This dispatch is a collection of notes and half-formed thoughts from the past half-year or so, up to about May. A lot more to say, so a follow-up will arrive relatively quickly (for me) next month.

In March, a group of us were in Barcelona for the second in-person workshop of the Baltic Analog Lab film school. It was at Crater Lab, a small independent film studio with traditional photochemical film equipment in the L'Hospitalet area, where we were being taught how to work with a contact printer by Yago Alcover...

Being completely immersed in printmaking from childhood has meant that my work has this process at its heart; even when I’m working on animations, in the way I think about colour, but also more structurally as an image comprising layers on a surface.

---

I just finished delivering a workshop for the Sustainable Darkroom that was kind of along the lines of this letter, called Cinematic Surfaces: Film as Printmaking, an online 3-parter going through different ways you can approach the 16m film strip as a surface, using contact printing, chemigrams, direct animation, handmade processes basically. It sold out in a couple of days, so I didn’t manage to send something to you in time, but I should be doing another one sometime next year I hope, so I’ll definitely keep you posted on that.

I’m very happy to say that my Animate Projects-commissioned film On Hannah Fields has been selected to screen at this year’s Braziers International Film Festival, Aug 29-31st in Oxfordshire. It’s a festival I’ve wanted to be part of for many years, so it’s great to be there at last. Looking forward to joining other filmmakers in the barn screenings and accompanying discussions.

Process Festival will be back in 2027. You can still view the programmes for this year’s film screenings and expanded performances for tips on what to look out for elsewhere. It was easily one of (if not the) best experimental film festivals I’ve attended.

Read more about Crater Lab and Baltic Analog Lab on the Filmlabs.org resource.

Nik Arthur's post on responding to the land is here: https://nikarthur.substack.com/p/characters-of-the-creek

OSCILLATING: Some thoughts on waveforms; linking the sounds caused by melting snow, Sun Ra, and a community garden with an ancient ridge and furrow growing area.

The accompanying Substack post contains contextual images and animations.

On Hannah Fields was completed in August and released online. You can watch it here: https://vimeo.com/1003533440

It will have an in-person screening next alongside works by other artists including Karel Doing at The Metabolising Analogue at Vasulka Kitchen Brno, Czech Republic, on 16th Feb.

I hope to be a bit more active on the newsletter in 2025. I’m currently part of Baltic Analog Lab’s Film School, developing the photochemical & expanded animation dimension of my practice. I’ll be reporting my findings, alongside other studio notes, here over the coming year.

Quite a few of you have come to me recently via the incomparable Edge of Frame (big thanks to Edwin for the support). Those of you who don’t know, Edge of Frame is a blog and occasional screening event that champions experimental animation, and has been for over a decade an indispensable community-building resource. Edwin Rostron, who runs it, has revitalised it as a Substack as of this year - essential for anyone interested in the field. (Sign up for news of screening events in London very soon!)

My good friend and longtime collaborator DrumTalk has just released the beat tape Cloud Machine Vol. 1, which I was very happy to provide the artwork for. A producer’s tribute to the hiphop tradition of album interludes, it’s a very satisfying thing and the music is killer as always. You can buy it here; proceeds will go to Medical Aid for Palestinians.

The 2nd studio journal dispatch from artist-animator Lewis Heriz. A series of thoughts linked to animation and the 'art life' (to borrow Lynch's term) sparked by learning a foundational pottery technique.

References in the episode:

zoetropes, John Edmark's 3D-printed phyllotactic spirals, Marie Paccou's umbrellotropes, multiple animated picturedisc vinyl records throughout the last century, and a nice example of pots with stencilled glazes.

Evelyn Lambart & Norman McLaren's Begone Dull Care, glorious soundtrack from Oscar Peterson Trio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0r2COvWPO4Y

Potter Hsinchuen Lin demostrates the ‘chattering’ of a turning tool when finishing a pot.

Mike Dodd, Potter

Artist Esmond Bingham

Ceramics tutor Robert Banker teaching his students how to centre pots on the wheel.

Sincere thanks for subscribing to this, and for your patience. Til the next one,

Lewis

A couple of news bits:

Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence on Hulu and Disney+. The New Yorker review. Animator friends Magda Kreps, Becky James and Mafer López.

Out of Hand - Fringe Arts Bath Festival, 27th May - 11th June: no link yet, just a heads up!

Irina Rubina’s What’s Love Got To Do With It at ITFS - Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film

Until a second ago I was looking at a blank page, thinking about this idea of a New Year, and how 2022 for me could be characterised as being an(other) attempt at a ‘fresh start’. Nothing is a blank page, of course...

This is the first dispatch of Analogues, a monthly audiovisual newsletter about animation and being human, from artist Lewis Heriz.