No Cel Animation: programme notes
London Filmmakers’ Co-op
42 Gloucester Avenue Camden London NW1 8JD
October 1995
no cel animation
No Cel Animation is an exciting series of screenings and
discussions concerned with the type of animation that
challenges. No Cel includes exhibitions and an animation
course, as well as an open screening for new work. The
screenings include many important, rarely seen films, as
well as very recent innovative work, including some
premieres.
the image of animation:
Animation is a medium encompassing a whole spectrum of
techniques and approaches. With the emergence of studio and
production houses dedicated to the proliferation of the
‘cartoon’, there has been a monopolisation of the public
image of animation as light entertainment using ‘clever’
techniques. Originally the term ‘cartoon’ was used during
the Italian Renaissance, and referred to the final drawing
made by the artist for transferring an image from charcoal
to fresco.It represented the summation of the artist’s
sketchy and ‘experimental’ designs into a single image, the
bridge between idea and execution. In this sense, the term
‘cartoon’ relates to this season’s presentation of
animation as a focal point for exploring ideas both behind
and beyond the image. The attempt here is to debunk
animation’s ‘cartoon‘ stereotype and to position animation
within a progressive context of experimental ideas and
practice.
no cel:
‘Without borders’, ‘frame by frame’, ‘generated from
inanimate material’, ‘an art of condensation and metaphor’
- so animation is variously defined. From these definitions
it would seem that the medium permits as much
experimentation as could be imagined, yet most animation
remains narrative cartoon on cel. The films selected for
this programme reflect exploration with a huge diversity of
materials, filming styles and rhythms, and non-linear,
non-narrative concerns not typically associated with
animated film. Many have been made autonomously and
uncompromisingly on a low budget.
feminine excess
This programme explores the notion of an
excessive or monstrous femininity. Most of these films
tackle questions and contradictions of corporeal gender
difference, the ways in which those differences have
informed women’s self image, and how men have constructed
the dominant view of women according to difference. Women’s
bodies, because of their ability to give birth and to
nurture, have typically been confined to those roles.
Through pregnancy, childbirth and menstruation, women’s
bodies have been associated with the grotesque - distended,
leaking vessels that in their formlessness and lack of
containment/boundaries are a threat to identity and social
order. The grotesque is also characteristic of animated
film - the medium lending itself to comic, surreal and
fantastic representations.
It is through animation that many women filmmakers have
felt comfortable in expressing the taboos and desires that
have otherwise been either effaced by the dominant male
view, or assigned to the horror genre as the ‘monstrous’.
What is most interesting about the mythological figure of
woman as the source of all life is that within patriarchal
signifying practices, particularly the horror film, she is
reconstructed as a negative figure, one associated with the
generative other seen only as abyss, the all incorporating
black hole which threatens to reabsorb what it once
birthed.
Barbara Creed, The Monstrous Feminine (1994)
The following expressions of womanhood yield various
positions on femininity. Some subvert and/or transgress
negative female stereotypes. Some maintain the essentialist
view that has inspired fear in men, associating women with
nature and biology, coding femininity with corporeality.
The films combine many different visual techniques: 2D, 3D,
pixillation, live action, direct film.
menstruation and mystification
These films explore the female body - its cycles, its
hollow spaces, its mystery. They re-examine essentialist
notions of women’s bodies as enslaved by nature, and play
with the myth of the unreliable, grotesque,
boundary-exceeding female form.
Body fluids attest to the permeability of the body, its
necessary dependence on an outside... they are engulfing,
difficult to be rid of; any separation from them is not a
matter of certainty, as it may be in the case of solids.
Elizabeth Grosz, Volatile Bodies (1994)
i cat (Jayne Parker, UK, 1980, 10
mins) Through poetry and raw pencil drawing, Jayne
Parker describes violent oppositional states between
beasts, depicting an extreme devouring sexuality,
penetration, dismemberment and castration. With a
disturbing soundtrack of bestial grunts and groans, the
(female) body hole heaves and spews blood and guts.
cage of flame (Kayla Parker, UK, 1992,
10 mins) Cage of Flame expresses an
ambivalence towards the experience of menstruation. The
bleeding woman is alternately imprisoned by her
cycles/nature. Her squatting position emphasises the lack
of direction or ‘object’ for her flow.
mid air (Vera Neubauer, UK, 1989, 15
mins) The ‘curse’ is reversed when a bored housewife
decides to put her broomstick to better use. Through
assembling several visual modes, Mid Air treats
myth, motherhood, marriage and menstruation. The film
humorously draws attention to processes of representation
and the animator’s magic that impart movement to objects.
Patriarchy soils itself.
peyote queen (Storm de Hirsch, US,
1965, 8 mins) An intoxicating kaleidoscopic journey
through bright gems and saturated scratches of different
states of consciousness.
i con (Vanda Carter, UK, 1993, 3
mins) Fluid line in continual metamorphosis explores a
forgotten female essence.
the cat and the woman (Jayne Parker,
UK, 1987, 2.5 mins) ‘A woman loses her head to a cat
in return for a man. A cautionary tale.’ - JP. A woman
gambles with her ‘lack; and ends up with less.
Programme by Tim Cole and Vicky Smith