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One of the most fundamental characteristics of cinema – and by extension, animation, whether considered as the immediate predecessor of motion pictures, or snobbishly treated as its subordinate- which sets it apart from other visual art forms is its pronounced temporality. In the context of a medium which occasionally exhibits moments of self-reflection, time can break forth as a filmmaker’s main obsession to be dealt with in his/her creative work. Koji Yamamura’s Muybridge’s Strings (2011) is an experiment in similar vein, also presenting an ambition for drawing a link between salience of time in cinema and in the human life in general. Allegedly motivated to create this animation by taking note of changes in his household, Yamamura strives to transcribe his own perception of time into the visual language. Nonetheless, as an artist working within confines of a temporally-operating medium, his understanding of time would be inexorably imbued by the structure of the medium itself. Such a reflexive influence makes itself known in the choice of the eponymous central character of the film narrative, a film pioneer, Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904).
Muybridge’s fame has been largely forged on the basis of experiments he carried out with a multiple still camera setup, initially aimed to substantiate a scientific answer to this question: whether or not there are moments in a horse trot when all the horse’s legs are off ground. Muybridge’s solution for discovering the truth was to break down the horse’s continuous movement into tiny splinters of time by sequentially activating a row of cameras through connected strings. Running across the bridle path, strings were cut as the horse rushed by, making cameras fire to capture individual instants of the animal’s movement. The title of Yamamura’s film directly refers to this historical experiment, without the underlying intention being clarified. In consequence, the film’s portrayal of this experiment suggests a fascination on Muybridge’s part towards converting time into minute separate fractions; an activity that by implication could be also construed as congealing the essence of time in isolated moments.
The importance of moments in Muybridge’s story is not limited to his obsession with capturing them. Muybridge’s personal life was clouded by a tragedy, which also makes its way into Yamamura’s animation: the discovery of his wife’s illicit...