I've lost my strings

I've lost my strings from Denni Bakardji on Vimeo.

Bonds sprout from bonds. Affection sprouts from affection. Creativity sprouts from creativity. I have grown up in a house where four generations of women lived together with the only man soul � the much spoiled and loved tomcat. Even now the bonds are tremendous, nursing me like roots sucking juices from the soil in times of troubles, restricting me like golden chains, stirring up my forgetful desire for freedom.

I’ve lost my strings is a short animation I have always wanted to make. It is a personal story of a family of three women at different stages of their lifes. It is a metaphor of the contradictions that arouse between them in their everyday life. It’s starting point is inspired by the play “Three tall women” by Edward Albee. I’ve lost my strings is also about a madness caused by change and an escape from a previous life with all attachments and sentiments one used to cherish.

In an attempt to liberate myself I have developed a concept which is close to my previous studies in textiles and fashion design, but I have been looking at it in a new perspective using different media. I have modified my themes according to my changed understandings of life and creativity after my arrival to the Western Europe using new media and technologies. Instead of using a needle and a thread I have presented my work with illustrations, video, flash and 3D, exploring my dreams and virtual travel across time and space.

I started to experiment with this animation trying to present a dream of a girl who wants to break the chains of limitations and to unshackle the irritations in her life. I am trying to present it as a struggle and growth, sometimes taking shape of a surrealistic dream. I have played and experimented with the different dimensions with the help of a 3D program. I have imported and exported multiple times my scenario in the 3D space and putting it back again in the two dimensional environment.

I have changed the scissors of my grand-mother into a montage with the help of digital programs and eventually cut the old that holds me back, giving a new shape to the fabric of my life. I have transformed the needle of creativity into a visual collage of animated flash images, a new design transformed the traditional hand-woven and dear to me fabrics inspired of my grand-grand-mother into a magic flying animated video carpet. These metaphors are very much inspired by admired to me artist from Eastern Europe like Jan Svankmajer and Qauy Brothers. I am very interested in the way they present narrative trough objects.

I have also tried to work in the achromatic colours, inspired by children’s illustrations and by old movies that give a special perception of time. My intention was to maintain the personal touch and feeling of a designed motion graphic piece that describes an exiting journey forth and back through time and space.

This travel across the time and space suggests a method of incorporation of a sound map. I have used the music of Gershwin. His music based on a characteristic American blues and jazz creatively mixes its elements with the heritage of European classical music. I believe that his experience of an American in Paris is pretty much similar to the experience of the nowadays foreigner in London.