Year of release: 2009
Original format: digital photographs, 8mm film (black and white), HD video (16.9)
Running time: 2 minutes 50 seconds
Screening format: digital screening versions available
Credits: A film by Kayla Parker and Stuart Moore
Thanks to Henry Lindsay, Lindsay Design; Ian Blackwell, project manager Teign Heritage Project; Harrison Sutton Partnership; Teignmouth and Shaldon Museum, Teign Heritage; and The Jones Family
Production: Sundog Media
Commissioned by Animate Projects for Sea Change
Distribution and sales: Abigail Addison or Gary Thomas, Animate Projects info@animateprojects.org and Sundog Media sundogmedia@gmail.com
Available to health and social care providers throughout the UK via Paintings in Hospitals 0207 407 3222
Description
An animated ‘séance’, in which modern day Teignmouth, a seaside resort on the coast of south Devon, is haunted by joyous summers past, conjured up though archive footage. The Jones family holidayed in Teignmouth - then known as ‘The Children’s Paradise’ - from 1934 to 1939, just before the outbreak of the second world war, their summer activities captured forever on black and white film. A lifetime later the town is still here: ships in the docks, bathers on the beach, people promenade... Teign Spirit celebrates this continuity, mixing these home movies with new waves: a 21st century stroll along the Back Beach, evoking the optical entertainments of the Victorian pier: the flickering still-moving images of the mutascope, a figure seen for a moment, held in the mind, then gone. Silent memories, coloured and transformed by the present; shifting sands and elemental forces.
Sea Change is an initiative of CABE the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, and the government's advisor on architecture, urban design and public space.
Production notes
Teign Spirit matches the viewpoints and sea views of black and white holiday movies with those of the present day resort, captured in digital photography; using frame-by-frame compositing to mix high definition video and 8mm monochrome footage from the 1930s, matching viewpoints and sea views of the present day. The silent black and white footage has travelled in time - film, VHS, DVD - before landing in the digital present of stop-motion photography, video and location sound recordings.
Publication and comments
2012 Animate Projects: experiments in animation, brochure. Large still from Teign Spirit on ‘Coastcards’ page. London: Animate Projects. View on Scribd
2011 Teign Spirit 360: Weymouth Documentation of the 360 version of the film projected inside the circular cinema on Weymouth beach during the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad Open Weekend in July 2011.
2009 “In Teign Spirit, Kayla Parker and Stuart Moore conduct a film ‘séance’, where modern day Teignmouth is haunted by joyous summers past, conjured up though archive footage.” (Animate Projects) The film Teign Spirit is downloadable from iTunes (16 October 2009)
2009 Coastcards: a response to the three films Gareth Gardener, Animate Projects (13 October 2009) [online] London: Animate Projects
2009 Teign Spirit Animate Projects [online] Selection of stills from the film. Available: http://www.animateprojects.org/films/by_date/2009/teign_spirit (5 October 2009) London: Animate Projects
Exhibition selected
2019
Jubilee Pool Stories, CAST, Helston, Cornwall; presented in collaboration with LUX, produced by Barbara Santi and Lou Brett of awen productions CIC and Jane Bailey, in partnership with Jubilee Pool Penzance Ltd (17 June 2019)
2018
At the Fair outdoor projection of a programme of 15 films, projected onto large prom wall where the old fairground ‘Fun City’ once stood, curated by Emma Macleod and Rosy Naylor; for Art Walk Porty Arts Festival, which centres on the 'Pleasure Ground' with a series of events, performance, film and participatory work that draw upon Portobello's seaside entertainment history, of the music hall, bandstand, pier, fairground and other lost spaces, whilst also reflecting on the way we use our public spaces now; Portobello Promenade, Edinburgh (1 to 9 September 2018)
2017
Force 8 presents an all-day artists’ film event, The Galley, Bridport, Dorset; featuring Bodies of Water, which also includes Sea Front (Saturday 14 January 2017, 11am to 5pm)
2016
Bodies of Water artists’ film programme at Force 8 The Methodist Chapel, West Bay, Bridport, Dorset. Sea Front also screened (20 August 2016)
CMIR: TWO - Focus on New Practice Research in the Moving Image exhibition, part of the Digital-Cultural Ecology and the Medium-Sized City conference, Arnolfini, Bristol. Maelstrom: The Return, Reach and Cinematic City also screened (1 April 2016)
2015
Bodies of Water programme presented by CineStar at the Cornwall Film Festival Murdoch House, Redruth. Sea Front also screened (14 November 2015)
Showcase, exhibition of works selected from the Paintings in Hospitals collection, Menier Gallery, Southwark, London (9 to 12 June 2015)
Bodies of Water presented by Land/Water and the Visual Arts and Moving Image Arts (MIA) Research; screening followed by a discussion led by Dr Nicholas Higgs, Postdoctoral Research Fellow to the Director of the Marine Institute; Plymouth University. Sea Front also screened (11 February 2015)
2014
Teign Spirit 360 presented in the ICCI360 Rotunda at Kultur+Kongress Forum, part of the 23rd International Panorama Conference, Altötting, Germany (11 to 13 September 2014). Watch RFO TV news item of the ICCI360 launch event.
Bodies of Water programme of artists’ moving image for The Power of the Sea exhibition, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, UK (3 May 2014)
2013
Presented as the short before the feature on the Ocean City Festival Screen by Plymouth Arts Centre, and Dartington Barn Cinema; free outdoor screenings during the evening at the Royal William Yard, Plymouth. Lighthouse also shown (19, 20 and 22 September 2013)
Time around Space 360 conference, Plymouth University; as Teign Spirit 360 (21 June 2013)
2012
Welcome to the Treasuredome artists’ moving image event presented by Stuart Moore and Kayla Parker, ICCI 360 Arena, Weymouth seafront (Animate Projects programme 10 and 11 August 2012). Also,Teign Spirit 360 is screening throughout the Olympics and Paralympics in the ICCI 360 Arena at Weymouth from July to September 2012. Part of Maritime Mix - London 2012 Cultural Olympiad by the Sea.
2011
Art in Large Doses, Paintings in Hospitals annual summer exhibition, Menier Gallery, London. Teign Spirit is one of four moving image artworks selected by Tate Youth Forum for the Paintings in Hospitals Children and Young People’s Collection, and is available for loan to all healthcare environments in the UK, including hospitals, GP surgeries, hospices and mental health facilities (27 July to 12 August 2011)
Rushes Soho Shorts Festival: Sunset Strip, Project, Teign Spirit and Brighton Road Movie: First Run screened in the Spiritus Sancti and Ghost Radio programme - a celebration of the analogue and the supernatural - presented by London Short Film Festival; followed by a preview screening of Sonus, the new short film from Arthertz and Ridley Scott Associates, and a performance of Ghost Radio by ArtHertz collaborator Spacedog accompanied by live light projections by Julian Hand; the Run Run Shaw Space, BAFTA, London (24 July 2011)
Teign Spirit 360 presented in ‘surround cinema’ at the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad Open Weekend in Weymouth. A digital re-master of the film for 5 projectors with double stereo audio, shown in the ICCI 360 Arena, a circular exhibition-performance environment housed inside a 21 metre diameter geodesic dome structure with a 69 x 6 metre screen: the circular multimedia cinema was at the south end of the beach next to donkey rides and the Sand Sculpture exhibition, Weymouth, UK (22 to 24 July 2011)
Plymouth Arts Centre’s Cinema City Mobile Cinema, at various locations around Plymouth from Monday to Friday; in the Sensing Place programme. Thanks to Anna Navas and Bryony Gillard (4 to 8 July 2011)
2010
Haifa International Film Festival Start Making Sense programme presented by Animate Projects for The British Council; The Ruth and Bruce Rappaport, Art and Culture Center 7, Mahanayim St, Haifa, Israel (23 to 30 September 2010)
public//domain a festival of digital art, music, interaction and screenings, Lower Gardens, Bournemouth, UK (16 to 18 July 2010)
Village Screen: Coast Cards programme, Screen Two - Film at Glastonbury Festival, UK (23 to 27 June 2010)
Spring Screen: artists’ film at Spacex, Exeter, UK (30 April 2010)
London Short Film Festival Leftfield and Luscious programme, Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London, UK (10 January 2010)
Big Screen, the piazza, city centre, Plymouth, UK (12 January to 12 February, and throughout March 2010)
2009
AnimateTV Animate Projects presents new films for 2009, Tate Modern Starr Auditorium, London, UK. Introduced by Stuart Comer, Tate Modern Film Curator (3 December 2009)
Aurora 2009: Common Ground Open Projector programme, Norwich Arts Centre, Norwich, UK (14 November 2009)
SeaScape an international conference exploring culture as a regenerative force for coastal communities, part of the Skegness International SEAS festival Skegness, UK (Premiere: 2 October 2009). The film is viewable online at Animate Projects (5 October 2009) and is downloadable from iTunes (16 October 2009)