Original format: digital photographs,
8mm film (black and white), HD video (16.9)
Year of release: 2009
Running time: 2 minutes 50 seconds
Screening format: DVD
Credits: A film by Kayla Parker and Stuart Moore
Thanks to Henry Lindsay, Lindsay Design; Ian Blackwell, project manager Teign Heritage Project; Harrison Sutton Partnership; Teignmouth and Shaldon Museum, Teign Heritage; and The Jones Family
Production: Sundog Media
Commissioned by Animate Projects for Sea Change
Distribution and sales: Abigail Addison or Gary Thomas, Animate Projects info@animateprojects.org; and Sundog Media info@sundog.co.uk
Description
An animated ‘séance’, in which modern day Teignmouth, a seaside resort on the coast of south Devon, is haunted by joyous summers past, conjured up though archive footage. The Jones family holidayed in Teignmouth - then known as ‘The Children’s Paradise’ - from 1934 to 1939, just before the outbreak of World War II, their summer activities captured forever on black and white film. A lifetime later the town is still here: ships in the docks, bathers on the beach, people promenade... Teign Spirit celebrates this continuity, mixing these home movies with new waves: a twenty first century stroll along the Back Beach, evoking the optical entertainments of the Victorian pier: the flickering still-moving images of the mutascope, a figure seen for a moment, held in the mind, then gone. Silent memories, coloured and transformed by the present; shifting sands and elemental forces.
Sea Change is an initiative of CABE the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, and the government's advisor on architecture, urban design and public space.
Production notes
Teign Spirit matches the viewpoints and sea views of black and white holiday movies with those of the present day resort, captured in digital photography; using frame-by-frame compositing to mix high definition video and 8mm monochrome footage from the 1930s, matching viewpoints and sea views of the present day. The silent black and white footage has travelled in time - film, VHS, DVD - before landing in the digital present of stop-motion photography, video and location sound recordings.
Publication and comments
2011 Teign Spirit 360: Weymouth Documentation of the 360 version of the film projected inside the circular cinema on Weymouth beach during the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad Open Weekend in July.
2009 “In Teign Spirit, Kayla Parker and Stuart Moore conduct a film ‘séance’, where modern day Teignmouth is haunted by joyous summers past, conjured up though archive footage.” (Animate Projects) The film Teign Spirit is downloadable from iTunes (16 October 2009)
2009 Coastcards: a response to the three films Gareth Gardener, Animate Projects (13 October 2009) (online). London: Animate Projects
2009 Teign Spirit Animate Projects (online) Selection of stills from the film. Available: http://www.animateprojects.org/films/by_date/2009/teign_spirit (5 October 2009) London: Animate Projects
Exhibition selected
2011
Art in Large Doses, Paintings in Hospitals annual summer exhibition, Menier Gallery, London. Teign Spirit is one of four moving image artworks selected by Tate Youth Forum for the Paintings in Hospitals Children and Young People’s Collection, and is available for loan to all healthcare environments in the UK, including hospitals, GP surgeries, hospices and mental health facilities (27 July - 12 August 2011)
Rushes Soho Shorts Festival: Sunset Strip, Project, Teign Spirit and Brighton Road Movie: First Run screened in the Spiritus Sancti and Ghost Radio programme - a celebration of the analogue and the supernatural - presented by London Short Film Festival; followed by a preview screening of Sonus, the new short film from Arthertz and Ridley Scott Associates, and a performance of Ghost Radio by ArtHertz collaborator Spacedog accompanied by live light projections by Julian Hand; the Run Run Shaw Space, BAFTA, London (24 July 2011)
Teign Spirit 360 presented in the ICCI 360 Arena at the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad Open Weekend in Weymouth. A digital re-master of the film for 5 projectors with double stereo audio, shown in the ICCI 360 Arena, an innovative 360 degree immersive environment housed inside a 21 metre diameter geodesic dome structure with a 69 x 6 metre screen: the circular multimedia cinema was at the south end of the beach next to donkey rides and the Sand Sculpture exhibition, Weymouth, UK (22 - 24 July 2011)
Plymouth Arts Centre’s Cinema City Mobile Cinema, at various locations around Plymouth from Monday to Friday; in the Sensing Place programme. Thanks to Anna Navas and Bryony Gillard (4 - 8 July 2011)
2010
Haifa International Film Festival Start Making Sense programme presented by Animate Projects for The British Council; The Ruth & Bruce Rappaport, Art and Culture Center 7, Mahanayim St, Haifa, Israel (23 - 30 September 2010)
public//domain a festival of digital art, music, interaction and screenings, Lower Gardens, Bournemouth, UK (16 - 18 July 2010)
Village Screen: Coast Cards programme, Screen Two - Film at Glastonbury Festival, UK (23 - 27 June 2010)
Spring Screen: artists’ film at Spacex, Exeter, UK (30 April 2010)
London Short Film Festival Leftfield and Luscious programme, Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London, UK (10 January 2010)
Big Screen, the piazza, city centre, Plymouth, UK (12 January - 12 February, and throughout March 2010)
2009
AnimateTV Animate Projects presents new films for 2009, Tate Modern Starr Auditorium, London, UK. Introduced by Stuart Comer, Tate Modern Film Curator (3 December 2009)
Aurora 2009: Common Ground Open Projector programme, Norwich Arts Centre, Norwich, UK (14 November 2009)
SeaScape an international conference exploring culture as a regenerative force for coastal communities, part of the Skegness International SEAS festival Skegness, UK (Premiere: 2 October 2009). The film is viewable online at Animate Projects (5 October 2009) and is downloadable from iTunes (16 October 2009)