Experiments with drawing images at speed
I started working with film and drawing during my residency at Fabrica Gallery, they asked me to do an evening workshop event during Dominique De Beir's "La Route Blanche" exhibition in 2007.
I used Bill Morrison's film "Decasia" an amazing collection of film footage using archival film that he had edited together to make a new sequence of moving images. It was appropriate because we projected it onto Dominique's installation of white cardboard boxes that she had pierced and punctured with her special stabbing tools, creating a decayed and pitted surface.
Since then I have used many different types of film usually chosen to fit with installations at Fabrica, often in consultation with the project managers. For Anish Kapoor's "Blood Relations" 2009 I showed Sergei Parajanov's "The Colour of Pomegranates" and for John Grade's "Elephant Bed" Steve Sekely's 1962 film "The Day of the Triffids" and Jack Arnold's 1954 film "The creature from the Black Lagoon" which we went to great trouble to find in 3d the way I fondly remember seeing it the first time many years ago.
The interesting thing about drawing to a film is that it is fast, the film is ongoing you have to trawl. When something unexpectedly catches your attention you go with it and enter the drawing, then you return to the film and continue to trawl, drawing as you go, collecting bits and pieces looking looking, then the next big thing catches you.
The main characteristic is that you just have to keep going with it, you have no control over stopping and starting the film you are living on your wits trying to capture small pieces. It's an injection of energy just reacting to the images and putting something of them down, not to copy faithfully - that's impossible at this speed but to grab images that your imagination can fill out. Finding starting points, sparking off points, that's the best way I have found for using the film drawing for my own work.
It's like a game, you see shapes or an expression on a face or the mannerism of a character and you draw what your mind perceived based on a fleeting moment. You divulge power to your sub conscious in some way, when it works well you trust your hand to work with your brain.
When you look at the drawings afterwards you have a record of what you noticed predominantly about the visuals in the film. I was amazed drawing from the original film of "The Day of The Triffids" at how many times certain shapes were often present in the background set, the amount of dark squares on the walls for instance, as if the director was only satisfied with a shot if the characters had a square to balance them out, switches, pictures, windows it's very strong in that film and I would never have consciously noticed unless I'd been drawing openly and responsively.
You notice the director's style, time passing, atmosphere, environment as well as character and movement. It's a great way to watch a film.
I usually do this with groups of people. For those who don't usually draw it removes inhibitions, the darkness and the speed prevents fear of drawing, it's much more about looking and noting down. For artists it's a way to forget the usual themes and start to gather new material, seemingly randomly, although I've noticed form the varied results of the drawing that each individual sees and is drawn to different visual elements in the same film.
I'm working with Michael Maydon (Orphanfilms) again soon who is a collector of interesting home movies and projectors. He has a vast archive of films from the 20's up to the 70's and a fairly substantial collection of 16mm and 8 mm projectors on which to show them. We try things out together, he chooses the films and his partner Lisa and I watch them with a plethora of paper, glue and drawing implements (and dinner) around his kitchen table while talking about different ways to work with screens, films and drawing.
We are just about to work together with Marina Tsartsara a contemporary dancer, in a workshop "Smudging & Scratching & Dancing in Coils" which will again change the focus of the film drawing and add a new dimension.