animator's tool, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of 3D animation (this technique was used in Wojtek Wawszczyk's "Drzazga" - "Splinter", which was presented before the discussion). My general notes follow:

Rybczyński talked about the "over-satiation of flexibility of form" that is characteristic of 3D animation. Dumała talked about the over-expressiveness of the method, which is at the same time illusionistic - aims at the perfect mimicking of reality - and hyper realistic. Wawszczyk, in turn, claimed that after 3 years of working on a less than 20 minute animation, he felt that 3D animation is a slow and arduous method. This was quite surprising, as were the statements of Rybczyński - who throughout his career consistently experimented with cutting edge technology - and that's what 3D animation is.

Rybczyński even explained what he dislikes about 3D animation, or rather 3D animators - the lack of the ability to create their own (programming) tools. For him, art is the creation of one's own tools, which can be used to present a vision of the future as a better and more beautiful reality. Rybczyński claimed that there currently exists a small group of people who are able to create these tools - programmers who write commercial programs or work in (small) special effects departments and in post-production in big studios.

A day later, during the gala inaugurating the year of animation, an interview with Rybczyński was shown . In it he praises animation as a form of cinema that allows for the kind of experimentation that is impossible in fiction films. This explains Rybczyński's other interesting theory: cinematography that has, from its beginning, been concentrated on „the fabrication of impossible worlds", is being animated to a greater and greater degree (this includes great plots).

I also noted Rybczyński's statement that working with a program means that one is in contact with „the mind and imagination of its creator". From this perspective, the ability to create one's own programs is vitally important. Otherwise, the artist does not think and feel independently?

Piotr Dumała also had some interesting things to say about animation tools. Keep in mind, that in his work he used arduous analogue techniques - it took him three-and-a-half years to do "Zbrodnią i karą" (Crime and Punishment), during which he created almost 50 000 pictures cut out of plaster slabs.

Dumała told us about how he experiments in the selection of tools. He is driven by what he imagines the desired effect should be - till „technology meets him head on". Then, during the work process, the tool „fades", „ is left behind by the artist" - for Dumała his old films are from „another time", created by „another me".

He also talked about the delight in technology that gives rise to new forms of culture. What is interesting is that these do not necessary have to be hi-tech technology - it is only important that they meet the creator's needs. Otherwise it ends up being the „lifeless repetition" - which Rybczyński criticizes lazy students for; students who are not interested enough in the techniques that are used.

I have to admit that I find the subject of the tools used in the creative process very interesting, maybe even more interesting than discussions about the forms that are created with their use. I was inspired by the discussions of prominent creators, who were able to show us the undulant process of fascination and boredom with tools, as well as the need to find one's own tools (not necessarily ones with the shiniest pixels). One can only envy people who are able to approach the tools they use with so much creativity. I get the feeling at an ordinary ‘knowledge worker' (I'm not sure how to translate this, Lipszyc recently wrote about infotariacs...) the choice of tool - one CMS or another, Notepad or Word? - is not quite as inspiring.

Alek Tarkowski