Nature - linking to practice-based research

Back in 2012, the field of animation was struggling to define itself, to set itself apart from film studies a field in which film was analysed from a seated position outside the practice of making films. 

I was an artist-animator making animation, immersed in practice, immersed in studio spaces, digital worlds and the natural world. 

I just could not relate to animation theory at that time, for me animation was experienced from within the making process as I externalised internal worlds using animation tools and techniques. 

Further to that I was experimenting with different ways of interacting within these spaces using kinetic sculpture and projection mapping. 

The theme of my work became one of exploring the effects of fear and trauma in our relationship to worlds that were internally modelled and externally interacted with through the many ways our multi-sensory, yet also physiologically limited, senses navigated and found meaning in the world around me. 

The natural world, together with using natural materials, became a way to better understand what I had previously, and was continuing to experience, in my world but without being dominated, manipulated or controlled. Working with the natural elements felt fair, natural, respectful as I controlled what I could and accepted nature would freely move and interact with me in this space. It felt like a collaboration with nature. 

When I create Cyanotype images in nature it feels the same. Having spent the winter experimenting with a home-made uv lightbox constructed from an old record player I began to realise that my work needed to react to and work in synchronicity to nature, it’s materials, systems and forces. The work allows me to work through internalised feelings in response to my world in a way that was very different to my everyday experience of controlled environments against which I struggled to accept and adapt to, worlds, systems and forms not created for me. 

When I think about the main focus of my creative enquiry, that which investigates how to define a set of principles that would create safe experiences, environments and interactions for women, I wonder whether really thinking about if an approach would be to explore organic, nature-made and controlled, biomimetic forms in relation to designing for women’s safety and comfort would reveal something about our everyday interactions in the real world that includes domestic, corporate, institutional, urban, digital and virtual spaces that women navigate through and interact with, everyday… or would this be subconsciously romanticising nature (and the sublime) and aligning women with the notion of ‘mother nature’. 

All I know is that my experience in nature is a place of calm, peace and respectful interaction and I can’t really fully explain why. It’s a place that feels like home.

(This post links to my Interdisciplinary arts practice and research)