Victoria Monaco

Undercurrent

My practice is multidisciplinary with a focus on stop-motion animation, ink animation, new media, performance, and poetry. My thesis project “Undercurrent” is an experimental animation project that acts as a confession of my experience having bipolar disorder. I express this experience with a variety of materials and mediums to emphasize the wide range of moods and experiences that occur with having bipolar disorder. In addition to the animation based visuals, my thesis project is accompanied by a poem to express with words what visuals cannot, and music to act as a soundtrack to the unpredictability of bipolar disorder and increase tension between the moods. The title of my thesis project “Undercurrent” represents the nature of bipolar disorder being unpredictable and always being within you, it pumps in the veins under your skin and you never know when it will pour out of you.

“My practice is multidisciplinary with a focus on stop-motion animation, ink animation, new media, performance, and poetry. With my thesis project I aimed to animate a diverse range of materials and mediums with each animation being a performance of moods I experience as a person with bipolar disorder. Aside from the visuals being all animation based, the work is also accompanied by a poem I wrote for this piece, and music composed by Lingsheng Sun for this project. Through animation, music, and poetry I wish to express my experience having bipolar disorder honestly, candidly, chaotically, and directly.My thesis project “Undercurrent” initially began as an idea to create an animation that is confessional, self-expressive, and incorporates as many materials and mediums as possible while having a concept and theme that is difficult for me to express due it’s personal nature. The theme of my thesis project is my own experiences with having bipolar disorder which is something that I am not even comfortable to say out loud let alone confront it in my artwork. My research for my thesis project predominantly explored artworks created by artists who have bipolar disorder and the study of artists who have bipolar disorder. The main point of reference in my work is Kay Redfeild Jamison who is a Clinical Psychologist and Writer who also has bipolar disorder. Kay Redfeild Jamison’s books “Touched With Fire: Manic Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament” and “An Unquiet Mind: Memoirs of Moods and Madness” both helped me to develop skin thick enough to be this personal in a project as well as inform my research.I incorporate many different materials and mediums into my thesis project has traditional hand drawn animation with ink, a drawing animation that mixes charcoals, conte, and inks, an arcylic painting animation, a buildup puppet stop-motion animation, a paper puppet animation mixed with live action footage, cutout photography collage animation, direct animation on 35mm film, and pixilation animation performances. The mixture of materials and mediums is compatible with an expression of bipolar disorder because the moods and experiences of bipolar disorder are varied, it’s not as up and down or black and white as it is often interpreted as. The animations have the accompaniment of poetry and music. The poem serves to describe my moods during manic episodes, depressive episodes, mixed episodes, and rapid cycling to convey in words what visuals cannot. The music serves the same purpose in being able to convey what visuals and words cannot and in addition was composed by Lingsheng Sun who is a Musician, Composer, and Producer. I gave Lingsheng Sun complete freedom to interpret the visuals and words I created from my bipolar disorder and translate them into music. When composing the music piece for this project Lingsheng Sun fluctuated between 440 Hz and 450 Hz frequencies to increase tension in the moods. The title for my thesis project “Undercurrent” comes from the feeling of bipolar disorder always being with you, it’s embedded within your skin and due to its unpredictable nature you never know when it will pour out of you.”