4. A Persistent Vision Lesley Keen DOWSER Issue 4 (Spring 2021) Edit, typeset, design: Marcus Jack

Frontispiece: Lesley Keen, Invocation, 1984.

Back Cover: Lesley Keen, Burrellesque, 1990. DOWSER

All images courtesy of Lesley Keen. © Total Immersion Ltd.

Published by Transit Arts in , . www.transitarts.co.uk

Printed in an edition of 200.

Typeset in Optima.

ISSN 2634-7083 (Print) ISSN 2634-7091 (Online)

© 2021 Transit Arts and its contributors. All rights reserved.

DOWSER is a series of newly commissioned essays, interview transcripts and archival materials which makes available, for the first time, a collated set of resources from which we might begin to plot a history of artists’ moving image in Scotland. Conceived as the necessary groundwork for a critically underreported field, this series hopes to share fragments, positions and testimonies that articulate the development of a now ubiquitous artform with a vivid and unique history in Scotland. It wasn’t until 1982 with the much-belated filmmakers in Scotland found routes to launch of the Scottish Film Production Fund accommodate brazenly independent practices that Scotland could finally claim to offer its first that don’t necessarily cooperate with existing public film subsidy free from the contingencies narratives and categories. The remarkable work of sponsorship endured in previous generations. of experimental animator Lesley Keen and her Until then, the country’s film infrastructure had production company Persistent Vision (1982– been outpaced by its southern counterpart by 1999) is one such lesson in disruption. From her the measure of decades, a disparity felt even studio in Glasgow, Keen navigated the field of more acutely amongst those on the experimental broadcast television in the early days of Channel end of the spectrum. Even this new provision 4 to produce a body of work steeped in histories was slow to make waves, however, and the of visual culture, mythology, spirituality and the feeling of a gap, ambiguous in size, has echoed unconscious mind. through time. Characterised by the flow of luminous lines Operating outside of the London-based which cut across black picture planes, independent filmmaking community, its funding simultaneously flat and infinite, Keen’s pipeline and support organisations, though highly individual style intersected with the often interfacing with the same aesthetic and philosophical and material concerns of the political agendas, filmmakers in Scotland were organised avant-garde, animation set and forced into negotiating their own version of a Scottish independent sector, never quite at sustainable avant-garde practice—the spoils home in any. Over five films, culminating in of which have also been too readily forgotten the remarkable feature Ra: The Path of the Sun within histories of the British experimental film. God (1990), she articulated an uncompromising belief in the liberatory potential of animation Through hostile cultural policy and lacking to visualise that which was otherwise infrastructure, a handful of resourceful inconceivable for artists prior to the digital turn.

6 7 This issue comprises the edited transcript of an interview I conducted with Keen in January 2020 in which she reflects candidly on her journey through a sometimes-inhospitable terrain. It also includes an excerpted essay by Keen on the techniques and theories employed in her analogue work, originally published in 1983 within a companion volume to the animation Taking a Line for a Walk (1983). The issue is generously illustrated with a selection of production artwork, film stills and photography all from Keen’s personal archive. I hope that in profiling her kaleidoscopic persistence of vision in this way, we might begin to expand existent accounts of experimental filmmaking practice in the UK, considering for and by whom these were formed in order to identify what else is missing.

Marcus Jack, Editor Lesley Keen, Ra: The Path of the Sun God, 1990.

8 Preparatory diagram for the opening sequence of Invocation, 1984, instructing on the choreographed movement of a field of dots over forty-eight frames. Interview Lesley Keen They’d started this thing called the Associate of The Glasgow School of Art, which you may or may not have heard of. I’m one of the few people who didn’t convert it to a BA. You had to do two subjects, so I did Graphic Design and Silversmithing but then within about a term I realised that I’d actually prefer to do something dynamic. I managed to persuade the head of department that it would be a good idea just to let me go off and do animation. The trouble was that nobody was teaching it, so I had to teach myself which wasn’t particularly easy; I hadn’t much to refer to. I didn’t know anything at all about animation really by the time I’d graduated in 1975.

I got a British Council scholarship to Prague to go on an animation course but as soon as I arrived there they told me “actually, sorry we don’t do that anymore.” So, I’m sitting there thinking that I’d just given up a job at the BBC, albeit a summer one, what am I going to do now? I knew someone in the short film studios Lesley Keen (r) preparing for the installation of so I just asked: “look, I’ve got a grant, can I Ra: The Path of the Sun God as an exhibition at Tramway, Glasgow (29 August – 6 September 1990). just come and sit around the studios and learn something?” They said “you’re not going to learn

15 very much,” because the way that it worked (SAC) and later the Scottish then was that you’d train as an in-betweener for Film Production Fund. The SAC didn’t recognise seven years, then you might be another seven film as an art form at that point, let alone years as a lead animator. There was a seven-year animation. The only way you could get a grant cycle for everything, twenty-one years before was if you made a film about another artist. I’d you could direct anything. After auditioning, had an interest in Paul Klee going back to my I was given some in-betweening, so there are primary school days so I thought, right, taking a Czech films out there that I’ve worked on. They line for a walk because Klee has all these very said “you’re not going to learn anything doing advanced theories about movement and that’ll this, why don’t you go and make your own film be a good starting point. I got an SAC grant to do and we’ll give you a mentor to help you work a storyboard, just about the same sort of time as your way through it.” I’ve no idea why they Channel 4 was starting. did that but that’s what happened, so I made a little graduation film there calledOndra and The founding CEO of Channel 4, Jeremy Isaacs the Snow Dragon (1978). That film still exists, a came up to Glasgow on an evangelising tour copy of it is sitting in the the National Library of and said “right you guys, you need to get your Scotland’s . They hold all act together because we’re going to apply a the negatives and positives of all my films. positive Scottish bias and you can do some of your own projects now. Dig out whatever I came back to Scotland in 1979 and worked you’ve got in your bottom drawer and send it as a freelancer in the local independent film in.” Channel 4 started in 1982, so this must have and TV pool for a while but there wasn’t a lot been the tail end of 1980 into 1981. of call for graphics and animation. So, I started looking around for ways to fund my own work. Although I had made the storyboard for Taking The only place at that point where you could get a Line for a Walk (1983), I hadn’t managed to any money for anything vaguely like this was the take it to the next stage. In the meantime I’d had

16 17 funding to do another storyboard for Orpheus to become visible. I went back to the SAC and and Eurydice (1984). That went on be shown in asked “if you can fund this, I can get the rest competition at the Cannes film festival. It was from Channel 4.” To which they replied “that’s the Orpheus storyboard that I sent to Channel 4. what everybody says.” I told them I could At that point, they were just six people or so in actually do it, they said “OK then, prove it.” It a small attic office opposite Harrods. These were was one of those circular things. all the commissioning editors who went on to build Channel 4, people Jeremy thought were a The trouble was that this film was only going nice little team to help him do it. One of them to be only 11 minutes—what they used to call went on to be my mentor in all of this, a woman interstitial programming—you couldn’t really called Naomi Sargant. Her background was in show it as a standalone work. When Naomi education, so her remit was actually more to do came up to Edinburgh at festival time in 1981 with educational programming, so I was never we met to try and work out how we would part of the animation department, I was always actually make a programme out of it. I suggested off to one side of the mainstream. I’d sent the we could show Taking a Line for a Walk, then we Orpheus storyboard in with a tape of my Czech could have this documentary about how I made film not knowing anything at all about Naomi’s it, and after that we can show Taking a Line for background; turned out she had a Czech a Walk again. So, you could see it, think what stepfather! Later on, she used to tell me that if it the hell was that, find out how we made it, then had arrived any later then she wouldn’t have had watch it again: that’ll be an hour, prime time, time to even stick the cassette in the machine. eight o’clock in the evening. She called me in and we started talking, at first I remember my old boss at the BBC coming to Orpheus about but for some reason we parked me after it was broadcast in 1983 and asking Taking a Line for a Walk that and moved over to what I did to make it happen. Nothing. I just instead. By this point Channel 4 was starting got very enthusiastic about what I was doing

18 19 in a room with a person who could make it happen and there’s nothing more complicated to it than that. That’s probably why we ended up making Taking a Line for a Walk before Orpheus. Mike Alexander of Pelicula Films made the documentary, Bert Eeles was the editor. I was already working on Taking a Line for a Walk before Channel 4 went live. It’s quite funny, they were showing all this promotional stuff, what was coming on Channel 4—people with castanets and all sorts of strange stuff—whilst I’m sitting there thinking I’m going to be on Channel 4!

Because I’d had a good working relationship with that particular commissioning editor, she went on to commission Orpheus too. We used the same approach: making an accompanying documentary—that’s Orpheus Through The Ages (1985) also directed by Mike—using the same programming format again. That documentary went on to win its own Scottish Television and Radio Industries Club award in 1985.

Promotional brochure for Orpheus and Eurydice, 1984, distributed by Channel 4.

20 I just didn’t have any occasion to come in contact with the London scene, except later at animation festivals. When you start making films as demanding as mine, you don’t have time to be out and about in circulation. I did occasionally encounter the Aardman lot who were getting commissions from Channel 4 at the same time as me. They were still very much work-for-hire guys at the time. I remember when we were doing the budget for Ra: The Path of the Sun God (1990) we were looking to compare notes on the animation rates per minute on Channel 4 projects. I recall a whisky-drinking session at the film festival in Lucca. I don’t think they knew their own names the next day, but I did find out how much they were getting per minute, which was more than the rate per minute for TV animation tends to be these days.

There just wasn’t a home for my kind of work, and in fact that was the problem. The Lesley Keen, Ra: The Path of the Sun God, 1990. main problem was that the art establishment didn’t regard animation as an art form and the animation fraternity looked at what I did and thought what’s that? It’s not cartoons. I kept on saying it’s an animated film not a cartoon.

23 The idea was that you could use animation to couldn’t really sustain themselves very easily, create something that couldn’t be made in any especially up here, before the rise of the super- other way. You could explore concepts that indies who aggregated smaller companies, could only be visualised in that medium in the though not so much in the animation sector. days before digital image processing became Scotland has tall poppy syndrome, that’s the accessible. thing that I would have to say. You’re not allowed to stick out from the crowd: who do Because of the visual arts environment of the you think you are, going out there and jumping time, I couldn’t have said “I’m a video artist” around? You have to go away somewhere else, because that didn’t exist. You had to find a get famous, then come back. way of doing something inside the existing structures. Channel 4 had a very open mind at the beginning because they wanted to do something different and they encouraged people who didn’t know how to produce, really. We all started off with our first contract was like twelve pages long probably, but by the time we’d started doing Ra, contracts had become like War and Peace. Effectively, when Jeremy Isaacs left in 1987, the original Channel 4 era was over. It was a golden period where there was money to experiment with things and nobody knew to tell you not to do it because the people who were commissioning us knew even less about it than we did. You got into this situation where Lesley Keen, edited transcript of an interview conducted there were lots and lots of tiny companies who with Marcus Jack, 31 January 2020.

24 25 Documentation of the install of Ra: The Path of the Sun God as an exhibition at Tramway, Glasgow (29 August – 6 September 1990), featuring a display of artwork from the film, large illustrated wall hangings, a bespoke portico structure and thirteen tonnes of sand. The techniques of animated filmmaking and their potential (1983) Lesley Keen An animated film presents only an illusion of movement. Due to a function of the human eye and brain, known as persistence of vision, enabling an image exposed to the retina to be retained for a fraction of a second, a sequence of related separate still images projected in quick enough succession will appear to blend into each other and be perceived as a continuous moving image. Film is projected at 24 frames per second, meaning that for every second 24 frames must be shot.

Although purists maintain that 24 separate drawings should be made for every second in an animated film, in practice it is usually only 12, since each drawing may be shot twice without any consequent impairment of the illusion of movement. This practice is known as double- framing. Single-framing (24 frames per second, each of them shot once) is normally only used when the animation is very fast, since for fast movement the subsequent drawings are spaced further apart and there is therefore greater risk of persistence of vision breaking down and the Preparatory title card sketch and notes for Taking a Line for a Walk, 1983. illusion of movement being lost.

31 Apart from these basic types of movement and their combinations, a more prosaic shift in position or size completes the range. In the language of the animated film, movement can be described under three headings: Mere movement itself, however, conveys very cycle, metamorphosis and growth. A cycle little. The art of animation lies in the ability is a recurrent movement which returns to its to time the movement which is where the beginning in a regular rhythm. The basic cycle technique of varying the speed or holding the is the so-called ‘walk-cycle’, in which a set of movement still momentarily is applied, in order drawings of a character walking may be recycled to give the sequence pace and dynamism. ad infinitum over a moving background. It is Timing is one of the most crucial principles in used frequently as a time-saving device in many all of the performing arts. It is fundamental to films, although it should be in fact applied theatre, dance, music, mime. It is an essential sparingly, since it becomes rather obvious ingredient of certain forms of humour. The after a short time. There are very few cycles essence of timing is bound up in the concept of incorporated into Taking a Line for a Walk, since the interval. Absolute, variable but immutable their presence would have contradicted the intervals between incidents in time and/or space fundamental principle of constant flux within create an internal tension within the structure the forms. of a piece. The lengths of the intervals are determined by the duration, size and quality The other two interrelated types of movement, of the events. In the visual arts the element of metamorphosis and growth, have been time is converted into the dimensions of spatial used much more consistently in the film. relations within the picture plane. Metamorphosis is a process of transformation of one form into another, and growth is a releasing of the potential within an individual form.

32 33 Artwork and notes for ‘Tree Grove’ sequence, ‘Tree Grove’ sequence, Taking a Line for a Walk, 1983. Taking a Line for a Walk, 1983. Animation cannot be created without access limited, although film-makers are constantly to considerable financial resources and this trying out new approaches. The classic and most need for financial support frequently forces popular technique, cel animation, is not without the author/animator to accept compromises. disadvantages. Apart from being fairly expensive, Some animators choose to make a living doing cel is a very tricky medium to work with, commercial work, making their own films in requiring delicate handling to avoid damage and any spare time they can find. This situation has careful storage to cut down the quantities of dust a two-fold effect. Firstly, it is very difficult to it naturally attracts. shake off the commercial animation attitudes, the shorthand and the clichés as well as the Just as with book illustration, consideration literal approach, which does not see movement must be given to the technical constraints of as form in itself, but as a means to a commercial the medium of reproduction. Although modern end. In commercial animation, the act of colour film stock is highly sensitive and fairly drawing is seen as a process for the production faithful in its reproduction of colour, there are of an end result rather than as a knowledge- some areas in which it is quite incapable of seeking process. Secondly, films made under capturing the subtleties of the original, namely such circumstances are generally very personal very light tones on light backgrounds and dark and frequently use private symbols, meaningful tones on dark backgrounds. Unlike painting, only to the author, who is working in isolation film is still a very ephemeral medium, prone within a non-recognised form. Self-indulgence to mechanical damage through projection and may creep in quite inadvertently. mishandling.

In terms of materials, there are also restrictions to the possibilities for artistic expression. First and foremost, the range of techniques that can be successfully used in animation is fairly

36 37 Taking a Line for a Walk: Theories at work

The collection of Klee’s writings most influential in the making of Taking a Line for a Walk is The Thinking Eye. In this book are found all the ideas on form and creation which were used to structure the content of the film.

Klee’s writings are punctuated with ideas concerning movement. For instance, Klee understood even the colour changes across the spectrum as a form of movement. This is why within the structure of the film, in addition to the basic directional movement of the line, another dynamic dimension has been added through the use of colour. Klee was constantly searching to ‘make visible’ ideas which remain hidden from ordinary view. It is the combination of the ‘The house of the opera buff’ sequence, mathematical precision of his composition with Taking a Line for a Walk, 1983. the ability to range freely in the semi-mystical region of subconscious imagery that gives his work both a feeling of credibility and a sense of pure magic. To recreate such an atmosphere in

38 the realm of the animated film meant to become not to render a simplified image explicit, much deeply immersed in Klee’s thoughts. It would more action had to be included in the film than not be enough merely to imitate the superficial can be consciously grasped and assimilated at manifestations of his search for form. one viewing. This also served to preserve the moment of surprise and a certain amount of The fundamental problem was to condense ambiguity of meaning. and reduce all the theories into concepts which could be applied to animation. A definite Unpredictably, the juxtaposition of a series of simplification was necessary to make it possible images animated according to Klee’s theories for the images to be handled. Very complex gave rise to the strong atmosphere of relentless images do not lend themselves to animation, creation and destruction, present in the film. since their sheer weight renders them static. Thus, the dimension of time applied to Klee’s Attempts at animating strong graphic images work released an aspect of it not noticeable in frequently produce a hybrid, rigid form of his drawings and paintings. Klee’s work lies at moving illustration. Simplification had to go the still eye of a storm of energy and when the hand in hand with adaptation, to avoid crudity movement, implicit in his work, is released, the creeping in. force of the universe he created exploded in every direction, but with enough critical mass Great care was taken to preserve the integrity to be constantly drawn back to the centre of its of Paul Klee’s work. To do this, it was necessary creation to generate new forms. to define what separates a work of art from a commercial product. By definition, commercial ‘art’ is explicit, perceived on a conscious level, whereas fine art is implicit, presupposing the subconscious participation of the individual Extracts first published in Lesley Keen,Taking A Line for a Walk: A Homage to the Work of Paul Klee (London: to complete the meaning of the work. In order Channel Four Television Limited, 1983).

40 41 Lesley Keen is an experimental animator based in Glasgow. She studied graphic design at The Glasgow School of Art and trained at the Brothers-in-Tricks studios at Barrandov, Prague. Keen’s personal work has explored many aspects of non- narrative filmmaking, frequently using mythology as subject matter. Animation provides a means to an end in her films, giving an image to concepts that could not be otherwise visualised. She first worked with 2D computer animation in 1975 and has acted as an expert user on the development of animation systems at both Cambridge and Glasgow universities. From 1982 until 1999, Persistent Vision was home to Keen’s author films. In 2000 she founded Total Immersion, bringing together her experiments in technology and artistic expression. Total Immersion holds the rights to all of her animated works and provides a platform for a range of collaborations in creative and software-based projects.

Persistent Vision (1982–1999) filmography Taking a Line for a Walk, 1983, 35mm, 11 minutes. Orpheus and Eurydice, 1984, 35mm, 6 minutes. Invocation, 1984, 16mm, 4 minutes. Burrellesque, 1990, 35mm, 7 minutes. ‘Linetrap 1’ sequence, Taking a Line for a Walk, 1983. RA: The Path of the Sun God, 1990, 35mm, 72 minutes.

43 DOWSER #4 has been made possible through the support of the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities (SGSAH) Engagement Funding. Utmost thanks go to Lesley Keen who, more than providing the focus for this issue, has indulged every request in opening up her personal archive, speaking so candidly and rethinking this important body of work.

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