Eric Morin produced "Distance Learning" as a thesis project while studying at The Ringling School of Art and Design. He currently works as director of content development at Anark in Boulder, Colorado. See his startling and challenging work on this week's "Eye Drops."

For more information on "Distance Learning" visit Animation Express.

From the animator

"This animation is the outcome of my thesis, which started as a vision of the TV walking character. It came from studying video art, such as Naim Jun Paik's work, and was also influenced by one of my favorite artists, Jim Dine. There are obvious parallels between my character and Paik (e.g. television sculpture), and Jim Dine's influence came from his 'Tools' series, specifically in his abstraction and drawing of hand tools.

"The original character and story concept was this television pile that was in the shape of a human form. It was trying to do something, perhaps walk, but the images on the screen kept changing. Primarily, the images on the screens were of body parts associated to the areas on the body where the televisions were located. For example, the television on the foot would display a video of a foot. The images would also be in the same perspective and camera angle as the camera animation so it would appear that there was an actual human inside the boxes, and not just be pictures plastered on the screens. This animation progressed as the character tried to tune the televisions in unison until it was able to walk. A good visual, but not a lot of substance to the premise.

"Then, while taking a sociology course, I was intrigued by those old 1950s, 1960s-style monkey cage experiments where newborn monkeys were given various stimuli to see how they behave. Natural object were replaced, like wire-frame mothers, dolls, shock treatment, noises, etc. I was interested in the crude production of the documentaries as well as the horror-film connotations they portrayed.

"I hadn't made a correlation between those experiments and my animation immediately. I had been brainstorming ideas for my animation when I finally came to the idea of communication. I had known that I wanted this television man to be a symbol of some aspect of the 'human condition.' From this brainstorming, I determined that I wanted my animation to be about human communication.

"Have you ever found yourself mad at someone and yelling/chewing them out over the phone instead of face to face? Do you ever find that it's easier to just tell someone bad news from afar? This distancing of basic human interaction, in my opinion, has been growing with the use of not just television, but computers, phones, instant messaging, and other distance communication devices. Technology is making it easier and easier to not require someone to be in contact with another person. Because of this we as humans are losing our instinctual ability for basic primal communication. This became the premise for the animation."