Vicky Smith

Vicky Smith

略歴

Vicky Smith's (UK) work in experimental animation explores the vulnerable and vital body. Her work has screened internationally in galleries and festivals including, in 2021: A Picture of Health at Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol; Raw Vision in Splash, Scratch, Dunk! Films Made by Hand at London Barbican; and Bodies and Boundaries, Cinenova UK. She runs workshops in experimental film practice and has curated many film screenings, including recently Go, Go, Go! Women in Experimental Animation (2019). Publications include: Hand Drawn and Non-Natural Colour in Films by Barbara Hammer and Sandra Lahire in Animation Studies Online (2021); Experimental & Expanded Animation: Current Perspectives and Practices, co-edited with Nicky Hamlyn (2018), and in Animation Practice, Production & Process, Issue 7 (2019).

プロフィール写真

Vicky Smith

参加作品

re:exposure
Director
The film is a reflection on exposure, of skin to sun and of film to light and the environmental, ecological, social and hereditary factors that impact the aging process. Textures of the skin filmed in extreme close up appear in single or short frame bursts and, accompanied by percussive sounds, create a fast paced rhythmic journey around the surface of the body. This film is then seen at a later stage, as a filmstrip manually reexamined on a light box, alongside spoken analysis of the exposure times. Then, old photos of my mother, and her mother, on the beach, are seen in close-up. The DIY analogue film processing method gives this material a burnt brown look while the inclusion of “mistakes,” such as fogged and scratched sections, emphasize the sense of exposure and damage to skin and to film material.
Not (a) Part
Director
Conceived in relation to both the rapid decline of flying insects and the high recurrence of animation, Not (a) part is handmade or contact film that works with the subject and/or material of flying insects. Numerous dead bees found on walks were positioned directly onto negative film and contact printed. Occupying approximately 24 frames they run at a rate of one bee per second. The length of the film is determined by how many specimens are found over a specified period of time.
Small Things Moving in Unison
Director
Perforations made directly into 16mm black leader attempt what Sitney describes in relation to Breer’s 70 as ‘five-frame holds’, whereby methods used to control the movement of onscreen forms have the effect of retarding motion. Small Things confronts the purely plastic problems that persist in the manually made film, of registering marks in the same place over a series of frames. At the same time it does not discourage the interpretation of these forms as a gathering, not so much of particles, but rather of a swarm or a murmuration.
Primal
Director
Primal is an abstract animation made directly onto unprocessed fogged negative by rubbing and scraping the film and releasing its light. The sounds are made by rustling materials against the microphone.
Noisy Licking Dribbling + Spitting
Director
Made with the mouth alone, 'Noisy Licking Dribbling + Spitting' is a direct animation that takes the idea of licking as a primary and semi-automatic action. Using the stained tongue as a tool and stamping pad, the first impression is made 40 frames (1 foot) into the film and then reduced by one frame with each new stamp, accelerating until the marks overlap. Mechanistic control is then rejected in favour of spitting and dribbling as random action, painterly like splats and dense swirling tangles roll along the filmstrip and spill into the audio track, generating noisy rasps and skidding sounds.
Rash
Animation
Skin and flesh erupt as memories penetrate and distort the surface and the film emulsion is also ripped open.
Rash
Director
Skin and flesh erupt as memories penetrate and distort the surface and the film emulsion is also ripped open.
My Moon, Her World
Director
An exploration of intimacy and the material environment of the home, using paint, drawing and stop- motion. Bodies in contact, heavy and earthbound, distort, become more animated then spin and fly off into the cosmos.
The Pecking Order
Director
An innovative animation touching on a series of interlinked concerns around issues of intensive farming, animal slaughter, famine, the Food Mountains of the West and devastation of the rain forests. The reality of violence is represented by live action black and white shots of two knives being sharpened for the slaughter. Different sound effects relate to the collage of diverse animated images chaotically linked together to signify global distress.