Today I was looking at the work of my old friend and inspiration, Bob Sabiston. You've probably already seen his handiwork in Richard Linklater's Waking Life. Many years ago, Bob wrote a software system for drawing animation on the computer during a time when everyone was trying to make convincing animations out of mathematically shaded cubes and cylinders. Bob's contrarian approach was to draw animation by hand on the computer, and to leverage the computer's ability to easily fill polygons in specific colors. As imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I wrote a system that paled in comparison to Bob's. No, I never really figured it out the way that Bob did.
A younger artist named James Paterson could be said to be in a similar vein to Bob. However Bob's work is certainly a great deal simpler. More is said, with less.
I certainly like both works. One simple. The other complex. One is less. The other is more. However, neither is the object of my liking one more than the other. And there is certainly none to like less. In this instance, more equals less.
Posted by maeda at July 21, 2005 10:47 PM