Those lips, those eyes...

February 3, 2014 6:28 AM

Chimpnology Another perfectly normal and sweet animated short by that lovable scamp Cyriak. (The dreaded SLYT)
posted by louche mustachio (17 comments total)

I love this guy.

Maybe if chimps aren't your thing, you'll like kitties better.
posted by phunniemee at 6:31 AM on February 3, 2014 [3 favorites]

You had me at Cyriak. They're one of those artists who in sixty years people are still going to be writing papers about, I swear.
posted by Mizu at 6:44 AM on February 3, 2014 [5 favorites]

Ah, cute, it's a dancing monkey. Oh, and lots of monkeys! And even a robot thing! This seems pretty normal to me, I wonder when the nightmare fue - AAAAAAAAAAGH!
posted by hippybear at 6:44 AM on February 3, 2014 [5 favorites]

oh wow cyriak.

i forgot about this guy. He should make animations for fox news.
posted by rebent at 6:45 AM on February 3, 2014

And, wow, this one actually had a pretty interesting story. That's a great development from his earlier work.
posted by rebent at 6:50 AM on February 3, 2014 [4 favorites]

I had two thoughts:

First, "Oh, look, the Capitalist God-Machine feasting on the ink/blood of the "creative class" wage slaves."

Second. "This is what a shoggoth looks like. Ia!"
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:56 AM on February 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

I ended up clicking on a pretty good youtube sidebar link, this 24 minute Cyriak | Heroes of Animation wherein Cyriak shows some of his process, says some incredibly normal and incredibly weird things, the host isn't insufferable, and I discovered that Cyriak seems to be an okay guy. Cyriak, I would buy you a beer.
posted by Mizu at 7:12 AM on February 3, 2014 [8 favorites]

well both the FPP link and Kitty City had one of my cats leaping for my arm so she could bite it. Hard.
posted by angrycat at 7:52 AM on February 3, 2014 [2 favorites]

Thanks, Mizu! Cyriak is a pretty modest, laid-back guy. "I used to do a lot of drawing, but then I found out that if you use a photograph, you don't have to draw the thing, so...[shrug]"
posted by echo target at 8:03 AM on February 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

I liked the "Heroes Of Animation" interview as well. I'd wondered over the years just what sort of person Cyriak might be. It turns out he's a quiet, unassuming guy who loves his tools, and with such an imagination! Interesting that software such as Aftereffects has been available for years but so few people have done work comparable to Cyriak's.
posted by Agave at 8:57 AM on February 3, 2014

Always love Cyriak. I was a little worried with the rough draft that was floating around recently, but he pulled it off in the end.
posted by maudlin at 10:07 AM on February 3, 2014

Remember: Chimpnology is still just a theory; teach the controversy.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 10:08 AM on February 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

This actually is how reality television gets made, you know. The endless monkeys at typewriters, the mechanical dancing chimp puppet in a tux, even the belching god-machine-ape.

Sometimes the machine makes a dancing chimp, and sometimes it goes crazy and makes Phil Robertson.
posted by JHarris at 11:45 AM on February 3, 2014

This is like...so true!
posted by quazichimp at 11:53 AM on February 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

Cyriak sees THE TRUTH.
posted by homunculus at 6:12 PM on February 3, 2014

love this so much
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 12:41 AM on February 4, 2014

It was completely accidental, but the audio from N Sync's Bye Bye Bye lines up pretty well with Cyriak's animation. I'm not joking.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:57 AM on February 7, 2014