14th StopTrik Trailer and artist statement
So I had the honor and pleasure to be invited to create a trailer for this year's StopTrik-Festival.
Before I write a few words about my trailer attempt, which is - well - just another short animated piece (which I cannot judge objectively) in an age that "spits out" thousands of animated pieces every day, I think it might be helpful to put myself in the context of StopTrik and the field of animation in general: being trained more on the technical/digital side (i.e. Ars Electronica Linz, gold extra etc.), it has always been a pure pleasure for me to attend animation festivals from about 2012 onward until today (and tomorrow, I hope), and to meet or just watch all these fantastic creative talents in this field, who so often combine craftsmanship, art and storytelling in such a compelling way. And coming to StopTrik Maribor for the first time in 2014, I enjoyed the very welcoming, a bit "punk-ish" ;) attitude of StopTrik, and I appreciated the fact that the Festival-Team focused on a specific animation technique (stop motion of course) and their highly talented artists, but was still more than open to others and „Outsiders“ like me ;) that somehow "borderland" with stop motion.
Which brings me to this year's festival theme(s) and my trailer: Back in April the StopTrik team told me that this year's festival edition would deal with rather dark and critical aspects of our society: Anthropocene / Trans-Humanism / Post-Humanism / Artificial Intelligence / Techno-Optimism / Ecology / (R)Evolution / War and Destruction / Human Enhancement etc. were some of the keywords that could and should be part of StopTrik 2024 and therefore (maybe) part of my trailer. Well, that was quite a lot, but as a human being in these strange and fractured times, of course I saw some connections to myself and also to my "body of work" so far. Going through my notes from our first meeting back in April, "Aloha Apocalypse!" was one of the first "slogans" I came up with, but I didn't want to get in trouble with esteemed Elvis, who is of course still alive and well!!!! Another early wordplay in my sketchbook was "StopTrik goes PopTrik" (in my case: PopCornTrik), and somehow I stuck to PopCorn + its original grain because I felt it fit my personal+subjective humor: It's a pun with "StopTrik", it starts with something very small that can develop, it has a connection to cinema (well, not a good one, I'm not really a big fan of people eating popcorn next to me in the cinema), it somehow refers to animation+stop motion+Science Fiction (the grain of corn becomes a PopCorn "alien" in the blink of an eye, what a PopTrik! ), and with some imagination even to ecological+food themes: the original structure of nature being "destroyed" by heat, being „cloned“/manipulated into something else, etc.
In addition and in correlation to the given themes, I felt I should experiment with my love-hate relationship with technology + AI in general. To write more about this evil 2-letter-word here would go beyond the scope (what I'm already doing anyway), but from the production&creative side I want to point out the following experience I had during the creation process: Timewise / budget wise / subject wise / research wise I was really open and interested in experimenting with AI tools, BUT to sum it up in simple words: at least in my case the creation process with AI was just no fun. For example, I had the idea to experiment with some AI audio tools for the soundtrack of my trailer, and yes, something "interesting" in perfect quality came out quite quickly, but it just "wasn't me", so I scrapped it and just started to enjoy creating something "worse" (I guess) or lets say "imperfect", which took me way longer, with "old" tools, ordinary recording techniques and my aging 2007 midi keyboard, and suddenly I had so much joy with this conventional creation process and therefore also with the trailer. Similarly with the visual and animation parts, I mean, yes, a little bit of AI is still an ingredient to this work, but much less than originally planned. It's just way too much fun to "get your hands dirty" (i.e. in my situation: collecting ugly rubbish in Vienna), to plan, to write, to sketch, to cut, to use your own modest resources, to experiment in 3D (Blender) on your own terms, to work with your own footage and animate your own tiny corn grains, or in my case: to let nature scream in your own words or with your own references. In other words: animation is deeply rooted in haptics, in random exploration, in playfulness, in making mistakes, in being a child, in humans and their limits.
On the other hand, I would like to mention that animation has always been closely linked to technological progress, so it's better us artists and passionate researchers are open to it and confront the "evil nature" of AI - as long as it makes sense in our individual artistic or research processes - than to leave this field solely to immoral financial markets, corrupt politicians, crazy dictators, hateful Nazis, religious cults or whatever evil, you name it... it's a complex world, and it will stay that way.
Well, there would be so much more to say about this year's StopTrik festival topics, but i'd better get to the end of this statement: maybe, just maybe - as long as we work hard on ourselves and in harmony with Mother Nature - there is still a chance to enjoy a few more StopTrik editions on planet Earth. Maybe. The moon doesn't seem to be that great yet anyway (i.e. minus 160 degrees at night, annoying little gravity and still no direct economy flights from Vienna or Maribor) and - to bring another and less known planet into play - it's not sure yet if K2-18b - 124 light years away from Earth - really holds water. To conclude: there seems to be no Plan(et) B at this time.
-> So better stay here, stay open, stay imperfect, choose wisely between human stupidity and artificial intelligence, stay an outsider & hopefully see you in Maribor at the end of September!
Reini Bidner
Producer of StopTrik International film festival is Pekarna Magdalenske mreže, co-producer is Narodni dom Maribor – Vetrinjski dvor. Festival's co-financiers are Slovenski filmski center, Mestna občina Maribor, Active citizen found Slovenija, Urad RS za mladino in Ministrstvo za kulturo. Soorganizers of the festival are Lutkovno gledališče Maribor, Akademija umetnosti, Univerza v Novi Gorici, Društvo slovenskega animiranega filma, Film Factory, KUD Coda, AGD Gustaf, Zavod Mars in Društvo Slon.