HUM 203: The World in Motion, Animation in Theory and Practice

Assignment 1

Assignment 2

Final project

'The Ants and the Grasshopper' is an animation created in Adobe Photoshop, to visually portray Scott Bukatman's views on industrialization. The Industrialized era is a time of overbearing corporate machines, overworked and underpaid workers and heavy regulation of society. Specialization and the conformity of labor is yet another issue of the period, which robs of the workers their individuality. Bukatman, the inspiration for this animation, exposed the follies of capitalism and labor, which regarded the fatigue of the body worse than its physical limitations. The ant community in the piece is the industrialization-friendly community, with the greedy queen ant heading the weak worker ants. The grasshopper is one who defies societal impositions of labor and symbolizes stakes of leisure in a labor-intensive society.

It is important to realize the various implications of the society depicted in the animation. The grasshopper in the animation faces shortage of food and abandonment by his ant friends. Eventually, he dies making the claim that death is the only escape from the capitalist world he resides in. The ants never get to pursue an idle lifestyle and always work collecting food oh which, they only receive a meager amount of the product. For them, life is a monotonous journey with no end in sight. While it arguable that there are losses in leisure and industry, it is to be understood that the carefree grasshopper led a wholesome life. He pursued a life of happiness and dies with his fiddle by his side. With my animation, I wish to have my audience decide which insect defines them and offer a possibility in reaching a middle ground on the issue. That way, one can live life to their own desire and not be restricted to either ends of the societal spectrum.