AP Strange: 00:22

Pardon me while I have a strange interlude. But there is nothing else. Life is an obscure oboe bumming a ride on the omnibus of art. Among the misty corridors of pine, and in those corridors I see figures, strange figures. Welcome back, my friends, to the AP Strange Show.

AP Strange: 01:09

I am your host, AP Strange. This is my show, and today's show is brought to you by Canned Thyme. If you're ever looking for a little extra time in your day, I know everybody always wishes there was more hours in the day. You can't fit more hours in the day, but you can fit time in a can. And these canned time products are pretty great because you can always just open a new can of time.

AP Strange: 01:33

Give yourself the time take the time and just you know keep the time for those times that you're really gonna need it. It gets a little bit confusing if you talk about it further than that but there it is canned time bringing you our program today and it's going to be a really good program this is gonna be a lot of fun. I have a wonderful guest on today, Tess Martin. She's a visual artist, animator, and filmmaker. She's based in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

AP Strange: 02:06

She has a background in classical, fine art, and animation, and features at film festivals, installations at various museums, and lectures throughout universities in The US and The Netherlands. And she is currently, I think at the moment, featuring a film called Still Life with Woman, Tea and Letter. It's a really moving film that I watched that we're going to kind of go through a of concepts around art, time, animation, and this is going to be a great chat. Welcome to the show Tess. How are you?

Tess Martin: 02:50

I'm great. Thank you for having me.

AP Strange: 02:54

Yeah. Well, I'm thrilled to have you on because I guess your sister had reached out to me and we kind of connected us and this was I was able to go check out your work and really profoundly moved by it. It's really super interesting what you do and I've always loved animation with physical objects. Well, I mean, it's a little bit more on the low brow end, but the old Ray Harryhausen movies movies and stuff like that. Love that.

AP Strange: 03:34

I love anything that seems like there's a physicality to it. So I was wondering, where did your interest in animation start?

Tess Martin: 03:43

Yeah, well, I'm definitely going to come back to you and ask you more about exactly what you mean by moved by the pieces, because I'm just so interested in how people perceive it. And it's so rare to actually get to hear from a viewer, from like an audience member, their interpretation and their experiences of the pieces. So I'm definitely going to come back to grill you about that. Sure. So yeah, I was always into art as a kid.

Tess Martin: 04:25

And I ended up studying fine art at the University of Brighton for my bachelor and I had no knowledge more than anybody about film or animation. Wasn't a thing I was into. I was doing like weird paintings and stuff. And I knew that what I was doing wasn't really like my specialty, but I didn't know what my specialty was. And then I saw a puppetry show that really changed my life in the summer between my first and second year of my bachelor.

Tess Martin: 05:04

And that really inspired me. I came back to art school and started making weird little paper cutout stop motion films and basically never looked back and I'm still kind of doing that. That was, I realized recently that was almost twenty years ago when I graduated from my bachelor in 02/2007. Of course I've been doing, I've developed, but in principle, I think most of my work still has roots in frame by frame, frame by frame animation or at least frame by frame film that has some kind of physical connection. And I do think that I think about animation quite conceptually.

Tess Martin: 05:57

And I do think that's a result of my fine art background as opposed to someone who might have studied animation for their bachelor film studies. Was always thinking about what the materials say about the piece or the method of presentation. So really kind of taking everything into account. And now I also do installations that involve videos. Often there will be an installation version and a short film version of the same piece to be shown in different So I tend to show at film festivals and film related contexts.

Tess Martin: 06:48

And then when I can, galleries or exhibition spaces, like physical spaces where the viewer is really like walking into a piece or around a piece listening to something on headphones maybe, or there's different possibilities with every which way. So I really enjoy experimenting with all of those.

AP Strange: 07:15

Yeah, it's very effective and I definitely got that sense looking at your website and your list of works because every well several of them had the film but also installation and I was thinking oh well if you go to the installation that's you're kind of in the film you know that it's a whole other experience.

Tess Martin: 07:36

Ideally yeah Yeah, I mean, it's tricky because first of all, need to arrange for the installation or you need to be invited by a curator to show it. So that's assuming you get that far. I know people who are like, yeah, well, I mean, all this work to put up an installation and then, a very limited number of people may come through and see it depending of course, on the venue and how famous it is or whatever. But on the other hand, the experience people have is very direct and very in a way intimate. Sometimes more so than like if you're sitting in a cinema and it's your short film is like number four of a programme of eight short films.

Tess Martin: 08:24

I mean, of course the cinema, the black theater with everybody else around you can also be very special, but there's something much more kind of one on one about an installation context where, so at least those 20 people have seen your piece very directly,

AP Strange: 08:46

which

Tess Martin: 08:48

I appreciate. So I just try to do both, I just try to kind of do everything.

AP Strange: 08:54

Yeah, well, I mean, it's kind of nice when you have that immersive experience and it's nice for me as an appreciator of art and I've definitely had those times. Sometimes it's great not to be with the crowd and just have that personal one on one interaction with it, know. I can think of times that I've, well we have the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and there's a gigantic stained glass window there with Saint George slaying the dragon. And I got close to that, and I was I was the only one in that little corner of

Tess Martin: 09:30

the museum,

AP Strange: 09:31

but I was just fully in it for a couple of minutes. Like I was just kind of transfixed looking at all the little bits and there's something pretty great about that. Yeah, it's like a revelation.

Tess Martin: 09:43

Yeah, and there's something great about installations that the viewer can determine what to look at. And I mean, certain parameters, like if you have a video piece, then obviously, unless it's a very special installation, the viewer isn't like pressing play, it's on a loop or it's somehow determined by the gallery or the artist, but the viewer can walk around and focus on what they wanna focus on. And they can even stand there and watch it multiple times if they want. So in that sense, it's more flexible than a screening. And the viewer has more power over their experience, which for better or worse, I know some artists who because of that may prefer the screening because it's like, no, no, no, I want people to start at the beginning and watch it till the end.

Tess Martin: 10:36

And I want them to be like trapped in a theater and I don't want them to be able to leave halfway through, is also something people can choose to do at an installation normally. Yeah, I've grown to appreciate these questions about the viewer experience over the years.

AP Strange: 10:59

Yeah, well, I mean, having watched the films now, I certainly wish I could see one of the installations and actually walk walk around it, you know, because it seems immersive. And as you say, you have a certain amount of agency for what part of it you're interacting with or how long how much time you spend with it you know.

Tess Martin: 11:22

So

AP Strange: 11:23

that's that's super cool. I mean leading up to your your your background in art I think I had read it somewhere in your bio about the themes that you tend to get into with, it seems almost like a liminality or like a vulnerability of moving from different places and times and remembrance and that kind of thing. Certainly, you see that in in still life with woman tea and letter. But but, yeah, I didn't know if you wanted to speak to that at all or get into any of your background, like personally informs these things.

Tess Martin: 12:15

Yeah, sure, sure. Yeah, I mean, definitely my last three works really specifically deal with like our relationship to the past and trying to connect with a moment in the past or with people in the past or thinking about yourself in a larger context. And for sure, still life with Woman, Tea and Letter was, I was working on that one and the next one kind of at the same time. So the one that's very different, it's an eleven minute kind of experimental documentary called 1976 Search for Life, but they have a similar technique, which is this kind of photo replacement situation. And I had been developing this idea for the 1976 film, which is directly related to a moment in my family's life in the summer of nineteen seventy six when my father took this trip to Scotland.

Tess Martin: 13:19

But then that happened to coincide with the NASA Viking mission to Mars, which is when we got the first photos from the surface of Mars. And my dad talked about this event in his travel journal. So anyway, for that project, I started to like kind of literally think about different time lines colliding or being able to cross over or kind of thinking conceptually about this journey, this like attempt. So just like my dad's journey to Scotland and the lander's journey to Mars and my journey to this moment in my dad's life, to understand, trying to reach a destination and all three journeys kind of end a little bit bittersweet because the NASA mission, though successful, because the landers survived and took photos, didn't find life, which was the larger objective of the mission. So that actually stopped the investment into Mars programs for a long time.

Tess Martin: 14:32

And my father's trip, he looking into family history and stuff and trying to connect. And though there was a lot there, there was also, I think it evident in his journal, a bit of realization that this, you can only ever get so far trying to connect with your ancestors or where your people come from, so to speak. There's a limit to that because you will never know what it was really And similarly, I will never really understand my father, at least at this point in his life when his life was so different from mine. So he was a new father and he was younger than I am now and really different priorities in life. And so that was where this idea came from.

Tess Martin: 15:31

And I ended up after years of research and like trying different things, I ended up realizing that I could turn some of the eight millimeter, like home movie footage that they had taken on this trip into a series of photographs. And I could do the same with archival footage from the NASA missions. And then I could replace frame by frame these photographs in different locations in Scotland. So I took a trip and I did this kind of animation in the wild. And that's interesting hopefully because it produces kind of two timelines in one image where you're watching what's happening in the photograph, but there's other stuff happening at a different time speed in the environment around whether it's like the clouds moving really fast or the sun, you know, moving or, you know, the shadows moving or like whatever.

AP Strange: 16:37

I was kind of struck by blades of grass where you'd have the photo resting kind of in tall grass or on a stone with tall grass around it. But they're just kind of twitching back and forth in different ways because the breeze is blowing it.

Tess Martin: 16:49

Exactly.

AP Strange: 16:50

Even the photo itself moves slightly. Just kind of, you know, yeah.

Tess Martin: 16:54

Yes, which is helpful in a way because it's one of the ways that you are in a way being honest with the audience about what's happening. So there's no real basic trickery. You know what I mean? There's no digital manipulation or anything. It's like, no, no, It's like literally just replacing photographs in the same place.

Tess Martin: 17:20

It's like actually quite basic. But of course the choice of framing, the choice of landscape becomes very important. And the choice of which little looped series of photographs do you use in which place and what does that say? And then of course there's this narration happening with the travel journal and stuff. So my point is, had been developing this technique and then I started to work on Still Life with Women, Tea and Letter.

Tess Martin: 17:53

And I realized that I could do something very short and hopefully very interesting. And I had the opportunity to make a two minute film with this special funding scheme here in The Netherlands. So the brief was it had to be two minutes. And I was like, And I had been thinking about my mother and letters I had been reading that she had written to her mother, like back in the 70s and the 80s. So I was already on this kind of family history trip clearly.

Tess Martin: 18:35

And I think because the other film was really about my dad, I started thinking about my mom for this film. And I immediately had this idea for a still life painting and she's an art history professor. So like I associate still life paintings with my mom just because it's one of the areas of her expertise. So like anything art history or anything like that, I associate with my mom. And so I started thinking about this film that looks like a still life painting.

Tess Martin: 19:09

And there is a letter on the table, which you also find in the history of still life paintings often there will be like an open letter and there's different symbolism in these paintings that mean different things. And then I realized I could have a photograph in the film as if someone had been looking at a photograph and this photograph could contain also a portrait of somebody. And so I started playing around with literally these two timelines, one very small physically, because it's a very small photograph, but actually you see the performer, you see the actress. So it's clear what's happening. It's like a young woman sitting at a table writing a letter and making a cup of tea.

Tess Martin: 20:09

And then the larger scene around it is very up close. So it's like really close-up to a table and a woman enters, but we don't actually see very much of her because of the cropping. So it was this fun way to kind of allow questions to form about which timeline are we in? Are we in the world of the photograph where the letter is being written and the cup of tea is being made? Or are we in the world of the reader where the letter is being read and the cup of tea is being drunken?

Tess Martin: 20:45

Drunk.

AP Strange: 20:45

Drunk. So

Tess Martin: 20:49

these doubts I was very interested in. And the similarly neither time line is like really true because the frame world with the tabletop and everything is clearly moving faster than it should be. Like there's a candle that's moving down very fast and there's a watch that's spinning around. And this lady who comes in is moving in a kind of jittery way, which is kind of real speed, but it's clearly manipulated. So none of what we're looking at is really fully 100% true or real.

Tess Martin: 21:40

And neither timeline is really quote unquote, correct. And I really loved that. So I just, I really wanted to play with this creating doubt and questions and finding connections. And there's a lot of little connections between the different things, between the different worlds. And we worked on the timing of everything to make that happen.

Tess Martin: 22:06

So like when the woman comes in with her own cup of tea, we might think, oh, is it the same cup of tea that was poured in the photograph that we just saw being poured? Is this the same letter that is being read as the letter that's being written? Yeah, so that's where it came from. We were talking about installations just before, and even though this film was finished in 2022, and I've always wanted to show it as an installation, but never got the opportunity to until recently. And I was really happy that I was able recently to do a little mini exhibition in Amsterdam.

Tess Martin: 22:53

And it's the film on a monitor sitting on a table, but I wanted to find the perfect table. And I ended up finding a table that was very similar to the table at which the young woman is sitting writing her letter. This kind of wooden table with the two sides that kind of fold up and are like propped up by an additional leg. So I was just super happy. I was like, yes, it looks So the table becomes part of it.

Tess Martin: 23:30

And then you're wondering like, oh, is this the table of the framing world or is this I don't know actually how many people noticed that it was similar to the table in the photograph, but I knew. Yeah.

AP Strange: 23:44

Well, do you get a cup of tea at the installation?

Tess Martin: 23:48

This installation, I did have a arrangement of objects, not on the table, but in a different place near the entrance, including a stack of the photographs used in the film. So it was kind of halfway between a kind of behind the scenes look at how the film was made because these are the cards from the film and also their own little artwork connecting with the film, which was really fun. I've never been able to show like a sack of the cards. And I think it also helps visually for the audience to understand what is actually happening.

AP Strange: 24:31

Right.

Tess Martin: 24:32

Yeah. Yeah. But okay, I just talked for a while, so you, what did you think of the film? Remember I said I would come back to you.

AP Strange: 24:42

Yeah, you did say that. Well, I mean, it's a lot to do with it's interesting to me that you were saying that that neither timeline is technically true because, I mean, nothing is really except the here and now. We only have our memory to go on or somebody else's memory or a written account or physical media like a photograph or a letter you know. So we live in a world of fictions anyway it's a lot of we're surrounded by phantoms of the past constantly but to see these two moments in time playing out simultaneously which in my weirdo conception of reality and time is how things work anyway. Think all things are happening simultaneously all the time.

AP Strange: 25:31

We can't perceive of it that way because it would break our minds, but I think we intuitively know that and you do feel like kind of a pain of recognition when you are encountering the past and as you say you know with your father's journey in search for life it's almost kind of like search for life that you can't go back to really you can try you can get at the essence of it or pieces of it but it's always going to be ephemeral it's going to escape your grasp because you can never really go back there so that's kind of what I got out of it was that these two moments of time are playing out simultaneously for the woman who's now older reading the letter and having a cup of tea while the candle burns down quickly she's reconnecting with that moment and living it in the act of reading the letter and with the recognition that this all might end soon, you know?

Tess Martin: 26:31

Yeah that's that's that's really yeah that's like super great you know and it's like I I'm not sure that I like verbalize this to myself at the time but there is something of the how much longer does this woman have because of the candle burning down primarily.

AP Strange: 27:03

Well, ends the music at the end for whatever reason, the music that comes in, tone is very effective as the room darkens. Because you're like, oh, this feels almost like like a church ballet

Tess Martin: 27:16

song or something. Yeah.

AP Strange: 27:18

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Tess Martin: 27:20

Yeah. Indeed. Indeed. And like, and how in that sense, if we're looking at it from her point of view, how fast time seems to be passing when you have little of it left. Yeah, super interesting.

Tess Martin: 27:39

I don't like thinking about my own film, Anu.

AP Strange: 27:44

Yeah. Well, that's the beauty of art, right? I mean, everybody's gonna perceive it a little differently. Yes,

Tess Martin: 27:50

yes, a %. And that's what I hope. I mean, I hope that the viewer has thoughts about it, period. Like, hope it has some sort of effect. And after that, it's really not my concern anymore.

Tess Martin: 28:12

It's really the viewer's interpretation and the viewers experience. And of course, I wanna know what it is, but it's not like right or wrong or anything. Yeah, but it's interesting that you said that you kind of think of all times happening at once anyway. And it's just that we can't perceive it that way because it would break our brains because that's kind of what I ended up focusing on for the most recent film, The House Film.

AP Strange: 28:40

Okay.

Tess Martin: 28:40

I don't know if you had a chance to watch that one.

AP Strange: 28:43

I did not, unfortunately.

Tess Martin: 28:45

Okay, okay. Definitely You'll go back and watch it now because it's a film called How Now House, which is I just finished it like last year and it's now starting its festival run. And it's like a thirteen minute experimental documentary about this house that I lived in for ten years in Rotterdam with housemates. And kind of thinking about the house as a time container containing the time of all the previous residents who have lived there and including me and my housemates. So there's a lot of kind of, there's a historical angle.

Tess Martin: 29:23

Like I did a lot of research into the house and the real people that lived there before. And then there's a kind of scientific angle. And I incorporated a lot of words written by Carlo Rovelli, this theoretical physicist who has written a couple very accessible books about time and how we perceive time that I recommend. So really forcing, not forcing, attempting to think about a house this way. And we kind of see these people walking around and there's this theme of playing cards in the film that is, it also kind of comes from this photo replacement technique that I described for the other two films where it's in those films, it's like a video turned into a series of photographs.

Tess Martin: 30:16

Well, in the How Now House film, it's just a stack of playing cards that are being sequentially changed. So like replace one card with the next card. And then these are shuffled. So it's like the frames of the film are shuffled along with the cards. And there's like a card game happening in the film.

Tess Martin: 30:42

It's apparently hard to describe, it covers some of these same themes that we're talking about, but it's more focused on kind of one building. So like what, thinking about like the block, what is it? The block universe theory of time, like within one house. So thinking about like the place as kind of a place for like a wormhole kind of, or like a gate.

AP Strange: 31:14

Yeah, and deck of cards is an excellent illustration of that given their use in fortune telling and things like that.

Tess Martin: 31:23

Yeah and I didn't realize, but apparently the structure of a pack of cards is related, this is what the internet tells me, is related to the four seasons and the number of weeks in a year. So there's 52 cards. This is a quote from the film. You'll hear it when you watch it. There's 52 cards in a pack of playing cards and there's fifty two weeks in a year and there's four suits and there's four seasons.

Tess Martin: 31:56

And traditionally also like the Jack and the King and the Queen meant slightly different things. And the spade and the clubs like meant different things, I forget. But it's basically an illustration of a year of time. So like, as soon as I realized that I was like, oh, well then I'll just use this pack of playing cards. But then what does it mean when people play a game of cards?

Tess Martin: 32:25

If you're giving and taking cards and there's some kind of rhythmic exchange, If you're thinking about the cards symbolically as like time increments, then what does that mean when you're playing a game? Yeah. So these types of things all came together for this project. And I'm now actually working on an installation version of that project, which will be shown next month here in Rotterdam.

AP Strange: 32:58

That sounds great. You're speaking my language with the playing cards too, just because it seems to be a running theme for me.

Tess Martin: 33:07

Oh, yeah?

AP Strange: 33:07

Yeah. It's I I have a habit of finding rogue playing cards out in the wild. Occasionally, I'll

Tess Martin: 33:15

find them. You're one of those people.

AP Strange: 33:17

And I take a picture of it when

Tess Martin: 33:18

I see it. That's amazing, that's amazing. The

AP Strange: 33:22

most recent one was the queen of spades. I'm told by others that this never happens to them like people are like it's amazing that you always find playing cards because I've never seen one outside somewhere.

Tess Martin: 33:33

I can't say that I have. No, maybe a joker, like one of the disposable cards.

AP Strange: 33:43

Right, yeah, the ones that people throw away.

Tess Martin: 33:44

Yeah, but not like one of the ones you need to play. It just brings up so many questions. Like how did this one card get here? And like what happened to the rest of the pack that is now useless? I mean, usually more or less there's some people that need all the cards but.

AP Strange: 34:05

That's it. I mean, I kind of half jokingly started posting them online just referring to them as messages from the cosmos. There's other things that will qualify as that if I find like a random cookie fortune fortune cookie like fortune stuff like that or out of place objects or animals can be that but anything that you could divine meaning from so like I said you can use playing cards for divination so there's a divinatory purpose there that could be a message but I tend to think of it in terms of synchronicity and with synchronicity I like to think of those causal factors like how did this card get here? Like what circumstance led somebody to drop a single card in this parking lot or you know in this alley or Yep. Was it like a

Tess Martin: 34:55

magician doing magic tricks maybe?

AP Strange: 34:58

Yeah and I mean that's the other half of it is I had to discount some of them in my case because I was teaching myself sleight of hand with cards at one point and naturally when you're learning you drop them. I still drop them I never got good enough at it to not drop them but I'm certainly not doing them out in the middle of the field but I just walked to you know like

Tess Martin: 35:18

I would imagine not. So

AP Strange: 35:21

if I find them in my house they don't count

Tess Martin: 35:23

Right, it's very honest of you.

AP Strange: 35:27

But yeah when you think of that causality part of it, that's what really leads you down a lot of these holes like when you conceive of it as an apartment or a house you think of everything that's occurred within those walls and I think this pertains a lot with people thinking of you know ghosts like actual hauntings but in other ways it's just kind of the history it's the energy that's there and I think it's just like I collect books you know I'm a big book collector and I always buy used if I can So I always love thinking about like who had this Yeah.

Tess Martin: 36:08

Yeah, the life of this book. Yeah sometimes when I get a brand new book I'm like weirdly disappointed you know I'm like yeah no one's had this before. But yeah, like when at a certain point I realized, Oh, am I making a ghost story for How Now House? Because there's like literally figures walking around that aren't acknowledging each other. And I was like, Oh, is this a ghost story?

Tess Martin: 36:39

And then I realized, well, sure. You could call it a ghost story, but my point is like, well, if the historical residents are ghosts, then we are also ghosts because we're all the same. Was kind of one of the points of the film was that we, the current residents or at the time current residents are not any more special than the people who've lived here before. And that doesn't make it any less interesting, right? Means we are part of this grand tapestry.

Tess Martin: 37:19

If the older ones are ghosts, then the previous duration of time that we've spent there is also kind of a ly time and we would also be qualified as ghosts.

AP Strange: 37:31

Yeah, but you're weirdly cognizant of it too. So I feel like you can bump up against your own history. Oh, for You can't with somebody that you don't know about or that hasn't happened yet. There's that other element.

Tess Martin: 37:44

Yeah, there's the future. Yep. Yeah. Like, if it's a block universe theory of time, then it also has the future in it.

AP Strange: 37:55

Yeah.

Tess Martin: 37:56

So, yeah, that's when, if you think about it too much, your brain explodes, like you said earlier. But I appreciate the attempt. So like all these things we're talking about, it's like, they're all kind of impossible, but we still, instinctually investigate them and wanna go down these rabbit holes, despite the fact that our brains aren't necessarily designed to comprehend them but I think the attempt is worthwhile anyway.

AP Strange: 38:32

Yeah, I believe so and I also believe that bearing that in mind and our kind of three-dimensional or maybe four dimensional if you think of it that way, in our perception of reality with our limited sensory perception and our ability to cognitively handle some amount, some finite amount at once, these are things that can only really be expressed obliquely like you kind of have to describe small parts of it through things like symbol or artistic expression of various kinds and people get it that's a way to communicate directly through pure emotional conveyance in a way that you would never be able to with words, language isn't suitable for it, right?

Tess Martin: 39:25

Yeah, interesting, interesting. Well, tell you when I started to think about this stuff and then at a certain point I realized I make time based art. Yeah. So if you're making a short film, like as opposed to a video art piece that might be shown in a loop, like specifically from the beginning. If you're making a short film, you're assuming it's gonna be watched from the beginning through the middle to the end.

Tess Martin: 39:54

So, we are slaves to this method of experiencing film. And that's what I started playing with, with the House films and kind of shuffling the things around. But it's definitely still a linear experience because at the end of the day, we're humans and that's how our brains work. So it was a really interesting balance to try to strike like, okay, I'm making a time based piece, but it's talking about how time is not as secure as we think. So how do I make this clear?

AP Strange: 40:41

Yeah, but even the process of making it plays with time in a really strange way which is something that kind of occurred to me when I was trying to formulate a list of questions for you is that you talked about the making of Still Life with Woman Tea and Letter on your website, there's a separate video that's the making of or like behind the and it took you over, it was about nine and a half hours straight of shooting, I think it's Yeah, So you think about how nine and a half hours becomes two minutes.

Tess Martin: 41:15

Well, that's what's so interesting about having an animation background. By, I mean, my type of animation background, which is frame by frame animation, because whatever you do is time manipulation. You're manipulating time. You're taking one frame. You're taking 24 individual frames over whatever, any type of duration between one minute and a week.

Tess Martin: 41:42

It might take you a week to make 24 frames if you're doing a complicated sand animation. And then at the end you have one second. So whatever you do, you're already in this world of like crafting the time that the audience will experience.

AP Strange: 42:01

So when You could say that your artistic medium is time.

Tess Martin: 42:05

I mean, indeed any filmmaker could. And in that sense, any musician and really any artists who makes any time based type of thing. And in fact, I have only recently come around to the idea that even painters and sculptors who make still things could say that because the time based portion is the time that the viewer is looking at it. So the time the viewer takes to look at the painting a time based experience. Can't tell how long they're going to be looking at it.

Tess Martin: 42:48

So you don't have much control over it other than trying, maybe you make it really big and you kind of make it in that sense to try to kind of control where the viewer stands, but you could just walk past it in thirty seconds if you wanted. But this is something I only recently kind of came around to and I used to be really bored by painting and I still kind of am to be honest because as an animator, you're just like, Oh my God, it's just like one still frame. Like, whoop de doo. You could make 23 more and then you would have one second of like a very interesting moving painting. But now I've realized actually there's also something interesting in making a still thing that would capture an audience for a duration of time.

Tess Martin: 43:43

Like that is also very interesting. So I'm thinking about that again, but yeah. So when it's still life with women, tea and letter, to me, was a very natural thing because I have this frame by frame animation background. So none of this was like new to me, this idea of taking one still image every thirty seconds, which is what we did. So we set everything up and then light the candle and then start shooting.

Tess Martin: 44:15

And then we didn't stop for nine hours and we took one picture every thirty seconds. And that is how the candle burns down at a steady rate. And that is how the watch hands are going round at an accurate speed. And then me and the other animator had to replace a photograph within those thirty seconds, which was like enough time to do that. And then the performer, the older dancer who played the older woman, she had to perform and hold her positions for thirty seconds incrementally, which is called pixelation.

Tess Martin: 44:58

So she's only on screen for like what thirty seconds or something because she only comes in towards the end, but she performed for like an hour and forty five minutes.

AP Strange: 45:08

Wow.

Tess Martin: 45:09

And it wasn't easy because there's a moment where she's like sitting down. So you're kind of levitating. It's hard to hold these positions and holding still is actually very difficult. So we did it twice because I knew something would go wrong the first time. And so I always planned to do it twice.

Tess Martin: 45:34

And that's good that we did because something did go wrong the first But the second time I actually changed her choreography a bit. So she wouldn't be expected to be still for so long because it was just really hard to It was too jittery. So we kind of gave her more to do to like move the candle and move the cup and stuff. So yeah, indeed it's a nine hour shoot collapsed into two minutes and fifteen seconds or whatever.

AP Strange: 46:05

Yeah.

Tess Martin: 46:06

But it's a very basic, thing.

AP Strange: 46:10

Well, you say that, but

Tess Martin: 46:14

I mean, it's, it's funny because it's like, it's barely animated. I mean, depends, of course, how you define the word animation. But as someone who has also an animation background and who knows actual animators who are actually very talented animators, which is not me. I mean, there's people who are way more talented than me when it comes to actually animating, like drawing out complicated movement at like the correct speeds and all of All we were doing was replacing the one photograph in the same place. Then I was directing the dancer very specifically because obviously she wasn't used to doing this type of pixelation movements.

Tess Martin: 47:02

So she needed very clear instructions on like how far to move each photo. But other than that, it's very basic animation. And like the woman that we hired to my friend, Marika to do some of the photo replacement, she gets hired to like animate stop motion puppets on like feature films and stuff. And like, here she was just replacing a photograph. It was really kind of rudimentary for what she can do.

Tess Martin: 47:34

But then again, it has to be done very precisely. So it was also like quite important. In that sense, it's quite a simple, straightforward thing. It's just, I did have to do a ton of research into candles and how long it takes them to burn down because we needed it to burn down a specific amount. But after you do all that prep, then it's quite straightforward.

AP Strange: 47:59

Yeah I mean some of that I mean well some of it definitely is mathematical figuring out how many frames you're going to do versus the time that you're filming.

Tess Martin: 48:05

Yes there's a lot of

AP Strange: 48:07

but also the lighting I thought the lighting was really impressive the way it almost seems like the shadow goes over periodically and it almost almost seems like it's day and night and day and night but you can tell by the candle burning and the watch that that's not what's happening it's maybe clouds moving outside or something like that. Every part of the day, the sun moving to different points in the sky, like

Tess Martin: 48:31

Yeah, I think our objective was to kind of make it feel like it was going from dawn to dusk. Right. And we a lamp on a motion control slider. So that's how that was moving incrementally every photo. Right.

AP Strange: 48:47

So there's a lot of moving parts, I guess is what you're gonna Yes.

Tess Martin: 48:51

There's a lot of little things all choreographed.

AP Strange: 48:56

Yeah and while you may downplay like the animation type of it that you're doing it is also the composition of it and the concept behind it and the aesthetics of it whereas the marriage of your fine arts background and the animation craft. It's a very unique product and like I said I was was moved by it.

Tess Martin: 49:19

That's that's that's amazing yeah Yeah, I've had a couple women, maybe my age or a bit older than me come up to me and say that it really made them think about their mothers.

AP Strange: 49:35

Yeah, I can see that.

Tess Martin: 49:36

Which was very, you know, amazing.

AP Strange: 49:41

It made me think of

Tess Martin: 49:42

my It

AP Strange: 49:44

made me think of my grandmother a little bit because she just passed away last year. The the way the hand moves on the table Mhmm. Yep. And and and touching the letter, and it just kinda reminded me of my grandmother, like, having oh, let me show you this picture. She's always keeping photographs from forty years ago or something and just handing it to you and putting it on the table and touching it and then backing away, you know, like

Tess Martin: 50:10

Yep. Yep. Yep.

AP Strange: 50:11

Yeah. Yeah.

Tess Martin: 50:14

It's true how photographs are so you know especially now I mean

AP Strange: 50:21

yeah that was definitely something I wanted to touch on is there's like a tactile and authentic aspects to physical media that doesn't seem to be present in the digital realm. Know, everything's digital now, everything's on YouTube. The videos are on YouTube, know, they're not a physical disc or a tape that you can watch, you know, it's like physical media, especially typified by a photograph or a letter or

Tess Martin: 50:55

Or like a reel of eight millimeter film or whatever.

AP Strange: 50:59

Yeah, yeah. I think it's something that I wonder if you think that something gets lost by not embracing that as much?

Tess Martin: 51:09

I think it's something that I try to regain.

AP Strange: 51:14

Yeah.

Tess Martin: 51:16

Because if you think about it, like if you think about the old slideshows, like in a slide carousel kind of situation, you would literally have to first have your negatives made into slides. And then you would have an event where you would invite people to sit down in a dark room and then you would press a button to show one picture at a time. It's like very intentional and the same with old pictures. It's like, very intentionally posing for this one kind of expensive picture that is then going to be printed. So it's like special moment.

Tess Martin: 52:00

And at the same time, I never used film. So I like came up at my art academy, there was no film instruction, like film film, like 16 millimeter film. There was no film class on my bachelor at all. So I've never actually used film. Mean, I've taken workshops and stuff, but I've never made a film on film.

Tess Martin: 52:26

So I've always worked digitally, like with a digital still camera. So I've always taken high resolution digital images of my physical objects. So I guess I'm kind of in that sense in the middle, but I do recognize in a way that's why I still use physical materials at all because I recognize what it does when you are looking at a physical material, it's very accessible. It's very human. And that's why I think frame by frame animation persists at all despite all the digital advances.

Tess Martin: 53:12

And I used to live in Seattle where Bruce Bickford lived. Don't know if you know Bruce's work.

AP Strange: 53:20

Know that he worked with Frank Zappa a bit.

Tess Martin: 53:23

Yeah, yeah. So he was kind of a local cult figure, but he worked all the time up until the day he died, I'm sure. And he was interviewed once at an event and he was asked something about like, why do you think frame by frame animation is still good now that we have all this digital animation? And he said something like, the fact that there are mistakes between the frames. So the fact that frame by frame animation is not super smooth is what makes it good because it is what makes it human.

Tess Martin: 54:07

And it's what makes the viewer identify with it. Whereas if it's all perfect, then it's not relatable anymore. And of course his work was very much like that. Clay, messy, even his drawn, I have to say his drawn work having said that incredibly smooth.

AP Strange: 54:30

Well, it's a kind of a psychedelic quality to Victor's work. Yeah, but transforming and melding into

Tess Martin: 54:36

each Yes, and very handmade anyway. So I think that's a little bit, it's the same thing. Like why use physical materials? I think it's the same thing. It's like, well, why do frame by frame animation?

Tess Martin: 54:55

Because the imperfections are actually what allows people in.

AP Strange: 55:01

Yeah, it's more effective in so many ways. Like I had heard a quote from I'm not sure what which critic it was but there was a movie critic that said that you know the computer graphics look good but don't feel real and like you know the frame by frame animation looks kind of bad in some ways but it feels real because it feels like there's a real thing there.

Tess Martin: 55:28

Yeah, interesting. And of course now with AI, it's I'm sure completely changing and I think over the past maybe ten years, the technology, even before AI, the three d technology has gotten so good that Uncanny Valley applies less, if you know what I So like it used to be that three d animation was good, but not perfect. And it was weird. And that's where the term uncanny valley came from that it was unpleasant to look at because it was like trying to be real, but it wasn't. And it was like, Ugh.

Tess Martin: 56:06

But now the technology is so good that I think young people, like when I teach, the students don't have the same reaction because they have like a different starting reference point. So to them, it's so good that they don't get this ick. And now when AI first started, the weird AI videos that were like funny because they were slightly wrong. They had this similar kind of uncanny valley feel where it's like weird, like what is going on? But the technology is moving ahead so quickly that perhaps that will also soon be gone at least for the younger generation that's coming up behind us.

Tess Martin: 56:57

So that'll be very interesting to see how this all plays out.

AP Strange: 57:01

Yeah, it will be interesting to see where things kind of go from here. I think before we were recording, was talking about how I feel like there's probably going to be a return to some kind of authenticity with this stuff because people are really gonna burn themselves out or perhaps already are.

Tess Martin: 57:27

Yeah, like a reaction against it back towards human art.

AP Strange: 57:35

Right. Yeah or even just physical things that you can hold and see, you know, and encounter, deal with directly, you know. Yeah. I mean all it would really take I think is one big solar flare to knock out all the

Tess Martin: 57:51

Ah, fingers crossed, Well,

AP Strange: 57:55

don't want that to happen specifically.

Tess Martin: 57:57

Digital chaos.

AP Strange: 57:59

If it did, people would have to entertain themselves somehow.

Tess Martin: 58:04

That's where the playing cards come in.

AP Strange: 58:08

And that's what would happen. Would think about like going camping with my family when I was a

Tess Martin: 58:12

kid. If

AP Strange: 58:14

it was raining out and you couldn't have a campfire, well, I'd take out the deck of cards, so I'd cards.

Tess Martin: 58:21

Yeah. There's something very interesting about the ritual. I'm never great at it, though. I have to say like, I'm not like a talented card player. I need to focus too much.

Tess Martin: 58:34

And I'm not quick enough, you know, but I still enjoy it, but it's a good thing I'm not super competitive.

AP Strange: 58:42

Yeah, well just, you know, stay out of the casinos because that could be trouble for you.

Tess Martin: 58:46

No problem.

AP Strange: 58:51

So what are you working on currently? You got a film that you're in the works now?

Tess Martin: 58:58

Yeah, well, it's interesting because you were talking about maybe a return to physical objects that you can touch and hold and stuff because the film that I'm working on now, it's a short fiction film. So in that sense, it's different from the work we we were talking about, because it's like completely scripted. And it's kind of a science fiction film. It's kind of a multiverse story about a traveler who is tasked with following around people at their moment of death. And then she starts to empathize with humanity.

Tess Martin: 59:32

But part of the plot is she carries around this little purse that is like bigger on the inside and filled with objects that she's pilfered from different places and times. Work in this film. They work as kind of a marker of that time and place that she can go back to if she wants. So kind of like an address. But I was thinking about this idea of like objects, little objects and like, we were talking about before, like who owned the book before?

Tess Martin: 01:00:15

Who owned this before? What is the history of this object and why do we as humans kind of collect these things? Like, why are we attracted to this idea of these little objects and what they mean and where they were made and all this stuff? So that's where that plot point for this film came from, because I was fascinated by this and the character is using these to travel, but it's also a marker of how she's beginning to empathize with the humans that she's following because she herself starts to feel attachment to these little objects that represent the different people that she's observed. So, that's funny that I just realized that there was this plot point about objects in my film.

Tess Martin: 01:01:10

But it's, yeah, I haven't gotten to that those scenes yet. So I still need to figure out exactly how I'm going to animate those. But the rest of the film is like a multiplayer animation photo cutout film with lots of little different pieces of paper that are different props. And then the actors are actually actors that were filmed in live action and then have been turned into like a series of paper cutouts. So in that sense, it's also animated in the classical sense of the word because all the character animation was done by the actors.

Tess Martin: 01:01:54

I'm kind of compositing, I'm manipulating and compositing their performance into this kind of universe.

AP Strange: 01:02:05

I think that's great because like you said, you're kind of the master of time doing that because it's not classic animation in the sense that you're you're starting from scratch with it but you are you're taking you're taking what is essentially sequential linear images and mixing it up a little bit recontextualizing it. So making it physical and then making it a living linear progression again. And yes, yeah.

Tess Martin: 01:02:39

I should write that down, Use it for the synopsis. Yeah. Yes. Well, contextualizing. Exactly.

AP Strange: 01:02:47

Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, I love this idea that she has a purse that is much bigger on the inside. Because I had made a note in my questions as well because as much as you're playing with concepts of time, corollary to that is space and I mean you could take that in a number of different ways especially with the Search for Life film where you're talking about going out into outer space to visit Mars at the same time you're revisiting like the interior life of your father and his quest which in turn is seeking out his roots you know so there's this idea of like inner space and outer space and how to to play within that kind of spatial set.

Tess Martin: 01:03:39

Yeah, indeed. And I hope that this film I'm working on now will evidence those themes also. It's different because it's more of a kind of linear film with characters and stuff. So in that sense, it's less conceptual conceptual than 1976 Search for Life. Even though this would make my producer laugh because the film I'm working on now is not conventionally made at all.

Tess Martin: 01:04:14

So having just said it's more linear and less conceptual. All depends where you're starting from, right? But I do think it's in there and I very much enjoyed kind of a more literal approach for this film kind of literally depicting a different version of New York in 1986, like to make clear that it's a multiverse situation like this type of writing and communication that needs to happen with plenty of opportunity for play within it. So it's been fun so far, but I'll still be working on it for a long time.

AP Strange: 01:04:59

Yeah.

Tess Martin: 01:04:59

So we'll see what I think of it in a year.

AP Strange: 01:05:03

Yeah, well, I certainly look forward to it and I look forward to looking at or watching How Now House since you were kind enough to send me that link, which didn't have time to check out before we get on today, but I definitely will now. That is a time isn't real. So I'm already watching it.

Tess Martin: 01:05:24

Time is a construct.

AP Strange: 01:05:25

Yeah. I'm already watching it in a different plane, you know? Yep. Zoom out a little bit.

Tess Martin: 01:05:31

Yes.

AP Strange: 01:05:32

Yeah. Alright. Well, I feel like this has been a really excellent chat. I'm thrilled that we got to cover a lot of these subjects because as you might have figured out, time has kind of been an obsession of mine for a long time which is a weird way to say that.

Tess Martin: 01:05:51

Appropriate way.

AP Strange: 01:05:53

Ever since I was young I've always wrestled with these ideas and had concerns about time travel. I've always wondered about that.

Tess Martin: 01:06:04

Having

AP Strange: 01:06:07

had my own experiences that bordered on like premonitions as a kid that always made me wonder how that worked, know, how that possible, right?

Tess Martin: 01:06:15

How could that be? Yeah, yeah. But

AP Strange: 01:06:19

yeah, so it's been a complete joy to be able to unpack this through first watching your films and then kind of discussing them so.

Tess Martin: 01:06:30

Yeah, super great. I don't really get to talk about them in this much detail.

AP Strange: 01:06:36

Right, yeah.

Tess Martin: 01:06:37

So yeah.

AP Strange: 01:06:38

Well yeah I mean I very much appreciate you coming on this is

Tess Martin: 01:06:42

really thank you for having me.

AP Strange: 01:06:45

If people want to find your work online and follow what you're up to how best can they do that?

Tess Martin: 01:06:51

So there's a lot of stuff on my website, tessmartinart.com. I have an email newsletter that you can sign up for if you want to receive an email. Then there's if you are at certain film festivals, may see the latest film soon. Next summer, we will probably put the 1976 film online. I'm thinking about maybe starting a substack, but I don't know, I still need to like research how to go about it.

Tess Martin: 01:07:27

But yeah, and Instagram unfortunately still is a good place to hear all the latest news.

AP Strange: 01:07:37

Yeah. Okay, perfect. Well, encourage listeners to definitely go check this stuff out, find tests online and at least the Still Life with Woman Tea and Letter is available to view on your website. And then you can watch it behind the behind the scenes and over the video as well. So listeners definitely check that out and Tess thank you once again for coming on the show.

Tess Martin: 01:08:03

You were very welcome.

AP Strange: 01:08:04

Yeah. Alright. We'll talk to

Tess Martin: 01:08:06

you Yep.

AP Strange: 01:08:07

Bye. Bye.