wendyleah

wendyleah's sketchbook

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A 3D stop-motion animation by Tim Pugh and Wendy Leah Dawson will be projected onto Conwy Castle during the blinc Digital Arts Festival on 22nd October 2011, with post production by Minimal Media and audio by Ed Wright. While the rest of the UK was experiencing unseasonably hot weather for September, I was sitting in my middle room under studio lighting moving little shells, cogs, watches and wheels for several stop-motion animations with Tim Pugh from morning ‘til night. It was incredibly hot, a bit cramped, and I think we both went a little bit loopy for a couple of weeks, not least because we were both new to stop-motion and not really sure how it would all turn out.  The objects we chose for the animation are very familiar to me, my dad is a clockmaker so the house is full of intriguing bits and bobs, the inner workings of clocks, dials, hands, watch parts, and a clock dial made by Conwy’s most recent horologist. Alongside these items are natural objects reflecting the locality of Conwy - mussel shells, small snail shells collected at Conwy morfa, local pebbles, and a little bee. We are interested in the human obsession with time, the way we seek to control it by measuring the seconds and mapping out our days, and the fleeting nature of time.  These animations are inspired by a specific event in the castle’s history, when in 1401 the castle was besieged by Owain Glyndwr’s supporters and the town subsequently burnt to the ground. The time that has passed since that moment is vast and minute, so much has changed in this locality, but certain constants remain - the flow of the river, the turn of the tides and the rising and setting of the sun. ‘Time’ is pretty much finished now, Minimal Media have taken our thousands and thousands of images and worked some 3D magic, and Ed Wright has recorded some of the ticky tickers in my house and created a haunting soundtrack. Now we just need to get the animation to the technical people in London who will feed it into a machine that spits out light.  You can see some of the animations before the green-screen magic and post production here, imagine them 50 feet tall going off like fireworks on the front of Conwy Castle, then you know what we are hoping to achieve…

A 3D stop-motion animation by Tim Pugh and Wendy Leah Dawson will be projected onto Conwy Castle during the blinc Digital Arts Festival on 22nd October 2011, with post production by Minimal Media and audio by Ed Wright.

While the rest of the UK was experiencing unseasonably hot weather for September, I was sitting in my middle room under studio lighting moving little shells, cogs, watches and wheels for several stop-motion animations with Tim Pugh from morning ‘til night. It was incredibly hot, a bit cramped, and I think we both went a little bit loopy for a couple of weeks, not least because we were both new to stop-motion and not really sure how it would all turn out. 

The objects we chose for the animation are very familiar to me, my dad is a clockmaker so the house is full of intriguing bits and bobs, the inner workings of clocks, dials, hands, watch parts, and a clock dial made by Conwy’s most recent horologist. Alongside these items are natural objects reflecting the locality of Conwy - mussel shells, small snail shells collected at Conwy morfa, local pebbles, and a little bee. We are interested in the human obsession with time, the way we seek to control it by measuring the seconds and mapping out our days, and the fleeting nature of time. 

These animations are inspired by a specific event in the castle’s history, when in 1401 the castle was besieged by Owain Glyndwr’s supporters and the town subsequently burnt to the ground. The time that has passed since that moment is vast and minute, so much has changed in this locality, but certain constants remain - the flow of the river, the turn of the tides and the rising and setting of the sun.

‘Time’ is pretty much finished now, Minimal Media have taken our thousands and thousands of images and worked some 3D magic, and Ed Wright has recorded some of the ticky tickers in my house and created a haunting soundtrack. Now we just need to get the animation to the technical people in London who will feed it into a machine that spits out light. 

You can see some of the animations before the green-screen magic and post production here, imagine them 50 feet tall going off like fireworks on the front of Conwy Castle, then you know what we are hoping to achieve…

Filed under wendy leah dawson tim pugh blinc digital arts festival conwy feast time conwy clock bee owain glyndwr conwy castle stop-motion animation 3D projection minimal media ed wright

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blinc Digital Arts Festival, Conwy. 22nd October 2011.

Tim Pugh and Wendy Leah Dawson are currently collaborating on a body of work exploring the concept of time, both working in different fields, their mutual interests are encouraging new shared practices. Using a wide range of mixed media, both artists are experimenting with new processes and ways of working that they may not have considered individually.

The work:

The artwork will document evolving small scale studio based interventions using a wide variety of timepieces that reflect our ongoing study into the concepts and consequences of passing time. Our artistic response will consist of visual scenarios and metaphors attempting to encapsulate the passing of time through  observed tracking, rhythmic pulses, measurements, and objects pertaining to the concept time. Objects and images moving across the surface of the castle will be animated in a lo-fi manner, taking inspiration from a specific point in the town’s past when the castle was taken by Owain Glyndwr’s supporters and burnt to the ground. The viewer will be invited to consider the wider history and context of this location, as well as their own perception of time.

   

 

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‘Birds’ Wedding Ring. Silver, stainless steel, aluminium and recycled bearing. Wendy Leah Dawson 2011. 

This Saturday this conceptual piece of jewellery will be worn in an actual wedding by an actual bride! It is made in two parts, the outer part consists of a frame with a bearing, set with 16 birds circling the hand on steel wires which spins and moves around the hand. Within this ring is a more practical silver band with abstract bird shapes etched on the surface that can be worn every day.

Filed under jewellery wendy leah dawson ring silver aluminium steel kinetic birds