THE BIRD AND THE MONKEY Interviewed at The Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival 2014:
Interviewer: Jason Moyes
Photographer: Patrick Rafferty
Among the many artists producing moving
image installations for this year’s event are The Bird and the
Monkey. Comprising of Sarahjane Swan & Roger Simian, The Bird and
the Monkey’s debut short film ‘In The Dark I Sat’ premiered at
London's Portobello Film Festival. They were later commissioned to
create the ‘Sung To The Crows’ video-art installation for the
festival 2012.
Sarahjane’s background is in fine
arts and she graduated with a BA (Hons) in Sculpture from Gray's
School of Art, Aberdeen. Roger Simian spent years dabbling with DIY
indie zines, video, writing and home recording. The aim of The Bird
And The Monkey they say is to draw on these backgrounds to produce
left-field mixed-media art, music and film.
One of the key messages to come from
the Alchemy Artists’ Filmmaking Symposium and the various Q&A
sessions over the festival has been the importance of collaboration.
The Bird and the Monkey’s installation ‘ORPHINE’, which they
describe as “One woman's descent into the Underworld to save the
one she most loves”, includes sculpture, video projections, music
and writing and is a prime example of where a meeting of minds can
result in some stunning work.
“We both come from slightly different
backgrounds” Sarahjane tells me as she steps out of the room they
have taken on the third floor of the Crown Building on Hawick’s
High Street. “I’ve got an arts background and Roger’s got a
writing background but we want to bring those elements together. We
talk a lot, communicate a lot, shift things around a lot, have a lot
of different ideas, and we’re really looking for the magic to work,
and that’s really how we collaborate.”
As a working musician Roger has
recorded sessions for John Peel and played at Glastonbury and the
infamous South by South West music festival in Austin Texas, so has
experience of collaborating as a band as well as with Sarahjane. As
with the creative writing and recording process within a music
studio, creating a bit of friction between collaborators can often
lead to more creative results. “We step on each other’s toes”
he laughs. “I’ll annoy her by suggesting things to do with the
sculptures and sort of saying 'can I stick this up here, can I muck
about with that', and she’ll be doing the same with the words as
well like 'I hate that line you’ve written, it’s just a lot of
rubbish'. Often it’s just a big creative argument that’s going
on. But then it all comes together, we find a kind of harmony.”
Coming from Galashiels in the Scottish
Borders, Roger and Sarahjane are two of small team of local artists
making a contribution towards the festival. Others include Pat Law
and Richard Ashrowan whose installation is also on show in the Crown
Building in Hawick, Jedburgh based sound artist James Wyness who is
collaborating with pioneering French video artist Jacques Perconte on
a live performance and Mhairi Law whose work is being screened as
part of ‘Dreamland 3’ on the final day of the festival. Roger
hopes that people from the Borders come to the festival and
experience some of the work will be inspired to lift a camera.
“It would be good if more people from
the community could get a bit more excited about the experimental
side of this, and start doing things themselves. We were watching Dr
Duncan Reekie talking about low budget DIY film making and how anyone
can do that so we really hope that people come and check out shows,
check out films and maybe think about going and giving it a shot
themselves.”
No comments:
Post a Comment