A picture I took and some pictures she took

This is a picture I took ages ago on my Diana. It's of my lovely Rachael Ward and here is her equally lovely website of pictures she taken.

Today I have mainly been listening to..

The Weeknd - What You Need
Washed Out - Feel It All Around
Feeling Something - Holy Other
Darkstar - Aidy's Girl's A Computer
Hold On (feat. Sampha) - SBTRXT
Bastion - Cloud Boat

and a ridiculous amount of this...

Other Sharks cannot be trusted.

Behind the scenes at the Museum

A selection of amazing shots taken by Justine Cooper entitled Saved by Science. For a look at the full set head to here

An evening with Jan Švankmajer

A few weeks ago I was given the opportunity by my lovely friend Laura to go to a screening of my favourite film, Neco z Alenky (Alice). After the film, director Jan Švankmajer, with the aid of a translator, did a Q&A on the film itself as well as his career.

Alice, in part funded by Channel 4 and serialised for day time television in the 1980’s, is Švankmajer’s vision of the Lewis Carroll classic. His take on the classic centres heavily around his belief that the story is not a fairytale but a dream. Švankmajer questions “now you will see a film…made for children…perhaps” and after watching the film as both a child and adult, I’m still none the wiser.



With a mixture of live action and macabre yet mesmerizing stop motion, Švankmajer truly does put his own stamp on the film. Rather then falling down a rabbit hole we see Alice in a lift, passing shelves filled with curiosities. The King and Queen of hearts actually are cards. Bringing taxidermy, dolls and even food to life seems normal is this dream world where nothing is what is seems and the film genuinely does get curiouser and curiouser.

Švankmajer work reflects surrealism and tactilism both of which he admits where major influences in his work. However during the Q&A he explained that equally as influential was his own childhood, his wife and his unreserved imagination. It’s not hard to see then why his often dark and yet magical films have inspired the likes of Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam.



Bellow is my somewhat erratic notes from the evening. While I suspect they would not mean anything to someone who has not watched the film or knows of Švankmajers work, they do make perfect sense to me. Note – the switch from first to third person reflects the translator.

How do you choose your actors?

Chooses actresses for either there eyes or there lips. For Alice it came down to two girls. In the end he picked the first actress for her eyes. Her teeth however where so bad that he had to gluing in fake teeth. He decided to use the second girl lips to in part narrate the story.

How were the characters conceived?

He tries to avoid a signature/design. He wants you have a feeling that everything was found somewhere along the way. He is a hoarder a collector. He collects things which he feels have a power of imagination He always keeps his eyes peeled for something that might be good in his films. If however he does not have something suitable then he will make it.

In Alice my wife Eva assisted. She was practically uncontrollable. So those bits that Eva made I can say I made as well. (Eva did the White Rabbit and the King & Queen).



Most versions of Alice are fairytales?

It is not a fairytale. It is a dream. There is a huge difference between the two. A fairy tale brings up your children and demonstrates. A dream is freedom and the pleasures of our inner desires. For me freedom is the only topic worth writing, filming, painting etc about.

Surrealism is considered decadent?

People who lived under totalitarism think it worked like George Orwells novel 1984. It did not. The system is faulty. I have lived through 2 waves. During ’73-’80 I was unable to film. I do not complain about this however as during these 7 years he was able to write so much.

Surrealism was a collective and they would exhibit there work in each other houses.



Czech animation has a long history – do you have any relation with Czech animation and has it affected you at all?

I did not begin to film because of film. I came about filming through fine art. He does not feel he was influenced by other Czech film makers of the time.

Digital or film?

He does not use digital film so he cannot comment. He still uses old instruments to film himself.

Do the stories come first or the objects?

Depends on the film. Sometime it’s by chance. Sometimes it’s from a dream. Sometimes it’s through reading.

An authentic artist could not think about the viewer whilst creating their art or they would be cheating them of their true work. It is a form of self therapy – liberation. The artist is watching the film also. You cannot take into account what the viewer thinks because then it becomes commercial and about money.



How important is play to an artist?

Play is psychological, not physical. Using any material serves a purpose. It is not something I use to ‘play’ with.

What is your favourite textile?

The finer things in life. Fur. We are all poly perverted people. Fur evokes this masochism. Also many nails.


Do you use drugs to inspire you?

I don’t need drugs to create. In the 70’s I took part in a hospital experimentation using LSD. The experience was bad and I ended in a padded sell. So, no. No I do not use drugs or alcohol.



A child’s perspective. Why is it valuable to you?

Childhood is the most important part of your life. Our imagination is created.

I create my films with a child’s imagination – it’s a valuable part of the perspective. The larder in Alice is an important childhood memory for me. As is the abundance of food in the film – a childhood obsession of mine.

What attracted you to Alice?

Lewis Carroll had the courage to write Alice in his time. There was no good against evil. No must or mustn’t. It was pure imagination.

If I had to choose a book to take to a dessert Island it would not be the bible. Not the work of Shakespeare. It would be Carroll’s Alice.

Same sign, but different?