My animations are often about how I and others come to terms with and relate to new environments, and once the stage is set I can allow the character to explore it’s sense of place. On my recent residency aboard the Loch Ness Barge I decided to base the character on Star, the resident boat fox-dog, and using the boat itself as the stage-set, lit only by natural light and a head torch (amongst the only lighting available onboard after ‘lights-out’ when the generator was turned off), I started to play. The project began when I shut myself in the dieselly dark depths of the engine room. Whilst we drew, thought, played music, laughed, ate courgettes and conversed on the floor above, it kept doing it’s thing (details of which remain a mystery), reminding us of its existence only by the drone of the generator (in the key of A flat). The simultaneous exploration of the new, memory of the old, the obvious and the hidden, the attempts to understand the technical goings on, and the general sense of adventure aboard gave rise to this animation, named after a comment made one sunny Tuesday which made me laugh for hours. Fabiano made the soundtrack using an array of musical instruments, some cups, tables, sighs, and anything else that was lying around at the time (I think).
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