Alice Saey is a Parisian-born, Rotterdam-adopted visual artist. Her work focuses on poetic and graphic forms of narration, in the field of design and film. This issue features Alice’s moving pattern ‘Pockets of Water'. We met at Het Batavierhuis, talking about erring on the side of amateurism, stigma in animation, and drawing directly on film reels.
You studied graphic design and fell into animation by accident. Did working on your online animation course for Domestika give you more insight in your own artistic processes?
Given my background, I'm way more comfortable talking about visual concepts than the technicalities of animation or how to write a script. If I had studied animation that would’ve probably been easier, also in regards to defending my own methods and choices. But doing this course definitely helped me put my method into words.
Would you like to teach more?
Working on an online course that people can consult at their own pace is of course very different from keeping a group of people in check in some classroom. As for the latter, I don’t necessarily have that kind of ambition. But the idea that you can give back to people is something that is very motivating and heartwarming. I do feel like I’m more comfortable teaching short-term and project-based as opposed to a longer curriculum. Coaching people’s projects, and helping them grow by sharing my experience stimulates me a lot.
Your work mostly revolves around everything organic. What is your approach to that? Do you study morphology?
I try to not be too well informed about what I make, maybe even purposefully erring on the side of amateurism. Because if I know too much, then it's just about the objective essence of things, trying to find some truth. And that kills my impulse to draw. I like to interpret things using a mixture of observation and imagination. I try to replicate as much as I can from what I can see from a movement, but I keep the research part for when I stumble upon a problem. And although I draw a lot of things that have to do with nature, and anatomy, I like to be an outsider looking in. The minute you approach that too scientifically, you lose your naivete. That something that's really precious and needs to be preserved. I only go deeper if I really need to.
That reminds me of the debate of technique versus expression.
I wouldn’t necessarily oppose them, because I think technical virtuosity is amazing if it's there to serve someone’s personality. I see a lot of work that is built on technical experiments, that I’m really touched by because I know it's made by this or that person. But if a technical feat is just there to serve itself it doesn’t excite me. I really need to feel someone’s character behind all that.
What’s your take on NFTs as a visual artist?
It's an interesting format in regards to ownership and traceability of your work. Digital art is not an easy market, but it seems like this could bridge a few gaps. I was thinking about this the other day since there’s all these tools for AI-generated art that everyone is using right now. But unless it's a dialogue between an AI and a human it doesn't excite me at all. If it’s not a dialogue it just means that these images are merely keywords and not ideas.
I do think that anything that enables you to expose animation out of the context of film is interesting. Unfortunately, the contemporary art world is much more open to live action than animation. I think there’s still a big stigma that animation is for kids, even amongst art lovers.
Where does that stigma come from?
I don’t know. There's still this persistent idea that some artforms are more noble than others. There are like one or two contemporary artists who use animation, while a lot of them use film. And that's weird because drawings and films are everywhere in museums. It's just the meeting of both that is somehow underrepresented. Maybe there's also the idea that animation has to be narrative. There's always this question of the role of narration in contemporary art. I do think there’s room for this to change. I’d love it to change.
Could it be as simple as rebranding, just like they did with comics and graphic novels?
Maybe so. There are more and more adult animation films. But so few people are able to make a feature film. I know it's a lot of work to make a graphic novel, but it's nothing compared to making an animation feature. I think there are just not enough feature films that can reach a larger audience, let alone change the perception of animation.
I remember music’s home recording revolution in the aughts. Was there a similar transformation in animation?
I think there has always been this culture of the solo animator doing stuff with no budget. I wrote a thesis on experimental animation and music, so I researched a lot of directors who made films with no budget in the 60’s. Norman Mclaren used his bathtub and some film reels and just drew directly on the film reel.
Do you have any new projects coming up?
I’m wrapping up my short film now, which will take another 4-5 months of work. We’ve finished animating, so now we’re finalizing backgrounds and music in post-production. I'm writing a new film as well that kind of has to do with Rotterdam and water. And I would also like to get more into fabric design and making patterns. Maybe I should also consider taking a break since I have been working like a maniac for the past three years.
Could you tell us something about your contribution?
It's based on this plant I saw that has these little floors that made me think of balconies in Rotterdam. It’s a little moving pattern with pockets of water.
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