Artist Statement

‘Land of Lace’ is part of an online opera entitled ‘The Imaginary Voyage’, which consists of several ‘islands’ of differing character. The opera is based on Alfred Jarry’s ‘Exploits and Opinions of Doctor Faustroll, pataphysician, in which Land of Lace is a homage to Aubrey Beardsley.
‘Land of Lace’ comprises animations by Jo Lawrence and music by Andrew Hugill, which are endlessly recombined by the computer. Each visit, while similar in style, is always different. The music sets ten lines of Jarry’s text to any one of ten vocal lines and accompaniments. The animations follow a similar process.
theimaginaryvoyage.com/Islands/Lace/lace_english.php

• Andrew Hugill is Founding Professor of Creative Computing at the University of Leicester, UK. He is a composer and musicologist, computer scientist and pataphysician, who consistently works across artistic and scientific disciplines. He has founded several transdisciplinary entities in universities, including: Music, Technology and Innovation (De Montfort University, 1997); Insitute Of Creative Technologies (De Montfort, 2006); Creative Computing (Bath Spa University, 2013). andrewhugill.com
• Jo Lawrence, London, UK. Her films integrate stop motion animation, puppetry, photography and mixed media elements. During her first animation residency at Bradford’s National Media Museum Jo developed ‘Glow’, the film was commissioned by Channel 4 and screened in 2007. In 2008 she was Digital Media Artist in residence at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, where she began development of ‘Glover’. The film was produced in response to research of two items in the museums collections – the medieval Ebstorf map and an exquisite pair of sixteenth century gloves. Films often refer to transformation of some kind, themes that resurface continually include death, science, and fashion , and anything that offers the potential of a dark, humorous sense of the uncanny. All films have been screened widely at animation festivals and ‘Glover’ was nominated for inclusion in the finals of the British Animation Awards. The production of Pavementopera which was commissioned for Tate Britain (Tate Late ’09 ) has been followed in 2012 by ‘Barnet Fair’ ( online and museum installation ) for the National Media Museum and ‘Ylem’; an Animate Projects/ Lupus Films commission for Channel 4’s Random Acts which also won the Screengrab Media Award 2012. In 2014 Jo was commissioned to produce the sting for Bradford Animation Festival, and The Land of Lace (an animated digital opera) was produced for Mahogany Opera. Her residency at Four Corners Gallery resulted in the film, ’The woman who owns the sun’. source: http://www.jolawrence.com/