Insecticide

a summer of dead insects became a macabre animated  procession.

work in progress using a lightbox, stop frame animation with a 16 mm bolex camera, and HD Video.

(on the march)(parade)(procession)(revolution)(insecticidesuicide)

The many insects that lived and died during a summer spent by a pond in the countryside. I collected the larger and more aesthetic dead bodies. (defeated by the housefly). I studied them and moved them around on the overhead projector as the light shone through their outrageously delicate forms. I drew them, and then while I animated them, first with hundreds of still images on digital video software, and then on a 16mm bolex camera, I started to characterise them as furious protestors or angry zombies. The Mayflies short lives – a day?, the dragonflies double life – underwater and above, they remind us of death and time. The soundscape I’m searching for now may contain the audio from The Storming of the Winter Palace, by Eisenstein. Or, the summery humming, not sure yet.