Thursday, January 31, 2013

Why CGI and Dada don't go together.



I dislike Drooker's style of art in the graphic novel Howl. The digital images he creates look cheap and tacky and obviously totally 90s. In interviews from 2010, Drooker vaguely refers to "using the same software as Pixar," though obviously not to its full capacity. An ethereal and gauzy style such as seen on pages 20-21 would be more suited to the text overall, as opposed to the weird robot-looking characters Drooker conjured up. (Seriously, they look as though they were cut from a tin can.)  The metallic and smooth characteristics of the figures do not mesh with the grittiness of the beat generation.  Furthermore, all of the women looked as if they were aliens, with annoyingly unnatural exaggerated proportions. They appeared generic and not fashioned after anyone in particular, as opposed to the males referenced in the poem who were given more details such as facial expressions, beard stubble, and clothing. Drooker rather explicitly depicted penises on pages 66-67, on pages 110-11 a nude female figure spreads her legs but the artist did not illustrate her genitalia; she is carved from one giant stone and objectified and idealized within the cathedral. The nude woman hitchhiking is easily the worst CGI figure I’ve seen. Crappy software aside, the contradictory treatment of nudity should not be overlooked. Some people argue that the beats’ ideal of nakedness is being free, at ease and pure.  But the nudity depicted throughout the book is degrading (page 19), objectifying (78-79), or overtly sexual (72-73.)
Drooker’s imagery fails to deliver when paired with a potentially vertigo-inducing chunk of text. On several instances, what could've been a trippy page filled with small vignettes dancing 'round the text, he flashes a two-page spread of a typewriter (70,71) rather than try to illustrate movement in the juicier bits of Howl. On pages 118-19, instead of crafting a delirious spectacle of picnic favorites and bald fools preaching from ancient and imposing steps, we're given a blurry close up of a face with a mouth partially open. Whether he is in fact begging for his lobotomy, we shall never know. Drooker missed an incredible opportunity to visualize and interpret the beat ideals on these pages. The beat movement was heavily influenced by Dadaism, a Post-WW1 movement involving visual art, anti-art, theatre, poetry, and graphic design that rejected war, establishment, and rationality. Throwing potato salad during Dada lectures is actually an act of excited agreeance ; huzzah! down with the old tired ways! Dada was the rejection of the traditionalist, the bourgeois, and held political ties with the radical left. Though Dada’s name is of obscure origin, one theory claims Tristan Tzara, one of the founders of the Dada movement often said “yes, yes” or “da, da” in Romanian, his native tongue. Towards the end of On the Road, Neal’s obtuse sentences would often be replaced with reduced mutters or screams or cries of “yes, YES!” Dadaism also created the framework for sound poetry, which infuses music and literature but focuses on phonetics and sounds rather than syntax. It is also referred to as “verse without words” and is best suited for live performance, an essential element of the beat experience.

2 comments:

  1. I agree with you on how Drooker failed to deliver an illustrated presence alongside the text. I was hoping to view the images that tell the story with elements of artistry, I was disappointed. I was hoping to make some connections and even searched for female recognition, but discovered that the females role was only seen as an object, a figure that serves no useful purpose in society or life except for moments of sexual gratification. If I were to compare the Moloch with the Beats, I think they balance quite equally in the "Egotistical" department.

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  2. Dani: I really like how you articulated the different ideas of nudity--Ginsberg idea of nudity as pure and vulnerable while Drooker's view in the novel in certainly exploitative. Really nice job and I really like how specific you are in the comments referencing certain pages.

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