{"id":5669,"date":"2014-09-16T14:49:33","date_gmt":"2014-09-16T20:49:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.saic.edu\/cate\/?p=5669"},"modified":"2025-01-09T22:55:35","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T04:55:35","slug":"on-jonathan-monaghan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/2014\/09\/16\/on-jonathan-monaghan\/","title":{"rendered":"On Jonathan Monaghan&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>This season we are\u00a0commissioning\u00a0original content from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago student body inspired by and about the many exciting artists we will be showcasing. Over the course of the season we will be publishing short texts on each artist\u2019s practice written by students from across SAIC. Many of these students will also be interviewing our artists for this very blog\u2014so remember to check back throughout the Fall season!<\/em><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_5670\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5670\" style=\"width: 450px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/100\/2014\/09\/Monaghan_AlienFanfare_02.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5670\" src=\"http:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/100\/2014\/09\/Monaghan_AlienFanfare_02.jpeg\" alt=\"Still from Alien Fanfare (Jonathan Monaghan, 2014). Courtesy of the artist.\" width=\"450\" height=\"253\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-5670\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Still from Alien Fanfare (Jonathan Monaghan, 2014). Courtesy of the artist.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As CATE\u2019s program assistant I wanted to get the ball rolling with some thoughts on this week\u2019s artist: Jonathan Monaghan.<\/p>\n<p>I first encountered Jonathan Monaghan\u2019s work online and was thrilled to find out we would be programming him at CATE. Characterized by bizarre characters, themes, and styles, his animated films are unpredictable and evocative. I\u2019m often left thinking about them long after the last frame.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m particularly drawn to his films <i>Dauphin<\/i> (2011) and <i>Rainbow Narcosis<\/i> (2013). Monaghan describes Dauphin as a work \u201cwhere meanings don\u2019t quite materialize.\u201d It features a stately lion who encounters a guillotine and an MRI machine, polar bears (characters he has used in previous animations), and tiny people who seem to be filming the entire thing from the background.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><em>Rainbow Narcosis<\/em> is among Monaghan\u2019s wildest pieces. It features nine minutes of a headless lamb going through a series of strange landscapes. Some of the scenes feature commonly recognizable places, like office cubicles, but others are entirely abstract. As with all of his animated films, is slickly produced in a hyper-real style. This makes the discontinuity between characters and places all the more striking.<\/p>\n<p>Monaghan\u2019s works speak to the Internet age. They address serious themes \u2013 like corporate and political power \u2013 while maintaining a light touch, and yet their surreal imagery provokes viewers into thinking about them for a long time. I\u2019m looking forward to seeing his latest works and hearing more about his process at this week\u2019s CATE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This season we are\u00a0commissioning\u00a0original content from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago student body inspired by and about the many exciting artists we will be showcasing. Over the course of the season we will be publishing short texts on each artist\u2019s practice written by students from across SAIC. Many of these students will [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/2014\/09\/16\/on-jonathan-monaghan\/\">Read More&#8230;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> from On Jonathan Monaghan&#8230;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":5670,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[70,137],"class_list":["post-5669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-19","tag-animation","tag-computer-graphics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5669"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8570,"href":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5669\/revisions\/8570"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}