Vicky Smith
2021Noisy Licking Dribbling + Spitting
Vicky Smith
Made with the mouth alone, 'Noisy Licking Dribbling + Spitting' is a direct animation that takes the idea of licking as a primary and semi-automatic action. Using the stained tongue as a tool and stamping pad, the first impression is made 40 frames (1 foot) into the film and then reduced by one frame with each new stamp, accelerating until the marks overlap. Mechanistic control is then rejected in favour of spitting and dribbling as random action, painterly like splats and dense swirling tangles roll along the filmstrip and spill into the audio track, generating noisy rasps and skidding sounds.
Noisy Licking Dribbling + Spitting
re:exposure
Vicky Smith
The film is a reflection on exposure, of skin to sun and of film to light and the environmental, ecological, social and hereditary factors that impact the aging process. Textures of the skin filmed in extreme close up appear in single or short frame bursts and, accompanied by percussive sounds, create a fast paced rhythmic journey around the surface of the body. This film is then seen at a later stage, as a filmstrip manually reexamined on a light box, alongside spoken analysis of the exposure times. Then, old photos of my mother, and her mother, on the beach, are seen in close-up. The DIY analogue film processing method gives this material a burnt brown look while the inclusion of “mistakes,” such as fogged and scratched sections, emphasize the sense of exposure and damage to skin and to film material.
re:exposure
Not (a) Part
Vicky Smith
Conceived in relation to both the rapid decline of flying insects and the high recurrence of animation, Not (a) part is handmade or contact film that works with the subject and/or material of flying insects. Numerous dead bees found on walks were positioned directly onto negative film and contact printed. Occupying approximately 24 frames they run at a rate of one bee per second. The length of the film is determined by how many specimens are found over a specified period of time.
Not (a) Part
Small Things Moving in Unison
Vicky Smith
Perforations made directly into 16mm black leader attempt what Sitney describes in relation to Breer’s 70 as ‘five-frame holds’, whereby methods used to control the movement of onscreen forms have the effect of retarding motion. Small Things confronts the purely plastic problems that persist in the manually made film, of registering marks in the same place over a series of frames. At the same time it does not discourage the interpretation of these forms as a gathering, not so much of particles, but rather of a swarm or a murmuration.
Small Things Moving in Unison
The Pecking Order
Vicky Smith
An innovative animation touching on a series of interlinked concerns around issues of intensive farming, animal slaughter, famine, the Food Mountains of the West and devastation of the rain forests. The reality of violence is represented by live action black and white shots of two knives being sharpened for the slaughter. Different sound effects relate to the collage of diverse animated images chaotically linked together to signify global distress.
The Pecking Order
