Papercut Puppets will be a vendor at Ghostwoodmarket on Friday, June 16th at 5 – 11 p.m. Lots of off-beat and unusual arts & crafts, clothings, etc., plus live music! Located at Parkdale Hall, 1605 Queen Street West, Toronto.
Delighted to announce that Ouroboros will have its North American premiere at the 30th incarnation of the Chicago Underground Film Festival this coming September. CUFF is a fantastic festival with a solid vision for all things odd and off-beat. Here’s the blurb from their web site that best describes their mandate: ““Underground” isn’t always easy to define. At its core, it’s a fluid, inclusive, forward-thinking concept that has fueled movements and counter-culture revolutions over time. Chicago Underground Film Festival is no different. At our core, we welcome visionaries, activists and creatives, and are proud to be the longest running incubator of the avant-garde, the controversial, the cutting edge, and the transformational.”
Delighted to have ‘Ouroboros’ included in the Distributors’ Screening from Vtape & CFMDC at the 69th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Germany. The distributors’ screenings are out-of-competition screenings where “12 international distributors of artist and avant-garde films present selections from their current catalogues”. Screening will be Friday 28 April 2023; 19:45. Thank you to Vtape in Toronto for including my film in this program.
OUROBOROS is having its world premiere in Germany at the Internationale Kurzfilmwoche Regensburg (Regensburg International Short Film Week), March 16-26, 2023. My film opens the PARTYFILME program, so let’s drop that needle.
Above is an image of a few of the paper puppets and dolls that will be on offer at Villianous Valentines this weekend at Eldritch Theatre in the Leslieville neighbourhood of Toronto. This arts & crafts show will run February 4-5 from 11 a.m.- 6 p.m. Papercut Puppets will have a puppet bundle available at a discounted price only at the show. Will also have a small number of my zoetropes for sale.
Firstly, I’d like to wish everyone a Happy & Healthy New Year!
I have a brand new paper puppet to share with you all:
This is Wilfred the Wizard, a magical marmalade cat. While other wizards may apply their art of alchemy towards transmuting base metals into gold, Wilfred prefers to focus his arcane knowledge towards conjuring catnip and other treats.
Final size of puppet once assembled: 9″ H x 6″ W
Available as a digital download, a DIY puppet kit, and as a pre-assembled puppet.
Available in my Online Shop or on Etsy.
Ouroboros spins a loose narrative of joy, grief, death and rebirth, all told through looping images printed on physical animation devices known as phonotropes. Much like the titular ouroboros, a symbolic snake that devours its own tail, everything in life is a loop.
After three years — two of which were significantly hindered by my concussion and subsequent recovery, in addition to a global pandemic and various lockdowns — my phonotrope project has finally reached its conclusion with the release of a 6-minute experimental animated short film featuring four different phonotropes and original music created by my frequent collaborator, Zev Farber. The film is currently being submitted to various film festivals worldwide, and will be released online thereafter.
Ouroboros captures my ongoing fascination with physical animation devices known as phonotropes — a contemporary update on the 19th-century pre-cinema device, the zoetrope — which uses a record turntable and a video camera to capture the magic of the animated loops. Created during the various pandemic lockdowns and shot entirely on my smartphone, this short film visualizes perpetual cycles of beginnings, endings, and the inevitable reset of the loop.
Happy Easter long weekend, my blog followers! Here’s a little video I shot a couple of years ago with one of my articulated paper puppets.
A video showcasing my limited edition artist’s multiple 7-inch playable vinyl phonotrope.
The ouroboros is an ancient symbol of a snake devouring its own tail and represents cycles of birth, death, and renewal. Much like the animated loop, the ouroboros is designed to perpetually start, end, and then restart again. While the endless repetition of a looped sequence is commonplace in the realm of animation, a deeper and more profound reading can be teased out of these loops when placed within the context of the ouroboros, which represents cycles of nature to which humanity is inextricably bound. These cycles can include waves of pandemics that recur throughout history and serve as stark reminders that “history repeats” as we collectively look back at the past for models of how pandemics tend to play out. Cycles of loss and renewal can take many forms: the loss of life, the loss of relationships, and the loss of livelihood have effected the lives of many people during this current pandemic. Even given all these various losses, the seed of hope lies buried within the ouroboros cycle itself by virtue of its very design. With every end, a new beginning must start for the cycle to reset and continue, and it is this promise of renewal that offers hope.
OUROBOROS:TEARS focuses on cycles of grief and mourning. The music on this disc was created by my collaborator Zev Farber. Interwoven within the repeating music loop of the soundtrack are audio fragments that recall electronic voice phenomena (EVP), sounds found on electronic recordings that are interpreted as spirit voices by parapsychologists (listen closely between 01:20 and 01:40).
This artist’s multiple is available for purchase in my Online Shop.
As the summer progresses and my post-concussion syndrome symptoms slowly improve, I’ve had increased opportunities to continue work on my ongoing zoetrope/phonotrope gallery installation entitled OUROBOROS. This proposed exhibition (venue TBD) will include (at least) four different zoetropes on record turntables and an accompanying 20-minute audio track created by my collaborator, Zev Farber.
The video above is a test of a paper printout for a playable vinyl record zoetrope, which is currently under production. The record will have a 4:53 minute edit of the original soundtrack, and will be available for purchase in a very limited run of 25.
Will post a video on the actual vinyl, once I receive it.
The playable vinyl phonotrope is available here in my shop or on Etsy. To see the disc in action and hear the track on the record, watch the video below.
Lady Lazarus 