2013 is the 27th edition of Prix Ars Electronica, so there’s quite some history to look back on. Christine Schöpf, who has been around from the beginning, talks about the not so humble beginnings of the Prix and discusses the current trends in computer-animation, vfx and so on with Jürgen Hagler, who is an expert in computer-graphics and responsible for the Animation Festival.
<4>How did the idea of the Prix Ars Electronica come about?
Figure 10, Brian Reffin Smith, Goldene Nica Computergraphik 1987
Christine Schöpf: There are two points of departure here. One is that Ars Electronica co-founder Hannes Leopoldseder always said that if you want to achieve something, then you have to repeatedly come up with new ideas, ideally at seven-year intervals, and also bring new projects to fruition. The other was basically an incredible coincidence. In 1986, Siemens approached us and said they wanted to sponsor something in the media sector but they had no idea what. We discussed all sorts of things, sound towers and what have you. What came out of this was the ORF – Austrian Broadcasting Company’s Videonale to commission artists to create works on a given theme, and with an awards ceremony and openings in Linz, etc.
I personally loved the idea of curating this process, dispensing by no means small commissions to artists. But what eventually achieved a consensus was the idea of a competition. And a competition that would be pretty highly endowed—at the time, 1 million Schillings. Why so much? Because the thinking was that the prize ought to be about as much as the Austrian State Prize offered at the time.
The question was what form this competition should take. We knew that it had to be interdisciplinary. That was new. There were already a few competitions or presentations, but they were always so focused on either music or animation. We wanted to get away from that. We proceeded from the question of which areas of the traditional visual arts the computer was being used in the most, and that brought us to film, painting and music. This led to the creation of three categories: Computer Music, Animation, and Graphics. That is, flatware with the option of modification with a view to the future, since it was already obvious that development in the area of digital media would be very rapid.
It was to be a prize, and we took some heavy criticism for that decision. It was to be a prize that would be open to both artists in the classical sense as well as, say, commercial film studios. This has repeatedly been the subject of discussions.
What were the first few years like?
Schöpf: Well, everything started on a pretty small scale. Of course, we invested a comparatively large sum of money. We took out ads to get across the idea right from the start that the Prix was something substantial, not some here-today-gone-tomorrow kind of operation. Then there was the idea to set up an Honorary Board of Directors as a way to signal that it would be reasonable to submit works for prize consideration, but they were not directly involved in the competition. I contacted John Cage, Benoit Mandelbrot, Joseph Weizenbaum, various people in many different fields and they permitted us to use their name. This was an effort to underscore the fact that this was a serious endeavor.
In the first year, there were about 600 entries from 14 countries. Many of them were no doubt a matter of communications work, just establishing contact. But then it grew quickly.
From the very outset, an important point was to recruit a prestigious lineup of jurors. This was also meant as a signal. But then, as time went by, it turned out that these jurors were also excellent communicators. This developed into a wide-ranging and very effective network.
What were some of your personal highlights over the years?
Schöpf: One particular highlight was the jury session in 1995. At this point, we had set up the Internet category, and I was pretty perplexed. How should everything be formulated? What should we actually be honoring? In fact, all I knew was what we didn’t want to single out for recognition: for example, one of those Web galleries that were so common back then. Not them. But what, then?
Accordingly, in the calls for submissions in those early years, the phraseology was relatively ambiguous. In those days, I was often in touch with Morgan Russel, and we even met once at UNO City in Vienna, though his idea was for us to get together in a “virtual” world. We gave a lot of thought to the judging criteria, but we never came up with something conclusive prior to the jury session.
The jurors were Derrick de Kerckhove, Morgan Russel, Joi Ito and Josef Manola. This discussion was so fruitful that, after the meeting, we all agreed that we should have set up a microphone and taped the whole thing, have it transcribed and publish it as a book. It was such a fascinating discussion that really focused on establishing criteria—12 criteria that actually were disseminated the next year to show what we were looking for.
How did the Computer Animation and Computer Graphics categories—that is, moving pictures and flatware—develop over time?
Luxo Jr, John Lasseter, Goldene Nica Computeranimation 1987
Schöpf: Even though you can argue about the name of the category due to the fact that there are so many prizewinning works that actually have nothing to do with computer animation, this continues to be a very exciting category. It’s just amazing how it has developed when you look back. Now, this has nothing to do with the Prix directly but John H. Whitney, the man who did the animation for “The Last Starfighter,” predicted in 1984 that there would someday be films in which digital objects and digital backgrounds were combined with actors. That was his vision. And with respect to the Prix Ars Electronica, you can go back to the very first winner Luxo Jr, this highly complicated work of keyframe animation that six people worked on almost day and night for six months, and that cost $2.5 million, which was an exorbitant amount at the time. And you can compare that with the way a group of young artists or even an individual artist working alone can do such perfect animation today, the likes of which major Hollywood studios weren’t even capable of a few years ago. An incredible amount of research has gone into making these works possible.
The reason why we retained Computer Graphics until 1995 was because Jar Davis advised us that, despite a possible lack of innovation, we should continue to offer it because it was a way for students who might not have the resources to make an animated film to get their start.
The development of the Music category probably had a lot to do with Jean-Baptiste Barriere, who was my advisor in this area that I’m really not all that familiar with. And, after all, he comes from an academic background and the community of computer musicians to whom this category particularly appeals. Sometime in the ‘90s, we realized that this was no longer the contemporary world of music, so we renamed the category Digital Musics and opened it up to many areas that hadn’t been represented previously.
So that’s how the three original categories developed and changed.
So where are things headed now—specifically, in the Computer Animation category?
Schöpf: Today, the most money flows into computer gaming, which his provided a tremendous impetus. When I peer into the future and think of the smartphone, which has changed things incredibly, there’s still a tremendous amount of potential here.
Hagler: Special Effects and Computer Animation are actually areas taken completely for granted nowadays. In the early years, innovation had a powerful impact on this field. Every year, there were new technologies that people used to do trailblazing work. These innovations are still coming, of course, though in a specialized form. We also see that now in the submissions, that we nevertheless have seen an amazing amount of technical development. Just look at all that’s happened in the last few years—for instance, in stereoscopy and frame rate. There’s innovation, a new technology that quickly gets established and propagated.
These days, filmmaking involves the work of several crews, so it’s often difficult to figure out who actually deserves the award, especially in the case of a major production. But I bring this up simply to illustrate that there continues to be technological development but that this is more a matter of evolution than revolution.
Schöpf: One topic of great current interest is the higher frame rate, but here we’re talking about quite a bit more than 48 fps. Last summer, I attended a speech by James Cameron, who’s an advocate of this technology. He screened an example made expressly for his speech—the scene was a banquet in a medieval castle, in 24, 48, 60 and 120 fps. And in each clip, the production was adapted to the respective rate, as was the projection. And he also screened various combinations. It’s incredible what this is capable of visually. You’re really inside the picture. It’s so plastic that you see details that simply weren’t visible before.
Hagler: One more thing on the previous point, while we’re on the subject of technological innovation. In recent years, we’ve received many productions submitted by individuals, small crews, and colleges. This is actually a major pool of talent. And for the jury, this is also very important—to not just give awards to big studios, but to also single out indie creative artists for recognition. The content components are becoming increasingly important. What is animation, what is film? There are instances of overlapping in which work could actually be classified in another category, interaction or gaming, for instance. And there are excellent works to be found that weren’t produced by major studios, that didn’t have a big budget to work with. This artistic quality plays an increasingly important role.
Schöpf: The 2012 Prix results are a wonderful example of this. The Golden Nica grand prize went to a work by an individual artist. And it’s actually not animation; it’s an installation that plays with the theme of found footage. On the other hand, there was “Planet of the Apes,” whereby the award actually honored the technological innovation, which was outstanding. This was the first time that a motion capturing system was installed right on the set, and the result was to significantly improve interaction with the actors.
This illustrates the position that we’ve adopted for years now. The big question is: What seems to have been, in the previous year, the most innovative, the most interesting work in the cluster that includes storytelling, overall concept and technology? When you put it this way, then an individual certainly can’t compete with major Hollywood productions, but an individual can produce outstanding work. To a certain extent, this is a matter of technology. Today, a typical laptop can do more than seven Silicon Graphics machines could a few years ago. Ultimately, the biggest hurdles are time and a person’s own creativity.
Hagler: When you look at The Third and the Seventh now—this is great work, which can in any case compete with Hollywood in the visual realm. It’s definitely possible, on a smaller scale, to keep up with the major studios. What has dramatically changed the category in recent years is that there are no longer discussions about the technology itself, but rather what’s being done with it.
Schöpf: Special FX are simply a fact. You no longer see the innovation behind the scenes.
Have we reached the point of photorealism?
Hagler: I think so. From the inception of the first computer graphics figure, there has been an ongoing effort to be as realistic as possible. This has been a major source of motivation for technological development, but it plays absolutely no role as far as submissions to the category are concerned, which tend to be more experiments with the medium itself.
When I think of hybrid figures now, realistic figures with computer graphics images or figures in realistic scenes, these are certainly fascinating, but this is no longer a matter of being able to create a believable figure. That’s more the job of the big studios, which can then also exploit it for marketing purposes.
What have been the major themes and trends in recent years?
Hagler: One trend we’ve identified is the stop-motion technology beginning in 2008 with “Madame Tutli Putli.” And this has been developed so far since then that you can’t even recognize anymore whether something was genuine stop-motion animation or whether it’s a digital reproduction.
Schöpf: I see two trends. On one hand, there’s recourse to older techniques that are being used differently now. “Madame Tutli Putli” is a good example of this. It was an incredible amount of work to film the eyes and to insert the images into the figures. This makes for a realistic film about a totally surrealistic subject.
On the other hand, there’s “Sandpit” that’s the outcome of a completely new technology that links together a lot of images—ultimately, photos—into animated sequences. This is definitely a mode of production that a lot more filmmakers will be using.
Hagler: There are no longer only cinematic films, feature films, short films. Not only, and that’s the fascinating thing. And that, of course, brings us to interactive installations.
Another interesting trend is taking established technologies from other areas such as gaming and using them to create animation. For a while, there was the Maschinima wave in which game engines were used to create animated films. This link with other fields is always fascinating.
Is it currently possible to submit games?
Schöpf: Trailers for games.
Hagler: Naturally, this is frequently discussed in connection with works that contain many interactive elements. Classical games aren’t appropriate for this category; we would pass them on. Of course, there is an expanded concept of animation, but an important element is, in any case, the linear progression, and that the interactive components aren’t the featured attraction.
Schöpf: Games wouldn’t fit into the evaluation process at all. What I definitely could imagine would be a Prix category designed especially for computer games. This has already been discussed a few times.
Hagler: The peripheral areas are incredibly interesting, of course. “Heavy Rain,” for example, might even qualify because it constitutes a visual milestone in the field of computer gaming. But in the category as it’s set up now, the focus is on the animation.
Indeed, the breadth of the category is discussed year after year, and the criteria are continuously being reconsidered—How do you evaluate Visual FX work, etc?
Schöpf: Do we assess the film or the effects—that’s a never-ending story in this category!
We’re all really looking forward to the submissions to this year’s Prix. The deadline isn’t until March. Log on to http://prix.aec.at to enter or nominate a project. The next installment of this interview that will soon appear on the Ars Electronica Blog will deal with the Animation Festival, its concept and origins.