Stop motion animation, 2min 8 sec, 2021

Once connected to the system, it is easy to lose perception of the origin of the truth. Where do we come from? What is the future?

VIDEOWORDS is the fifth special project by Magmart. And it comes at a particular time, at the turn of the covid19 pandemic, which will undoubtedly mark a global cultural change – for better or for worse we still don’t know.
The pandemic, and in particular the lockdown measures variously adopted in many countries of the world, has in any case already had a significant impact on the methods of use of the visual arts: closed at home, people have seen the online artistic offer grow exponentially, in especially that of video art. Last but not least, always on the initiative of Magmart, the #videovirus marathon should be remembered.
There are therefore the preconditions for video art to try to hook an audience wider than that of the insiders.
With this new project, the focus is this time on words. Fifteen pairs of words, antinomical to each other, which represent as many aspects of life, emotions and human expectations. Thirty international artists, therefore, are called to interpret these words – what they represent – trying to weave a dialogue with the public.
As visually represented also in the project logo, the intention is to pierce the viewer’s eye so that he sees everything he usually doesn’t see – and perhaps he doesn’t want to see. Just like in the opening scene of the surrealist Un chien andalou, and with the same ambition.
The challenge, as always, is in the hands of the artists who take it up.
Read more at the project website.

Pomme/Jablko/Apple 2016

Stop motion animation

2min 7 sec

Music by Vincent Dubois

Statemet:
We see a process of aging as an enemy. We seek ways to alter the nature to stay young and beautiful. But we fail to see that beauty is in every stage.  We fail to see that beauty is in the cycle of life. An apple decomposes, which constitute the basis for its seed to regenerate a new life….

L’homme voit le vieillissement comme un enemi. Nous cherchons toujours des solutions pour alterer le naturel afin de rester jeune et beau. Mais en se concentrant sur cet objectif, nous oublions de voir la beaute de chaque age, et que la beaute est aussi dans le cycle du vieillissement. La pomme se decompose, ceci consitue l’element necessaire pour voir sa graine creer une nouvelle vie….

Screening:

2017 Homart,  Saint Didier de Formans, France

2016  Les Jeudis Soirs du film court, Chaponost, France

Creative Creatures, 2014
Stop Motion Animation
4 min 19 sec

Statement:
Creative Creatures is a stop motion animation which deals with the idea of creativity evoked by simple every day activity.
As a starting point a have chosen a coffee stain from my morning coffee and used it to feed my imagination to create a drawing. The stain allowed me to have every day new start as its shape, size and quantity was always different. However I made myself few rules that I will try to not correct my work by editing the final outcome and I will not work more than an hour and half each day.
Every day I have set new set using cup of coffee, piece of white paper, painting tools, two cameras and computer. One camera was taking the process of making with a set automatic loop, and the second camera I have used, was connected to the computer taking stills to create the final stop motion animation.
At first I was not strictly set on the theme of the animation and let my imagination and spontaneous work to take its cause, but somehow all my outcomes came to be of similar kind. I wonder if that was my unconsciousness trying to maintain work I started each day to create a continual story.
This work was an interesting experience for me. The more I was getting used to the process of making, which I set to myself, the easier was for me to control the media. Even a stain, which was at first difficult to manage, became a source of new ideas how to draw. For example, the wet element of the stain was difficult to draw in to. Let it dry, I would have to stop for too much long time, so I have used this obscurity to my advantage and just play with the element of wet to wet technique, which happened to be somehow beautiful way to add movement to a stillness of the stain.
Nevertheless I have learnt how much the mind is trying to control everything we see to make a familiar sense of it. No matter how much I wanted to work in a free manner, I could not help to take a pleasure to create something recognizable. So the implicated idea of a making a spontaneous drawing from a stain of coffee became a start to a well thought-out story.

Screenings:

The Live Drawing Project, Lyon

Homart,  Saint Didier de Formans, France

International Short Film Festival Sleepwalkers, Tallinn, Estonia

Facade Video Festival, Plovdiv, Bulgaria

34ème festival du film d’animation de Bourg-en-Bresse, France

Très Court International Film Festival, Paris France

MJC Chaponost, France

Sidney Cooper Gallery, Open Film, Canterbury, UK

Umpqua Valley Arts Association, The Creative Process, Oregon, USA