MOVING BETWEEN THE LINES (AHRC & PLaCE)

Moving between the lines publication, 2011

Respondant: A somatic translation, in other words
(page 93)

the memory of moths

the memory of moths is a stop-motion dance film created to exist inside a box. The box is suspended on a shelf or as a tower-like structure. Both the ladder and the box are burnt, charcoaled and a residue of this blackness is transferred onto the audiences fingers  as they climb. The audience must climb the ladder and press their face close to peer inside the peep-hole to witness the moth within, flame residue leaving a smudge, a kiss on the cheek. The film was originally motivated by the Quay Brothers use of animation; animating inanimate objects to create life-like movement and characters I wanted to use stop-motion to disrupt and interrupt human movement (appropriated choreographic phrases from Bausch's Cafe Muller) to instigate another perspective where the human becomes animal, insect like and almost verging on the mechanical.

Bristol Contemporary Open, Paintworks Gallery (2008) 

Mamu Gallery, Budapest (2008) 

Creative Art & Design Dept, University West of England (2009)

Filmmaker and dancer -  Mel Shearsmith. 

Filmed at the Arnolfini, Bristol.

silk making in Budapest: 14.11.ő8

a written response...

re-inventing the making of the memory of moths for Mamu Gallery, Budapest (2008)

A fruit box 
2ö thimbles
white thread
small slithers of paper
box and knots of thread hang close to the base of the fruit box, the nutshell for the projector and DVD player
small dark light illuminates the white wall, within it a moth moves and shakes and rattles
a nail and a thimble mark the point where the celestial light is absent
from there on the thimbles mark the points to climb the white wall, up and across 
over onto the brick red wall and still ascending, leading up towards the 
light (low)
labels buddy thimbles.


The labels are repetitions
words repeating and climbing to a crescendo
a scream
to the top of somewhere nowhere anywhere
something to me
climbing words mark the arc of the light
a heavenly light this zenith
marking the brick to the ticking of the wings flicking fast and furious towards the ground
earth bound in thread
pinned but not yet dead.

Read - 
the measurement of the altitude or azimuth of a heavenly body for navigational purposes.
a passage of navigation
to navigate the measurement of a celestial body
the measurement of the attitude of the of the heavenly body
the measurement of the altitude of the heavenly body
the measurement of a heavenly body 
the measurement 
the body heaven
the heavenly
the body...
such altitude to navigate a passage to you.

Response to Locator, Ty Canol Woods (2008)

13 of us gathered for the woods and walking to be bound the indoors and  

our bodies and the witness, the bones and our breath.

The trees are waiting for me…

I came for the trees
I find you
You bright coloured standings, watchings
Following views of the man in his underwear marking
A highway or by the way
So very clean he leans too
so nearly
suspension unlined
the moment before
the impulse,
you are his animation, his almost
and we his gestation, all hesitation
we await a hidden purpose
a thing to discover, uncover unravel
we devour
a man strung and hung,
drip dripping,
from the hip to open lips a stillness witness
in around and of the corner of the ear
a large layer of naked skin jumps
we hear he throws his arms in the sky and turns tail (a brush for a blush)
his cheeks run in a clock wise direction.

I came for the trees
Instead I find bottles and bodies and bones holding air pockets waiting to pop pop pop
Slipping and dipping welly brigade and fast footed
we jossle along
on our bums
bellies both
heads tucked together
tucking into small things
Head in the nook of my arch
My cheek on the arc of her spine and
She is moving with an unseen rhythm falling into the whale,
Jonah
Joan of arc
She arches and
he is laying his body along the fallen trunk
to sense through the skin, breath it all in
a symphony solo vibrating somewhere still strings.

I came for the trees
I did
I do (knot) for hours before
I do not want to build a shelter.
I wish I was
I want to be Alice
but I cannot reach the bottle nestled to wrestle it from the tree
the view from here is immense and I cannot touch the edges, the sky
I cannot reach you
you have fled me and my arms
you are unfettered
laughing over bodies struggling underneath, leaping
you are the sea
you are the sea and the sea is you
the rain falls to meet you watching me
I believe I am spinning alone under the naked sky
drops fall like chinks
links of daylight brought down through the clouds,
enraptured small floods.

I came for the trees
and I find Wellingtons illuminated illustrations to
follow for hours in darkness
I am led to lostness, a lastness
moving footprints slow upon Rocks, the Rocks are upon me
roving ground moves up to meet
and we are molten watchers
the branches dance, drowning in waves over our heads,
on a bed of bones, longing to lie the full
the length of my spine upon the sodden ground
Fish spine, trine spine
Spines of string and pegs and eggs and tinsel bind me
Paper rolls, rolling and strolling around the ribs to roll you over
turn the tides
To eclipse the lip of the white light moon
to flood the momentary
to force the hand that homes the unexpected
To Re-home the place.

I came for the trees
Where you Witness, I Watch, we Wander
in tides, faces fall open from the heart and lay waste to all that is not generous and rough and raw and brimming over backwards and forwards
rock rocking, climbing steep steps rock rocking her to sleep
He remembers her and never finds her
She is just beneath his surface
Following her nose (the shape of an angel, of Mynydd Carningli)
She sleeps and leaps backwards into eighteen horses flying free at long last
Longing, climb long trees, eat them up up up
and bear witness to no time no place
to un-covering discoverings that find themselves lost when we have gone
Returning to what is remembered
To each others

Returning and Turning.

The trees are waiting for me…