Three Short Education Lessons
Digital Animation, 2022, 04:29 minutes
https://vimeo.com/682598004
Three Short Education Lessons depicts a puppet-like monster encountering a world of letters and numbers. These encounters offer an absurdist take on educational programming for children, from Sesame Street to algorithmically produced content on Youtube. The animations present lessons designed to challenge traditional educational objectives. The end goal is to create and learn new languages, to forge new connections, and to find new ways of being right. A segment on the letter “R” highlights the letter in the formation of a variety of words (“are,” “green,” “three”), none of which, of course, start with “R.” The monster wanders through a world of alphabets, encounters the word “blue” and attempts to play it like an instrument. In the end, the monster has a nightmare encounter with a series of letters and numbers. The aspects of education are present: language, demonstrations, repetition, engagement, but the learning outcome is obscure.
The animations are made with 3D animation software and motion capture technology. The motion capture is a way of collaborating with the software, as it attempts to translate human movements onto new forms. Glitches occur, resulting in new motions and unexpected outcomes. The animation addresses the idea of weird technology by making the alphabet, one of our oldest tools, uncanny, familiar but not quite right. The translation of movements from a physical body to the virtual body causes an estrangement from the idea of the self, expanding what it means to inhabit spaces.