| "Rules: Logic and Applications" 2nd Workshop, Dec, 2019 |
| Aesthetic Morphisms |
| Jocelyn Ireson-Paine |
| www.jocelyns-cartoons.uk/rules2019/ |
| "Rules: Logic and Applications" 2nd Workshop, Dec, 2019 |
| Aesthetic Morphisms |
| Jocelyn Ireson-Paine |
| www.jocelyns-cartoons.uk/rules2019/ |
| Slides as PDF | Artistic Techniques Database Demo | Artistic Techniques Database Video | Contact |
|
A completely different kind of
transformation is to redepict an
object as animate, often human.
Here's a striking example,
drawn to head a poem in
the 1857 volume
of Punch:
The least subtle forms of anthropomorphism add faces and limbs to the
image. More subtle varieties recruit lines already there. Example:
This was drawn by Bill Peet, one of Disney's artists. When adding faces to objects, he often uses lines already there. Of it, Peet says: "A drawing of an unhappy caboose rattling along under a cloud of train smoke was stuck on my studio wall for fifteen years before she became 'Katy' in the story 'The Caboose that got Loose'".
It may be strange to associate anthropomorphism with something as abstract as category theory, when most of us see it in the form of dancing teapots and talking Mars Bars. Or it may just sound like a bad pun on "morphism". But I can sketch a mathematical formulation. Anthropomorphising an object increases its "agency" or freedom of action, because the anthropomorphised version is free to do anything a person can. So the state space available to anthropomorphised objects is much bigger than that available to the originals. The space of possible relations has been vastly expanded.
By the way, here is the poem introduced by the first image, "The Two Giants of Our Time":
"WHAT can we two great Forces do?"
Said Steam to Electricity,
"To better the case of the human race,
And promote mankind’s felicity?"
Electricity said, "From far lands sped,
Through a wire, with a thought’s velocity,
What tidings I bear! — of deeds that were
ever passed yet for atrocity."
"Both land and sea," said Steam, "by me,
At the rate of a bird men fly over;
But the quicker they speed to kill and bleed,
A thought to lament and sigh over."
"The world, you see." Electricity
Remarked, "thus far is our debtor,
That it faster goes; but, goodness knows,
It doesn’t get on much better."
"Well, well," said Steam, with whistle and scream,
"Herein we help morality;
That means we make to overtake
Rebellion and rascality."
"Sure enough, that’s true, and so we do,"
Electricity responded.
"Through us have been caught, and to justice brought,
Many scoundrels who had absconded."
Said Steam, "I hope we shall get the rope
round the necks of the Sepoy savages,
In double quick time, to avenge their crime,
And arrest their murders and ravages."
"We’ve been overpraised," said both; "we raised
Too sanguine expectations:
But with all our might, we haven’t yet quite
Regenerated the nations.
"We’re afraid we shan't — we suspect we can’t
Cause people to change their courses;
Locomotive powers alone are ours:
But the world wants motive forces."
