Meeting with Kitty from LUX - 29/02/24

Talked through my experiments from last semester, and was happy that she came to a lot of the same conclusions I had about the work. The disconnect between the things I had shot, and the archive footage, as well as the focus being on the aesthetic beauty of my subject rather than exploring my themes.

We discussed my upcoming shoots and I told her about my ideas for the “Gaia” shoot as I’m calling it, and my “if Kate Bush was possessed by a demon and attended a fairy revel” shoot, which I think accurately communicates what I’m aiming for! She liked these concepts very much, and was very helpful in talking these through, and offering new perspectives.

As mentioned in previous posts, we talked a lot about the role of the body in my films. I think an interesting tension is at play with what we see vs the lived experience of those I’m asking to perform. Many of my friends and myself included, have hidden disabilities and health conditions. For example chronic pain, ASD, ADHD, hyper mobility and chronic fatigue. This is something that I’m aware of and my performers are too which we bring to the films, but I appreciate that as these are hidden, the viewer does not know and just sees someone who is conventionally attractive or who doesn’t appear to be suffering. When Kitty was discussing the looks of those that I had asked to be in my experiments, I realised that this thing that I was aware of, was not at all obvious in the films, because I had not made it so. I think I’m going to go away and do some readings about different bodies in films, because I want to bring that in somehow as I myself have hidden health conditions that affect my life on a daily basis, but I “pass”. The book Unwell Women is going to be a starting point I think. Of course film is superficial because it is a visual medium. Just because I know that the beautiful person I’m filming has hidden health conditions, does not mean the audience does, Same goes with me as the filmmaker.

Kitty raised an interesting point about making my theme of “climate emergency” focus instead on the emotions this brings up, like claustrophobia, agoraphobia, dread anxiety etc. and rather than focus on the materiality of the issue, focus on the emotional. Fear of the unknown is far greater than being presented with it on screen. I need to leave room for my audience to infer meaning, and to put things together themself. I hate it when filmmakers spoon feed me ideas, so I need to make sure I don’t do the same. Therefore, I will be having climate change be the implied back drop for my film, rather than the focus as this is too obvious. I need to think about my own work like I am doing an eco-critical reading of it.

Kitty recommended I watch various films to develop my ideas. ‘Ashley’ by Jamie Crew for the fear of the unknown, ‘Under The Skin’ by Jonathan Glazer to get the ideas of dread but avoid the stumbling blocks this film makes, ‘Blair Witch Project’ for the fear of the unknown again, ‘Beneath The Movement’ by Katherine Spence for a focus on the body and the landscape, ‘Twin Peaks’ for building dread and tension, Matthew Barney’s earlier works, Smith Stuart ‘Underwater’, ‘Interference’ and ‘ Breathing Space’ to explore ideas about drowning, claustrophobia and agoraphobia, and Maria Abramovic’s work.

Overall, an incredibly helpful meeting which is already proving fruitful for my ideas, and I have taken on new directions to go forward with my work.