Wallinger
For my final piece, I decided to remake Mark Wallinger's 1995 film, "Angel", as an animation, replacing the escalator from the original film with an escalating ladder, which was my object for this project.
This was inspired by how Wallinger was influenced by other's artwork when creating his own.
He famously made a negative print of George Stubb's Whistlejacket and added a horn to it's head, creating his piece, Ghost. It's this method of recreating someone else's work in his own way that inspired me to do this project.
The original film is always played in reverse - Wallinger recited a passage from the Book of John 
backwards (the same as a tape playing speech in reverse) and walked backwards on a downward-bound escalator (after standing still and being brought down to just in front of a fixed-position camera), therefore staying in the same position. When the tape is then played backwards, it's as if he's moving forwards, and the speech he's reciting comes out normally. To achieve this movement in my animation, instead of trying to animate a realistic walk-cycle, I tried to create a more jagged, stiff and unnatural-looking movement, like the film. At the end of the film, Wallinger is carried upwards by the escalator, into the distance (the Angel tube station contains one of Europe's longest escalators). Unfortunately, I was unable to capture the scope of this in my animation, although I did manage to start the ascending sequence at the end of my film.
backwards (the same as a tape playing speech in reverse) and walked backwards on a downward-bound escalator (after standing still and being brought down to just in front of a fixed-position camera), therefore staying in the same position. When the tape is then played backwards, it's as if he's moving forwards, and the speech he's reciting comes out normally. To achieve this movement in my animation, instead of trying to animate a realistic walk-cycle, I tried to create a more jagged, stiff and unnatural-looking movement, like the film. At the end of the film, Wallinger is carried upwards by the escalator, into the distance (the Angel tube station contains one of Europe's longest escalators). Unfortunately, I was unable to capture the scope of this in my animation, although I did manage to start the ascending sequence at the end of my film.One of the most important elements in the original film are the members of the public shown on the parallel escalators. Because of how the film was shot and played, it appears that they are all moving backwards, whilst Wallinger is moving forwards. Although this was important in the original, it wasn't very relevant to my piece. I believe that I achieved what I set out to do in turning the least important element in Wallinger's film, the escalator, into the most important in mine, the ladder. Also, I believe I was successful in capturing Wallinger's "Blind Man" character, which has been in several of his films. I also believe that I have managed to create a piece, in the same way that Wallinger managed to take another artist's work, and recreate, or manipulate it into his own.
Sources:
(Exhibition Catalogues)
posted by Alex @ 1:10 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home