{"id":7428,"date":"2016-03-13T19:28:16","date_gmt":"2016-03-13T23:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/?p=7428"},"modified":"2016-03-13T19:28:16","modified_gmt":"2016-03-13T23:28:16","slug":"realism-must-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/2016\/03\/13\/realism-must-fall\/","title":{"rendered":"Realism Must Fall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last night, I saw the UMS show \u201cNufonia Must Fall\u201d by DJ Kid Koala. What initially began as a wordless graphic novel has now turned into a full-on performance, complete with puppets, live music, sound effects, and even a pre-show Bingo game.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"thumbnail wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 508px\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/ecx.images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/41lhMwE305L.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"498\" height=\"500\" \/><figcaption class=\"caption wp-caption-text\">Image via amazon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The plotline changes significantly between the text and the filmic version (especially the ending), but the basics stay the same: a plain and \u201cold-school\u201d robot repeatedly is bested at his work at the deli by the new and improved, faster model called Hexabot who can make ten times the amount of sandwiches that our protagonist (let\u2019s call him Plainbot) can. Plainbot meets a humanoid woman, Malorie, who is also lonely and works all the time with little satisfaction. After getting fired, Plainbot enters a contest, hoping to write \u201cthe best love song of all time.\u201d He\u2019s writing them for Malorie. But SPOILER! He\u2019s super bad at writing songs, to the point of making people throw up upon hearing them, as seen in the novel. But Malorie likes Plainbot for how he is, and they go on dates together (dinner, ice skating, movies, all the old fashioned tricks).<\/p>\n<p>The comic ultimately comes down to being a feel-good love story, as creator Kid Koala and director KK Barrett explain in this video.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"648\" height=\"365\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HFOImWFUL7k?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In minute 2:23 of this video, KK Barrett remarks on something I\u2019d like to stop and think about. He says that because of the silent novel, silent film, and puppet characters, \u201cYou don\u2019t project onto them, but right into them.\u201d This is what Scott McCloud would call\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.comicscube.com\/2011\/06\/comic-book-glossary-masking-effect.html\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cmasking\u201d<\/a>\u00a0: the use of simplistic, archetypal characters with familiar and minimal details that allows for a stronger emotional connection and easier identification (Wikipedia\u2019s definition).<\/p>\n<p>By using little details, no color and no dialogue, the characters themselves are masks for the \u201ceveryman,\u201d save for Malorie\u2019s gender and Plainbot\u2019s android nature. The reader supplies the psychology, the emotion, and the connections between characters and frames. We can even create our own dialogue and background sounds. We are active participants in the creation of the story.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"thumbnail wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 360px\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/www.metroactive.com\/papers\/metro\/03.20.03\/gifs\/koala-0312.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"290\" \/><figcaption class=\"caption wp-caption-text\">Image via Metroactive<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But, then again, I can\u2019t say that I\u2019ve ever been able to empathize with a robot before.<\/p>\n<p>And if you actually slow down and think about the story itself, it\u2019s kind of insane! A girl is basically falling in love with a robot and vice versa. If this happened in real life, serious exams on the woman\u2019s mental stability would take place. The robot\u2019s chip would be taken out to be analyzed, and maybe his body would be sacrificed as \u201cresearch\u201d at the next\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=g0TaYhjpOfo\">DARPA competition<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>So why, at the Power Center, were the folks around me \u201cawwing\u201d when Malorie and Plainbot held hands for the first time, when they know a human-robot relationship is obviously weird and a little wrong? Why do we gasp \u201cOh no!\u201d when Plainbot discovers that Malorie created the Hexabot? Why did I myself feel a flutter in my heart when Plainbot writes on his mixed tape \u201cLovesong for Malorie &lt;3\u201d? He\u2019s JUST A ROBOT!<\/p>\n<p>The funny thing is that I never questioned the relationship of Malorie and Plainbot while I read the graphic novel, alone in the quiet of my apartment. To me, they were both just characters in a story. Even though Malorie worked in an office cubicle, her lack of a nose and mouth and eye irises blurred the lines between being human and robot. This artistic choice within the novel made it easier to see them as simple, flat, masking characters. It was only until I was sitting amidst the hundreds of other viewers, hearing their responses that I began to be aware of the relationship on the screen in front of me. Suddenly, I saw 3-D puppets who could move their arms up and down, just as I do. Malorie had an expression and was obviously human. There was motion, there was life on that screen.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" id=\"large-featured-image\" class=\" aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/3puuzj4cgp0w1zze71361rza.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/multiperformance\/nufonia-byajkorkidakis-072015-420x420-4.jpg\" alt=\"nufonia must fall production\" width=\"420\" height=\"420\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo Credits: AJ Korkidakis<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>We always are engaging with stories and characters differently depending on the medium it\u2019s shown to us. But in \u201cNufonia Must Fall,\u201d it was the emotion and \u201crealism\u201d of the piece itself that was altered from paper to film.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last night, I saw the UMS show \u201cNufonia Must Fall\u201d by DJ Kid Koala. What initially began as a wordless graphic novel has now turned into a full-on performance, complete with puppets, live music, sound effects, and even a pre-show Bingo game. The plotline changes significantly between the text and the filmic version (especially the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2177,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[762,979,978,980,982,981,306],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7428"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2177"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7428"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7431,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7428\/revisions\/7431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}