entitled Daydream by Louis Tamlyn and Samson Lazima Jali.
I have now established communications with my team-mate Louis and have begun a conversation by asking the following questions:
Can you tell me what your artwork is about? (is there a story behind it? What was your inspiration or motivation? etc)
Both works were a very spontaneous response to what the Mask Prize was asking for. To be honest, not much thought was given into the real meaning of it all. Both works are quite chaotic in their composition and represent dream scenes that are open to interpretation and the spectator has to imagine who is dreaming this dream (a man, a woman, a child?)
How was it put together? (What materials were used, what techniques did you employ to assemble it?)
All the figurines in the work were made of clay and other bits and bobs were taken from what the Kitengela Studio (where we were based) had to offer.
Can you describe any specific details about what's going on in the picture? For example, I can see a window showing the night sky, land and sea. Is it a figure of someone in the foreground? (made up of the newspapers and statues etc)
The ‘forest and red sun’ work is completely detached from reality which strange faces inviting the dreamer into the vegetation.
The ‘blue tinted’ work is based on the same idea of being detached from reality but hints of reality can still be found with the waves of newspaper in the foreground, representing the overwhelming mass media of our century that we try and block out of our dreams.
The figure in the foreground is the one dreaming, surrounded by his dream. A white dove is sitting on top as a symbol of reassurance an peace.
And finally; What is it that you would like to see in this animation? For example, How should this animation feel? Do you have any ideas of how you'd like things to move or animate?
(Initially, all my thoughts have been about how to begin the animation. So maybe things could start to 'wake up' or somehow 'un-stick' from the canvas.)
If I had to imagine this as an animation, I would see it as something quite slow, with dreamlike effects, magical ones, of things morphing into each creating new faces or landscapes. I definitely agree on the things waking up maybe as the figure in the foreground goes to sleep. In the forest one, there is no figure dreaming but the sun can maybe go down to give way to the moon to start the dream.
As a side note, the second work that he refers to is this:
I wont be animating this piece, but as you can see, it is based on similar ideas and techniques.
Very insightful answers, and I have to say I'm particularly happy about the answer to my last question because it's not far from my own thoughts on what the animation could be like.
OK, I know this has been a wordy post so I would like to finish it by showing something else I have been experimenting with during my absence on the blog:
Just to clarify, this is only a test piece. It was done before we had any conversations about the animation. A follow up post will explain the techniques being used to create this effect. Feel free to leave a comment!
Ethan Shilling
WOW!!! It was worth the wait Ethan - and Louis - so exciting to get this new dimension on that extraordinary piece of work! Very excited to see this - well done both!
ReplyDelete