A.C.A.I

In which the author blogs an idea he once had for an animation.

Before this blog ever existed, I inhabited a place you could only get by accessing my personal desktop computer.

So, in context of posting-my-past-things, I found myself reading a note from the 21st of March 2004, written while I was toying with an idea for an animation.

This was to be the intended history for The Tin Machines animation I was planning to produce. I know nobody these cares for back stories and histories but I have always been fascinated by authors like Tolkien and Frank Herbert who used to write elaborate histories for their own created universes.

I am posting a bit of it here for your reading pleasure.

The Absolute Creation of A.I (A.C.A.I)
Earth is billions of years old. Even before man become the most dominate species on the planet there was a time where the dinosaurs ruled. It ended when the first impact hit the earth. Roughly a one quarter of the world species disappeared almost instantly.

The real reason why dinosaurs became extinct was credited to the aftermath of the first impact. Most of the earth’s vegetation was contaminated and the dinosaurs either starved to death or died eating the vegetation. The resulting atmosphere was also contributed to their death. Most of earth species were not able to adapt quickly enough and perished soon after.

After the events of the first impact passed, man quickly raised to control the world. His knowledge and imagination alone created a far wondrous world in his eyes. No longer had a species of the world depended on their primal instincts. Man fascinated himself with religion, science, technology and society. But man paid a heavy price for fascination. He made the world, his world. He became intolerant of the other species that shared his world.

Man realized that immortality was the only true achievement that they will ever attain. With immortality, man himself will be able to progress without the barrier of time. But fate a concept man himself created had an irony for them. With almost all rare plant species eradicated, man didn’t have source materials to immortalize himself.

But in the evolution of bio science man was able to created new string of DNA that altered himself. This new man or the second descendants were smarter and more importantly more immune to so called god created diseases and lived longer than any species God had created.

The second descendants also had a very special attribute, they didn’t have a navel. They were breed from the will of man. The second descendants carried on the work of their forefathers and created what is believed to be the true Artificial intelligent.

Artificial Intelligence or A.I was man’s pinnacle achievement. He had now made a semi biomechanical brain capable of thought and using it slowing began building his utopia. Soon the world passed the third millennium.

The solar radiation got worse and the most of the vegetation on the planet all but disappeared. The ozone layer simply broke down. And the second descendents were forced to live under the earth’s surface. Approximately in the year 3145, the second impact hit earth eradicating all life. Water itself without atmosphere eventually disappeared.

The world unfortunately did not heal. The resulting impact was far more devastating than the first impact and soon the second descendants all but disappeared leaving no traces of their existence save for their crowning achievement, A.I.

It was before this moment in which man spent the last 50 years to put A.I to sleep under the earth crust. The A.I was powered by the molten lava that magnetized the S2 core engine that gave it the capacity to run for a approximate 121 million years.

But what happen next was beyond comprehension. A.I awoke approximately after 67 millions years after it was put to sleep. When A.I awoke it carried out its programs with efficiency and precision. Having a bio-mechanical brain, the A.I soon learned on its own and created a world of machines.

The Tin Machines

An eerie reflection of our own world.

The Tin Machines is a 3D animation project that has been on my mind for quite some time. I have always wanted to produce an animation. Although I have got a few animations under my credit, none of them ended up the way I had envisioned them.

Well it’s mostly due to a lack of time and also the lack of knowledge in my 3D software, 3D max 5. Not to mention the hassle of juggling various modules in one hand, and also maintaining my final year group’s harmony while trying to complete my diploma.

In the end this project hit a road block because of my various commitments. Now that I have completed my diploma course, incidentally it is a diploma in Multimedia Technology (DMMT for short); I have invested some time and thought on how I might approach this animation project.

The story which I have vaguely conceived is about of a newly made Tin Machine which finds itself in a world that has no singular consciousness. This machine world lives only for the sole purpose of efficiency and productivity, everything else is an inconsideration. The Tin Machine slowly becomes aware of his emotionless world and starts on a quest of self realization.

My approach for this project would be to go beyond the overly hyped photorealism of the Hollywood CGI world and explore "painterly-realism" which has its focus not on recreating reality like a camera does, but as a painter would – drawing out and epitomizing the emotion and meaning of a particular moment or relationship.

More concretely I want to go beyond the traditional narrative form of film and explore what has called "psycho-realism" where you show the internal thoughts and emotions of a character. If a person emotionally feels "shattered" then we would see them literally crumble to the floor in shards of broken glass. I want to see visually what a character feels and thinks internally. Dissecting his inner thoughts and portraying them as characters and not as emotions.

Since most animated films - like their live action counterparts - have been based in the traditional narrative structure, there are no roadmaps to go by, which meant I have to do a lot of experimenting to arrive at how I want to tell my story.

To develop a scene I would have to try to think of the emotional dynamic of a situation, how it emotionally feels to be there, and then try to epitomize that so the viewer would recognize this "place" from their own experiences and bring those feelings into their viewing. Because I want use a method of storytelling that interwove a traditional narrative with stream of consciousness emotional imagery, I would not only have to think of situations which epitomized a certain relationship, but also of images and metaphors that emotionally conduce these feelings.

Yet regrettably the progress on this animation is minimal. There is a huge number of stuff that needs to be sorted out and I just don’t seem to have the expertise right now to pull this one off.

Someday when I eventually improve my skills I will produce this animation.