LIAF 2016 is very proud to partner with Edwin Rostron and Animate Projects on 6 expansive screenings and seminars devoted to championing experimental animation for The Edge of Frame Weekend, taking place at Whitechapel Gallery and Close-Up Cinema on 9th – 11th December.
Working individually and collaboratively, Lilli Carré and Alexander Stewart share a particular fascination with the history, processes and artifacts of animation. Their work encompasses a wide range of techniques, from drawn and digital animation, to live-action film and video, printmaking, ceramics and comics. This programme presents a selection of their moving image works on video and 16mm.
Lilli Carré and Alexander Stewart are co-directors of Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation. Founded in Chicago in 2010 and now based in Los Angeles, Eyeworks’ pioneering curatorial approach is underpinned by Lilli and Alexander’s own acclaimed artistic practices. Push and Pull is part of the Edge of Frame Weekend, which also features a specially curated Eyeworks programme with work from previous festivals, including films by Robert Breer, Oliver Laric and Jim Trainor, playing at Whitechapel Gallery on Saturday 10th.
The Edge of Frame Weekend is supported by Jerwood Charitable Foundation, Royal College of Art, and using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. The event takes place during the Whitechapel’s William Kentridge exhibition, and is part of the London International Animation Festival.
Lilli Carré (1983, Los Angeles, California) currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Her animated films have shown in festivals throughout the US and abroad, including the Sundance Film Festival, the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Animator Festival Poznan Poland, The Ann Arbor Film Festival, and the International Festival Rotterdam. In 2010 she co-founded the Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation with Alexander Stewart. Her comics and illustration work have appeared in the New Yorker, The New York Times, Best American Comics and Best American Nonrequired Reading. Solo exhibitions of her work were recently on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Western Exhibitions, and the Columbus Museum of Art. She has an MFA in Art Theory & Practice from Northwestern University and a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Alexander Stewart (1981, Mobile, Alabama) received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His short films have screened internationally, including at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Ottawa International Animation Festival, the Ann Arbor Film Festival, and Image Forum in Japan. He is co-founder of the Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation, and curated the film and video screening series at Roots & Culture Contemporary Art Center in Chicago from 2006 to 2013. He lives in Los Angeles and teaches in the experimental animation program at CalArts.
With Alexander Stewart in person.
At Close-Up Film Centre buy tickets
Jill (Lilli Carré, USA)
Jill explores the idea of the rebellious cartoon body. Set in a plain white room reminiscent of a gallery space or a testing laboratory, an acousmatic voice interacts with Jill by command. Jill is a cartoon that shows the wear and tear of slapstick, maintaining dents on a body that seems to feel no pain. The piece speaks to power dynamics and the ambivalent relationship between creator and creation, recalling Gertie the Dinosaur and the asymmetrical interaction of Frankenstein to his monster.
7’00, 2016
What (Lilli Carré, USA)
1’30, 2015
The Negotiation (Lilli Carré, USA)
Originally created as a 2 channel installation, this version places the two ever-morphing beings side by side, in a phased conversation that never resolves itself.
6’00, 2013
Birds of New York (Lilli Carré, USA)
Created for the New York Times, to accompany a bird sound composition by Jeff Talman.
3’00, 2015
Ode to Lumpy (Lilli Carré, USA)
Circulation drawn on 20 pieces of paper.
4’00, 2014
Crux Film (Lilli Carré & Alexander Stewart, USA)
Animated forms in moments of transition loop and interrupt one another.
5’00, 2013
Very Similar To (Alexander Stewart & Peter Miller, USA)
Mirror experiments to fold, collapse, and refract a forest.
2’45, 2009
100 Foot Pull (Alexander Stewart, USA)
A camera is pulled 100 feet across a field in the time it takes to shoot 100 feet of 16mm film. Rocks are attached to the camera to make it appropriately challenging.
2’45, 2010
Fort Morgan (Alexander Stewart, USA)
Fort Morgan uses animation and live action footage to examine the geometry, materials, and structure of a star-shaped brick fort on the Alabama gulf coast. A wandering figure begins to construct a fort, following an intricate geometric diagram. The fort grows of its own accord like an oyster shell or a crystal forming, until it is eccentrically shaped, encrusted, and overgrown. Eventually the fort succumbs to the calcification of its own geometric logic.
22’00, 2014
Errata (Alexander Stewart, USA)
An animation made using photocopiers. Each frame is a photocopy of the previous frame.
6’00, 2005
Here There (Alexander Stewart, USA)
Here There begins as a traveler’s sketchbook, drawn in Zagreb and on the Croatian coast. As the film progresses, observational fragments of landscape and architecture are refined into geometric forms and minimal marks. Details fade away, morphing into abstract impressions on the edges of memory. Here There is a travelogue through the Croatian coast in the summer of 2014 that gives graphic form to memory’s malleable, straying lines.
5’00, 2015