Through each guest speaker, Mario and Stuarts talks were the ones that engaged me and made me evaluate my own practice in ways I had not considered before. I know that I need to take a step out of the comfort zone I have created for myself and listening to how experimental both artists are provides me with the inspiration to do so.
Mario Radhev – Juggling
Mario’s talk on multi-tasking and time management stood out to me since it opened up a world of information on the creative process. I had not properly considered before how an artist juggles multiple projects and how that is even done in a organised manner. It also showed me how having personal projects on as well as commission work is essential for your own development. His discussion on working in a big team with different pipelines was useful since I can easily research and learn about the process but actually hearing from someone who has been a part of this and worked in that environment was eye-opening. It made think that there is a lot that I am never going to learn until I am in the workplace as part of these experiences. When he was discussing his work, the surreal nature to it and the non human stylised figures were captivating. Having these figures which were not human but had human elements provided an unsettling more dark essence. To us this mixture of familiarity of form but also having elements far removed from what we know about movement was enticing. A point Mario made about exploring different processes, essentially considering how would your work exist if it was a music album, an avant-garde play etc. This made me consider my own processes and how having a style which you can translate between mediums is part of stepping into the professional world. The level of exploration Mario did within his practice was inspirational since I feel like my work has become very limited in style and I have put it in a box. I need to branch out and embrace a conceptual side in order to develop otherwise my work is going to become too much of the same, I feel like this is something that I have become stuck in recently which has affected my drive to work. This constant manner of staying on your feet and always finding different ways to showcase your work provided Mario with so many interesting opportunities and allowed him to work closely with artists from other mediums. Additionally exploring removes you from the animator’s seat and gives you this freedom to be able to enrich every side of your practice and knowledge of your field. Since money should not just be the main focus of your work, practice and experience form such an important part.
Stuart Hilton
It was extremely interesting finding out about Stuart and his work. It was inspiring how much of a role music played in his work and how important it was to him as a source of inspiration. The playful approach towards his use of line provides this simple basis of understanding of movement and how something can move across the page. This is something I need to consider, playing with line since it will inform my animation style and allow me to figure out how to make the most of the full page. This could also develop my desire to explore perspective in the sense of things being at different distances within a composition. Stuart has paid a lot of time considering how we actually receive a visual stimulus, such as when we are observing movement across a landscape our eyes track movement which is the way you eyes wobble when looking out of a window from a moving vehicle. We automatically focus on certain points, this is something important to consider when animating since I need to consider how the piece would look to a viewer and not to my eyes only. It is part of the practice, capturing and engaging a viewer in the story you are telling and adding perspective to my work will aid this visual interest. The way that he went about finding things to work with brought up so much new potential for this experimentation since this object brings a sense of narrative in itself. Some of those most impactful workshops I have done have been with Stuart on the first year Loops-Destroy project where we had to choose three random objects and create an animated piece connecting these three separate frames. Working in this manner opens up so much potential for development and is inspiring when something works out.