Impress, Imitate, Implode

Screen Printed Animation

Overshadowed by their reputation as a nefarious invasive species is a starling's ability to mimic sounds; from other avian vocalizations to human voices and car alarms. A starling's repertoire is directly tied to their environment, like a child they are impressionable. By combining imagery of myself as a child, billboard advertising, and starling murmuration's I will question the impact that capitalism and consumerism has had on my life, my outlook, and my habits as an artist.

Still images, regardless of composition and rendering, are not representational of the temporal moving human experience. The exploration of animation serves to incorporate movement and engage directly with time in my work. I consider the mimicry of film devices to be a starting point, but not the final evolution of my recent animated work.

Animation is a lengthy process which forces efficiencies both in technique and in narrative to reduce the effort required. In this instance, an animated loop was preferable to a longer animation with a definitive start and end. Not only does this allow for the work to feel larger and longer than it is, but it also speaks conceptually to that which is unending. I am subjecting the viewer to the very same repeated unrelenting pervasiveness of imagery, found in advertising and social media , on which I am commenting.

Printing in this instance allows for the animation to take a physical form. The speed at which the viewer experiences the images is up to their digression, which I feel in our context to be radical.

Brief Description of Method

Throughout the process this work has taken on many formats. The first of which can be considered the reference photo of myself as a child walking precariously along the side of the highway surrounded by billboards. From this and various sketches graphite drawings were made. First a looping or repeating tile landscape. Second ten frames of myself turning and watching the starlings pass overhead. And finally, 27 frames of starlings approaching and receding. These were all scanned and edited digitally. Cutting the landscape into 27 frames and placing the figure and the birds into the landscape. Now cohesive these frames were then redivided into three colour layers. First a colour flat, then dot structure key of the entire frame was printed, and finally a reduced dot structure of the same image. This allowed for multiple colours to be taken from a single colour original drawing without isolating elements within the drawing and reducing the cohesion of the work. The final conversion of the work was for the prints to be scanned and for the printed frames to become a digital animation.

O. Jarsky