Year of release: 2008
Original format: Super16mm (b/w)
Running time: loop
Screening format: digital screening versions available (silent)
Credits: A film by Kayla Parker
Director/producer/animator: Kayla Parker
Editor: Stuart Moore
Production: Sundog Media
Distribution and sales: Sundog Media sundogmedia@gmail.com
Description
Steel dressmaker’s pins, buttons, small metal screws, plastic and silver rings: a collection of ‘found objects’, once used to bind things, and people, together: they have been lost or discarded, then rediscovered; their silhouettes burned into the emulsion of 16mm black and white negative film using household bleach: leaving a trace of their presence falling through time and space. Shown as large-scale projection for the British Animation Awards: onto the exterior wall of the Davy Building and onto the wall of Crosspoint inside the Roland Levinsky Building at University of Plymouth.
Production notes
Commissioned by Kate Sparshatt on behalf of Peninsula Arts, for the British Animation Awards 2008: Public Choice programmes screened in the Jill Craigie Cinema
I dip the found objects in bleach and lay them on a strip of film where their presence marks the emulsion. I wash the strips, rubbing the film between my fingers carefully as the emulsion is soft and easily damaged. I then hang the film strips on the towel rail above the radiator in the bathroom. The next stage is to photograph each frame on a lightbox, starting at the top (the head, or beginning) of each strip and working down through to the end (or tail). The images above show 8 of the digital photos of small mother of pearl buttons and pins: each jpg is 3216 x 2136 and needs to be cropped, re-sized and harmonised before the digitally-copied 16mm frames are laid end to end on a timeline to create the animation and prepare for screening. The emulsion is black and impervious to light; in the areas where the emulsion has been removed by the bleach a range of muted colours is created by photographing the filmstrip in colour: from clear white, where there is no emulsion, to mottled shades of murky brown, where some emulsion remains.Publication and comments
Hold from Sundog Media on Vimeo.
Exhibition2018
UK programme for the IV Annual Festival of Inclusive Theatre PROTEATR. International Meetings presented by British Council, Meyerhold Centre, Moscow. "The festival is a celebration of inclusive and innovative theatre projects featuring active participation from actors with disabilities. This year’s focus is on classical and contemporary dance. / The British Council supports the festival’s UK programme, showcasing artistic work from Exim Dance Company." (Programme notes). Performance of The Birth of Memory by Exim Dance Company choreographed by Adam Benjamin and featuring large-scale projection of the films Verge: Nocturne and Heirloom (9 to 13 February 2018) (presentations forthcoming in South Korea and Mexico, dates tbc)
2016
The Birth of Memory by Exim Dance Company, choreographed by Adam Benjamin, presented at Resolution the UK’s biggest festival for new dance, The Place, London (29 January 2016)
2014
The Birth of Memory, by Exim Dance Company, choreographed by Adam Benjamin, with original music composition by Eduardo Miranda; dancers: Kevin French, Laura Henry, Emma Pendle, and Mike Williams. The dance performance features large-scale projection of the films Verge: Nocturne, Hold and Heirloom; performed as part of the ImPACT tour: The House, Plymouth (28 January 2015); Cheltenham (12 June 2014); City College, Plymouth (17 June 2014); The Keay Theatre, St Austell (24 June 2014); The Plough Arts Centre, Great Torrington, Devon (15 October 2014); Barbican Theatre Plymouth (24 October 2014); Cygnet Theatre Exeter (14 November 2014).
2010
Hand Eye Visions: the Films of Kayla Parker and Stuart Moore Cine-City, the Brighton film festival; Lighthouse, Brighton, UK. We presented a programme of 17 direct animation films, made over the last 20 years, for the third and final Hand Eye Visions event, curated by Ian Helliwell (27 November 2010)
The Measure of It 16mm film-drawing performance and screening with artist’s talk, Studio One at Plymouth Arts Centre, UK (28 April 2010, 6.00pm to 8.30pm)
2008
British Animation Awards: large scale projection onto the exterior of the Davy Building, Plymouth University (visible from the bottom of North Hill during the evenings 18 to 21 February 2008)