Lots of evidence of clear planning, which of course is needed for a long animation process. Also a deep honesty runs throughout the work, it is a revealing autobiographical process - including the most recent finding that you were taken off the NHS list years ago!
You might consider reading a bit about autoethnography as a methodology, it goes further than just autobiography and explores the feelings, the emotions and identity of you in the process of making and in who you are. This is fundamentally what your work is about but some of the more formal autoenthographic ideas might be useful to you.
In our discussions about your work we wondered if you could reorientate the structure. There are 2 suggestions here that need to be considered together, but they are just that, suggestions for you to reflect on:
1. Firstly, what would happen if you reversed your contextual order
so instead of…
— 1. Gender Recognition Laws on self ID - highlights how a doctor would not be more qualified than the individual to diagnose gender dysphoria
— 2. Auto / biographical films and animations that allow you to resonate and emphasise with a person / group of people
— 3. Judith Butler - gender is performative
... you look at these in the reverse order to make culture:
— 1. Judith Butler - gender is performative
— 2. Auto / biographical films and animations that allow you to resonate and emphasise with a person / group of people
— 3. Gender Recognition Laws on self ID - highlights how a doctor would not be more qualified than the individual to diagnose gender dysphoria
2. secondly, perhaps you should engage with your structure as a set of shorter animations, rather than a single long-form piece? Maybe the events that punctuate your life are more significant than the chronological narrative?
Considering these 2 suggestions together shouldn’t negatively impact on the volume of work your animation process requires but might shed a different light on the themes and ideas? Is episodic more important than long form? Woudl this give you more options of display and audience engagement in the future? A long form narrative is still an option, one behaviour of the work but by thinking about it episodically as well, possibly increases your options and allows the audience different readings of the work. Is work more approachable as a single, chronological narrative? Or would a more fragmentary approach be, more approachable for the viewer? - Lots to consider!
Obviously using rotoscoping / animation is clearly a way in which you can articulate your feelings and events in your life in a more abstract style, and in all of your work you should allow the viewer some space in which to develop their own sense of narrative. It is advisable to spend time watching a reflecting on other uses of similar techniques, for example “A Scanner Darkly”, not to copy this style but more to see the emotional impact and how it is used in this way.
There are interesting questions to consider around music. A clear sound track can be deeply significant to you but there are issues for example, an audience will always have different connections to the same music, or the sticky issue of copyright etc. Maybe you just use the music anyway - it is an artistic production - but you won’t be able to upload to any video platform. You could also make a ‘music silent’ version with no music and explore how that might work. Or even just print the playlist alongside the work (or spotify playlist) allowing the audience to engage if they choose to. You could also explore semi-diagetic sound, which adds to the narrative in slightly disruptive ways.
This is a huge and exciting project with a key question unpinning it, does it support others with gender dysphoria or even beyond that? Maybe this question just sits there - acknowledged but allow the work to speak and connect if it needs to? Don’t force it too much? You have made a significant and thoughtful start and we are excited to see how it develops.
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