Ant in the woods from shadow of reality

The morning sun danced playfully through the bright green leaves high

above my head; only the sound of a gentle breeze, a distant bird calling out, and rustling of critters under a carpet of fallen foliage.
Trying to channel Thoreau along this remote forest path, I whispered softly, "I went to the

woods

because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived..."
Sounding silly I marched deeper along the Natchez Trace with my copy of Walden, seeking solitude and elusive peace to quiet the spirit of a suburban dad.  How different this world is from incessant SmartPhone messages, Facebook updates, and media saturation; a constant "noise" flooding our lives with satellite, cell phone, radio waves -- audible and otherwise.
I heard a subtle patter accompany my stroll, lightly tapping the dead leaves that lined my path. What invisible creatures could make such sounds? Is the speed or force of my gate causing this phantom rustle?
As I bent down to investigate, I found a forgotten reality -- a place rarely visited by distracted people like me; a place I often spent hours as a child, but only moments in the last decade. I saw spiders -- hundreds of those "grand-daddy long legs" scurrying with fantastic agility along the ridges and gullies of an infinite leaf-scape.

Moving like creatures from some Tim Burton film, each step tapping out a slight sound of light drizzle, these marvelous spiders were my sojourners along the path. Where were they going in their daily commute? Afraid of the bipod giant in khaki cargo shorts?

And so my thoughts reflected on a recent conversation on the "Philosophy of Mind", a discipline devoted to issues such as how the brain interacts with the mind, whether thoughts are just mental constructs of the physical brain, theoretically measurable in chemical formulas, and so on. If the mind is indeed a separate entity of the brain, then do apes have minds? Do dogs and cats? Do spiders? And if so, what do they think about?
I found a small patch of moss growing thick and soft, sending fragile 3-inch shoots of yellow buds toward the canopy of life far above, yearning for a little more love from the sun. Deep in this micro-forest of moss, five or six ants investigated their surroundings as I did mine.
My prodding finger softly depressed a spot on the small mossy hills, and I was suddenly discovered. One of the ants became keenly aware of my presence and began making its way toward my finger. When I withdrew, the excited little arthropod made a rush for my feet.
Would this ant defend its family, its forest, its honor in the face of certain death at the hands (or shoes) of a giant? Yes -- it would.
Although I declined his offer to wrestle and made my retreat with haste, I began to wonder -- does this ant have a mind? Perhaps not one to contemplate astrophysics or Marxism or the World Cup... but perhaps duty and architecture and a sense of sacrifice; how noble are these smallest of creatures.

"Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous.... When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of reality." - Thoreau, Walden

My two hours in the

woods

left me wanting. I enjoyed a brief respite from the pressures and distractions of Thoreau's "shadow of reality" and realized I need more time for botany, for breathing, for vainly considering the life of an ant and the lilies of the field as a worthy exercise in itself.

Bottle of Message

Separated by the sea,a unique Duo pass along message of their lives through a bottle.An elegant animation of minimalist perfection to show how to communication inside the innermost of human's soul.
Animated on location at a beach, in snow, and underwater, this stop-motion short details a transoceanic conversation between two characters via objects in a bottle.

The shot film Bottle captures a current cultural desire to engage in the world on a physical, experiential level. This cultural desire expresses itself through the fetishization of craftsmanship, workwear, rustic Americana, roots music, biking, hiking et al. The short film is able to do this by inventively leaving the cramped animation studio to create stop-motion out in the world—an outdoors, on-location stop-motion that I can only imagine to be hellish in practice. The result is worth it however, unique and interesting. I have seen the world play a role in stop-mo, the graffiti of Blu notably, yet he creates representations on the world, not of the world as Lepore does here.

This larger cultural flow which Bottle latches on to can be seen as reactionary, a consequence of the mediated and seemingly inauthentic substance of modern life. The film understands this, obliquely addressing modern disconnect via the loneliness and desire for contact that the two characters exhibit.  It is a well worn theme, but is nonetheless as relevant as ever, trapped as we are in an infoculture advancing faster than we can keep up. The desire of the characters for physical interaction rather than the mere continuation of bottle-messaging can be read as a statement to this effect.

However the short film would not have garnered the affection it has received simply as a document of exquisite taste or even insight, instead it is the depth of feeling the two abstract masses are able to engender that endears the audience. The heart of the film's skill in this regard is a unique process by which the characters are personified. Through the co-opting of gifts into their bodies, Sand and Snow progressively individualize themselves, allowing for deeper attachment by the viewer. It is a clever sequence and the character's pleasure is infectious, overcoming the inherent difficulty presented by the amorphous character design and the film's brief run-time. That said, this sequence has interest beyond mere utility, it is also a profound statement. The character's transformation touches on philosophy and psychoanalytics, dramatizing theories of ego-formation and individuality, which posit that these concepts are wholly dependent on contrast—the presence of an "other".

The animation video is one of the best short films I've seen.Well paced and executed.The images need no dialogue.A love story that has it's own language.It is worthy of to be Winner of the Vimeo Audience Award for Animation 2010.

Cinema 4D project file endless planet

Miraculous Nature