Accidental Animator

Hello, gentle reader. I've been 'through the mill' (as they say) in recent times. Since the excesses of the previous weekend/week, I decided to have a few quiet days and to give myself some time to re-group the senses. So, I've been spending some time with my poor old lonely father, and doing plenty of housework too. I've also been catching up on paperwork, and trying to cut down on the drinking. I also went to see an art installation created by a friend of mine called 'Accidental Animator'. It was such a cool concept that maybe the new Nottingham Contemporary gallery should commission Anne-Marie to repeat this exercise in its lofty halls there. It might improve matters, in my opinion.

The idea this time was to create a collage of a scene using recycled material (largely, discarded flyers from the many and various venues around Nottingham), and getting the visitors (i.e. the audience) to participate in its creation by ripping or cutting their own shapes and sticking them on to the canvas. Anne-Marie had sketched out in pencil a Nottingham montage featuring such iconic landmarks as the Sneinton Windmill, the Council House, Vicky Centre flats, the Right Lion (as opposed to the Left), and even the Loft Bar building itself. All that was required then, was to cut and paste the detail – the 'colouring-in' bit. Great for occupational therapy!

The really nice thing is that the piece was actually built by people who perhaps wouldn't normally interact with art form at all; people who live in Nottingham too.

But there's a clever twist to this. The finished collage is not the main player in this installation. No, the picture itself is just the 'cause' to the real 'effect' and is not even required after the event. In fact, the picture could be jettisoned almost as a by-product (bit cruel though). For while people were helping to create this trompe l'oeil before our very eyes, our clever Accidental Animator was filming the progress and creating stills of the developing scene. These stills will then be used as an animated film showing the build up of the picture, projected onto the walls of the Loft Bar. It will be a bit like a massive flip-book created not by just one artist, but by many. A real, live, living flip-book, if you like.

On a dreary, weather-pounded winter's afternoon, this colourful and cheeky window of art-in-the-making is just what you need to cheer you up. So, my rehabilitation is going well. Watch this space. You might see a new 'me' emerging.