Adoration of an Oxymoron

Stop motion. I didn't realize I was so interested in this until someone actually showed me what it was. Looking back, I see my intrigue in the concept started long ago. Two years ago, to be exact. I did a photo project which had to center on a randomly assigned word. Mine was was "instant". So I made a series intended to look like film stills, because "instant" to me was a type of measurement, a precise sliver of time which often lacks transition before or after.
Fall of this year, I continued with this interest, and took a series of photographs and composed them into a film. The images were shot with the intention of being stills, but I started playing with the idea of creating a sort of "digital flip book". This was a rather unsuccessful attempt as the motion is choppy and it's rather repetitive, but it marks the beginning of my understanding of stop motion animation.

Exchanging Niceties with a Tree
Song "Lighthouse" by Electrelane




From there I was finally introduced to the concept of "stop motion" after seeing "Muto" by Blu (see below). I fell in love with the oxymoron right then and there. The wonderful thing about stop motion is that it works both ways. It can take something that is not moving at all and give the illusion of motion by sheer number of images and speed of viewing to make a satisfying deception for the viewer. The photos are still, the camera is still, and the inanimate objects in the photos are still. The only time things are moving is when there is no camera to record it's actual motion. Or it can take something that is moving, like a person, freeze parts of their motion with a photograph and reshape that movement with a film.Whether motioning what is stopped or stopping what is in motion, the trickery is oh so charming.

Here are a few of my favorite stop motion films:



(Thanks Maggie!)








(Thanks Ethan!)





Finally I decided to tackle this primal form of animation myself. I struggled significantly (see entry below) in finding a solid idea for the project. However, I became interested in the concept of metamorphosis, and specifically, the caterpillar to butterfly transition. This is where the title "Holometabolous" comes from, meaning "complete metamorphosis." As a college student, I was thinking about how transient life is during this period. It is the time when so many people are tying to "find themselves" but are doing so in a setting where classes, friends and current home are in a constant flux. We spend so much time adapting that it is impossible to really map your identity. Plus if you were to identify yourself completely, it would be that much more difficult to handle the inevitable future transition.


The Garden State

I also don't think people give enough credit to their context. We all find ways to adapt or affiliate with our background, and must accept that our sense of self must adapt too. Essentially, identity is malleable, and the only way to really find it is to accept that, to an extent, you will always be searching for it.

Holometabolous
"Know thyself. A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly. Whoever studies himself arrest his own development. A caterpillar who seeks to know himself would never become a butterfly."
-Andre Gide