In Process

Surprise! We perform a switcheroo with Willow a.k.a. indexthumb landing in the hot seat this episode, as longtime collaborator Freddy Avis/Arswain takes the interviewing reins. In this one-off episode, Willow reveals their journey from narrative filmmaking to video installation and movement performance, following a pivotal MA degree in Artist Film and Moving Image at Goldsmiths University in 2024. 

Starting with their initial inspirations of slapstick comedy, Willow recounts their first encounters with the camera, all the way up to their contemporary fascination with perception, dance, and the ways in which images and bodies produce each other reciprocally. Touching on everything from perceptual processes to trans experience and the politics of art, this is a wide-ranging conversation guided masterfully by Freddy that will be particularly useful for filmmakers seeking to broaden their practice beyond the narrative tradition.

If you like In Process, please hit that follow button and consider sharing the podcast with a friend or two! If you’d like to support us, you can click on this link to become a subscriber from just $3/month.

Every contribution helps make this show better and spread the practices of emerging artists.

Artist Biography

indexthumb (British, London-based, they/them) is a visual artist working with moving image, performance and photography. Their multimedia video installations explore queer embodiment, invisibility, and the increasing tension between physical and virtual space. Centering their trans+ body as a phenomenological site of inquiry, they combine spontaneous composition with kinetic editing and visual effects to uncover the perceptual processes by which we constitute modern, frame-based selfhood.

IG Handles

Show: @inprocess__show
Willow: @indexthumb
Arswain: @arswain__

Texts & Links

indexthumb website

Salome Credit Excerpt

Ghosts of My Life by Mark Fisher

On Photography by Susan Sontag

The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction

01:52 Initial inspirations 

04:54 Willow's First Film

09:36 Preserving creative rawness 

15:09 Living in Berlin

17:45 Video installation: Commute

24:50 Transitions in gender and practice

27:40 Starting to dance

31:30 Misconceptions about dance

34:50 Decision to do an MA 

41:00 Masculinity and biography in Call on Me, Me, Me

46:11 Disorientation and climate narrative in Today I Saved the World

50:41 Pressure to incorporate politics

57:11 Solace in community

64:00 SMELTING

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Art curation is changing. Today, we are joined by Soft Shock, a new London-based curating collective, who share how emerging curators are approaching this traditionally elite practice of culture-gathering in more public, relational and sustainable ways. It's a fascinating glimpse behind the curtain of one of the most critical pivot points in the artist to gallery pipeline, as well as an inspiring conversation that challenges us to think critically about what it truly means to make work that is accessible and meaningful to a community audience.

If you're enjoying In Process, please hit that follow button and consider sharing the podcast with a friend or two! If you’d like to support us, you can click on this link to become a subscriber from just $3/month: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1483117/support

Every contribution helps make this show better and spread the practices of emerging artists.

Biography

Founded in 2024, soft shock is a London-based curatorial collective led by curators Júlia Polo and Georgie Worth. With a commitment to sustainable and socially-engaged practices, their curatorial ethos is shaped by interdisciplinary research in the fields of gender, health, care, and identity. Through collaborative projects, they aim to mediate active modes of participation and facilitate spaces for communal knowledge sharing, analogue processes and mindful encounters.

IG Handles

Soft Shock: @softshockcollective

Show: @inprocess__show

Willow: @indexthumb

Lawrence: @lawrencewilson3663

Freddy: @arswain__

Texts & Links

Soft Shock Website

Gasworks Sound Workshop

Arts Council Grants

Eek!

Timestamps

00:00 Intro
02:15 Origins and Curating with softness
05:18 What do curators do?
10:08 Artist-curator collaboration
13:08 Working with art spaces
17:37 Networking
22:43 Curators and audiences
31:23 Changes in personal relationship to art
35:42 Incorporating more-than-human perspectives
39:40 Animals as audiences
42:09 Funding and earning as a curator
48:20 Contemporary rural art
57:12 What’s next
01:01:35 Artist’s way

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We're off to tread the boards with actor Sanee Raval! In a sensitive and thought-provoking conversation, Sanee reflects on tuning the actor's sense of intuition to guide their practice, and heeding the creative call to pursue a career in acting. We touch on their new short film Kiln, and their experience of both directing and performing in their own production. Sanee provides valuable insight into the various pathways through which to approach a career as an actor, alongside some beautiful anecdotes chronicling the at-times mystical connection to the world that acting can foster.

If you enjoy In Process, please hit that follow button and consider sharing the podcast with a friend or two! If you’d like to support us, you can click on this link to become a subscriber from just $3/month: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1483117/support

Every contribution helps make this show better and spread the practices of emerging artists. We're here every month speaking with some of the most exciting new artists bubbling up.

Artist Biography

Sanee Raval is an actor, writer, and director. They have appeared in TV shows such as I May Destroy You and Cold Feet, as well as Plays, most prominantly the lead in Tennessee Williams’ Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore at Charing Cross Theatre. Sanee has also written for The Forge and Channel 4 and been optioned by various other production companies.

In addition to acting, Sanee is currently working on their first novel and preparing to release their directorial debut film, Kiln.

Sanee works with the unconscious as part of their creative process. The dream world and blood memory.

Social and IG Handles

Sanee IMDB: https://m.imdb.com/name/nm7459373/?ref_=nm_mv_close

Show: @inprocess__show

Willow: @indexthumb

Arswain: @arswain__

Lawrence: @lawrencewilson3663

Texts & Links

Truth by Susan Batson

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

On Directing Film by David Mamet

Schitt's Creek

Inside the Actor's Studio

Timestamps

00:00 Intro
03:46 What drew you to acting?
04:45 The value of an acting teacher
06:13 Career path into acting
06:47 Sanee’s first agent
08:35 How Sanee and Willow met
08:55 Thoughts on acting school
10:35 Self-education as an actor
12:22 Intuition in daily life
13:30 Daily practices
15:28 Earning income as an actor
17:27 ~Break~
17:53 Actor/director advice
21:23 Actor’s ‚Need‘
23:03 Playing villains and criminals
25:58 Sanee’s acting idols
27:18 Stage vs. screen acting
30:11 ~Break~
30:40 What’s next for Sanee
31:35 Previous writing career
34:33 Challenges of writing for shows
36:10 Regulating energy on set
38:22 Working in America
40:34 Social Media and personal silence
43:28 Childhood memories of film
44:20 Favourite acting memory
46:31 Secret craft
47:56 Outro 

Credits

Hosted by Willow Hamilton / indexthumb

Produced and Mastered by Lawrence Wilson

Main Theme by Arswain

Music Interludes by Lawrence Wilson

Logo by Willow Hamilton / indexthumb

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We kick Season 2 off with Emelie Victoria, a photographer and visual anthropologist investigating human and non-human relationships in Swedish forests. Emelie leads us through the ethical woods of working with different communities and introduces us to the term correspondence. Developed by anthropologist Tim Ingold from his work with the indigenous Sámi people, correspondence refers broadly to the idea of reciprocity and shared exchange within any sort of relationship: I give, you give, we change together. In the context of an art practice, this gives rise to intriguing possibilities such as conceiving of art as an act of gift-giving. Join us for a cozy and deeply-felt return to 2025 that will be of particular interest to any listeners considering an MFA, collaboration or artistic research.

If you like In Process, please hit that follow button and consider sharing the podcast with a friend or two! If you’d like to support us, you can click on this link to become a subscriber from just $3/month.

Every contribution helps make this show better and spread the practices of emerging artists.

Artist Biography

Emelie Victoria is a photographer, researcher and multimedia storyteller currently based in Sweden. She was born 1997 in Edeby, Värmland in Sweden, but now the regions around Klarälven, Zambezi and Thames all feel like some sort of home. They like learning, relating, doing and undoing through explorative exchange and ethnography. Climate justice, critical and queer ecology, (sub)cultures, regenerative methods, care and belonging are some themes she likes to write and work around. They have worked in-house with content, campaigns and reporting for Amnesty International Sweden and United Nations Development Programme Zimbabwe. Having achieved an MA in Visual Anthropology from Goldsmiths University, London, she is now approaching film and photography as a means to do research about their surroundings and tell stories with depth, contradiction and nuance.

IG Handles

Show: @inprocess__show
Emelie: @emelievictoria
Timimie Marak: @timimiemarak
Willow: @indexthumb
Arswain: @arswain__

Texts & Links

A Trilogy of New Indigenous Writing (2020), various authors
Correspondence as Care (2024), Emelie Isaksen
Emelie’s Website
Ressemblage (1982),Trin T. Minh-ha
Correspondences (2020), Tim Ingold
Vem Är Du Som Bor Här? (2020), Fani Sjödahl & Alva Jeppsson
Braiding Sweetgrass (2013), Robin Kimmerer

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Episode 5: Writing & Producing Music. Today we speak with the other mind behind In Process: Freddy Avis, a sharp, futuristic musician for the 21st Century. Based in Highland Park, Los Angeles, Freddy got his start working under acclaimed composer James S. Levine (Glee, American Horror Story, Bloodline, Nip Tuck, The Last Ship) for two years at Hans Zimmer’s Remote Control Productions in Santa Monica, CA. Since then Freddy holds music credits on hit shows including Major Crimes, Instinct, Star, & Chambers, as well as countless placements on Tiger King, Shark Tank, Dateline, & The Dr. Oz Show. He’s also contributed synth & percussion work on James Newton Howard’s scores for Walt Disney features Jungle Cruise and Raya and the Last Dragon. But even more enticing is Freddy's electronic alter ego, Arswain, under which he composes dark, inspiring, and profoundly eco-conscious music for our time. 2020 has seen the release of his debut album, Partitioning, as well as several music videos for the project.

Freddy holds a pair of Bachelor's degrees in Music and Political Science from Stanford University. During his Stanford tenure, Freddy pitched for Stanford's baseball team and was drafted by the Washington Nationals in the 25th round of the 2012 Major League Baseball Draft.

Instagram:  @arswain__
Websites: freddyavismusic.com, arswainofficial.com
Soundcloud

Videos:
Pleasure (music video)

In Process Instagram: @inprocess__show

Recorded in Berlin/L.A. on 10.13.20

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Episode 4: The Writing Life. Welcome to a very cozy episode of In Process, as we settle down with Patty Kim Hamilton, and venture into the uncertain limbos -- as wells as the heavens -- of poetry and playwriting. A playwright, director-dramaturg, pisces and performance-maker, Patty is currently completing her masters in Playwriting at the University of the Arts, Berlin. She received her Bachelors with Honors from Stanford University, where she was the recipient of the Sherifa Omade Edoga Prize for Work Addressing Social Issues. She has worked at Playwrights Horizons, Crowded Fire, HAU, the English Theater Berlin, Ars Nova and with Gob Squad.

As Playwright-in-Residence in 2019 at the Shakespeare Academy at Stratford, CT, she developed her play ‘Peeling Oranges’. Her play ‘ICH HÄTTE GERN ZU MEINER LEBZEIT KEIN KRIEG (I don't wanna experience war)’ will premiere at Stadttheater Bremerhaven, June 2021 (delayed due to COVID). Her play 'when it hurts // this body is just a house' was a semi-finalist for the 2020 Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference and was selected for Cimientos 2021 Play Development Program. Her play ‘Sex Play’ will have a staged reading in October 2020 at the HfMT in Hamburg. Her work exists at the intersection of the intimate and the political - meditating on bodies, family, language and the taboo. Through her writing, she attempts to facilitate communal healing, honest/transformative reflection and joy.

Website: pattykimhamilton.com
Instagram: @grumpy.love

Videos:
The Crane Wives (performance excerpt)

In Process Instagram: @inprocess__show

Recorded in Berlin on 08.07.20

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Episode 2: Digital Dances. Start touching those toes, because we are in the dance studio today with Carly Lave, an American choreographer and dancer based in Berlin. Her work seeks to question the self and personal subjectivity through movement, specifically in a female body, pulling on aesthetics of contemporary ballet. She holds a BA in American Studies and Dance from Stanford University where she trained with Alex Ketley, Robert Moses, Bobbi Jene Smith, Diane Frank and Muriel Maffre among others. She was a 2018-2019 US Fulbright Fellow to Germany (in residency with Tanzfabrik Berlin) developing dance with motion-capture technology and Virtual Reality. Her work furthers the human engagement with technology, pushing the boundary of what dance can reveal about the human condition in the 21st century.

Currently she is developing an international dance workshop series titled Golem-Labor with the Goethe Institute which works with motion capture technology and movement. Her work has been commissioned by the Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin, shown at Uferstudios and Tanzfabrik Berlin; she has also given lectures on art+tech at the Republica Digital Technology conference, and Stanford University, Cottbus Technical University, Lüneberg University, and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. She previously worked in San Francisco, California, where her work appeared in theatres including ODC San Francisco, the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, and the Joe Goode Annex.

Website: carlylave.com
Instagram: @carlylave__

Videos:
Golem Making-Of
Golem Special Edition

In Process Instagram: @inprocess__show

Recorded in Berlin on 07.27.20

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Episode 3: Engineering The Sonic Zone. We're off to the ears today with Anna Tskhovrebov, an experimental musician among other things such as audio engineer at Ableton, live visuals programmer, and avid bird-listener. Anna graduated from Stanford in 2018 with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, and an M.A. in Music, Science, and Technology. She moved continents to Berlin, to work alongside Robert Henke on designing the graphics for his retro-futuristic audiovisual show, CBM 8032 AV, before settling in to program instruments and effects at music software company Ableton. Anna also composes her own music under the name viewfinder, sampling unexpected and haunting sounds from our everyday environments, and putting them in conversation with each other in funky, IDM-inspired soundscapes.

viewfinder Soundcloud
CBM 8032 AV

Videos:
CBM 8032 AV Doc (FACT Magazine)

In Process Instagram: @inprocess__show

Recorded in Berlin on 08.02.20

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Episode 1: Independent Filmmaking. Welcome to In Process! A series of intimate, long-form conversations with emerging Stanford artists. For our inaugural episode, we meet Diante Singley, who was raised in Los Angeles and graduated from Stanford University in 2014. Already a young veteran of the L.A. media scene, he has worked variously as an assistant cameraman, a production designer and most recently as the personal assistant for directors Eli Roth and Michael Dougherty.

As a filmmaker, Singley has written and directed a variety of documentary shorts and short films that have tackled race, sexuality, economic status and identity. He has won numerous awards including Best New Filmmaker at the San Francisco Black Film Festival, as well as an audience award for his short Downpour Summer at the HollyShorts film festival. He is currently a directing fellow for Film Independent’s PROJECT INVOLVE program.

Website: www.diantesingley.com
Instagram: @diantesingley @downpoursummerfilms

Videos:
Remote Capture (short film)
Downpour Summer (short film)

In Process Instagram: @inprocess__show

Recorded in Berlin/L.A. on 08.06.2020

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