Singing Light 2

Julie Watkins, University of Greenwich

In a dark spacious room a projector throws colourful animations onto the black walls and translucent screens. Shapes playfully animate. An acousmetre’s voice wells up. According to Michel Chion an acousmetre is an: 

[A]cousmatic character whose relationship to the screen involves a specific kind of ambiguity and oscillation… We may define it as neither inside nor outside the image. It is not inside, because the image of the voice’s source – the body, the mouth – is not included. Nor is it outside, since it is not clearly positioned offscreen.

(Chion, et al, 1994, 129)

Walk into a space that treats the entire space as a painter’s canvas, like Hans Richter’s movie-canvas but with depth in real space.

Three frames showing the progression of the movie-canvas down and out of screen, revealing a small black rectangle.

The voice and the animation go beyond the frame; background changes with foreground, negative shapes change to positive shapes and evanescent illusions are created. Walk into the film, find your own path around the screens and see the animations from all sides. Create your own shadows. Come and be immersed in your own way. 

Biography

Julie Watkins is a senior lecturer in Film and Television at the University of Greenwich. She worked as lead creative in prestigious Post-Production facilities in Soho and Manhattan. She designed concepts, led Technical Direction, Animation, Motion Graphic and Visual Effects Teams, for Commercials, Broadcast Graphics and Films. She taught at New York University. She joined the University of Greenwich in 2006, initiated a Film and Television degree and partnership with the BBC. She has MA (distinction) in Graphic Design from University of the Arts London. Supporting her visual music practice she has presented papers and shown work at DRHA 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 and Sound / Image 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, Seeing Sound 2018, EVA 2018, published papers in Body Space & Technology Journal in 2016, 2017 and 2018 and is now completing a PhD.

https://www.gre.ac.uk/people/rep/fach/julie-watkins