THIRTEEN

Matilda is thirteen. She floats, suspended between two distinct worlds; childhood and adulthood. Her self-perception is emerging. She has become aware of the mark she makes on the world, just as the world makes marks on her.

Thirteen reflects this altered state, she is materiality; flesh and blood, yet she is affected by the virtual nature of the world, non-tangible impressions, memories and interpretations she cannot grasp, yet are capable of profound harm. They can cut, tear, hurt and shape her. Life experiences can leave us isolated and disorientated, what language can we use to describe this distortion? Thirteen explores a duality. The fragility of body and spirit represented by paper, and Matilda’s ethereal words illustrated, with abstract imagery.

This dichotomy is reflected by the paradoxical nature of film and photography, the material world entangled within a virtual animated realm. Her portrait, as a photograph sits still, muted, and centre stage, her voice is heard, yet her persona, represented by paper, is manipulated by unseen hands. Like a paper doll, she has little control over her environment.

This collage animation is constructed with blended singular images, creating the illusion of motion. Out of the material emerges the virtual, “continuity out of discontinuity.” (Gunning 2014:49)

The process was inspired by artist and animator, William Kentridge, who’s work exists in a space between the material and virtual, actively engaging with ambiguity, “Let me show you what I know of the world” (Kentridge 2017:74). Inspired by his ethos, I believe we are stronger when we listen without judgement.

Jan Švankmajer’s subversive and surreal film work alludes to the secret life of inanimate things. He breathes life into childlike ephemera, he reminds us that childhood, can be a dark place, one which adults are all to keen to veneer with a sugary coating of nostalgia. The recontextulising of the objects, images, and narration serve to remind us that what we see and hear is not always a shared reality, our perception is often tainted and even distorted by our own experiences.

Through my work with young people I have been made profoundly aware of a void in our knowledge as adults, pertaining to the experience of childhood. Their world is jarring and difficult to navigate, they are often unwilling passengers. We are the potential role models and architects of their future. We need to learn to listen, quietly, without interruption and let go of assumption.

To relate is to understand, to understand is to empathise.

REFERENCES

KENTRIDGE, William. 2017. William Kentridge. 1st ed. Edited by Rosalind E. Krauss. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

GUNNING, Tom. 2014. ‘Animating the Instant: The Secret Symmetry between Animation and Photography’ BECKMAN, Karen Redrobe (ed.). Animating Film Theory. s.l: Duke University Press.