Faculty of Art

Experimental Animation

Janelle Clouston

The Lovers

The Lovers is an installation/animation project that follows the activities of a queer couple in a fantasy world as they prepare to reunite. Viewers are invited to enter into this world through the immersive display format; three monitors arced in front of them and the addition of headphones to create a personal experience.

“I am an artist from Winnipeg Manitoba working with digital painting and 2D animation. The Lovers is an installation project that features a single animation projected across three (arched) monitors. The story follows two lovers, a knight and a noblewoman, traversing their fantastical world and reuniting after a long time apart. The detailed visuals and immersive medium are intended to invite the viewer into the world and were part of my exploration into themes of nostalgia and escapism. I have always been influenced by fantasy books, video games and films, and so for my thesis film I wanted to create something that could represent a realization of the artistic intent I had when I was younger but did not yet have the skill to execute. In this sense, my film is not just a window into another world, but a nostalgic trip to the past, exploring ‘pure’ childhood inspiration and providing a haven from the stress of the modern day. In this sense, I also decided to push myself in my technical ability. The aspect ratio is much larger than anything I’ve worked with before, and this was my first time working with cloth and hair physics in a major project. Tonally, this project opposes much of my prior work, which was often concerned with themes of death and the hard reality of life. In earlier drafts, The Lovers had a similar tone—it was to be a tragedy--, but it was upon exposure to the works of Pipilotti Rist that I was inspired to pursue a different path. Rist’s installations are highly colorful and comforting, dazzling the viewer with fluid, trancelike imagery. It was this seed of calm and happiness, something that I wanted in my artistic practice, that inspired me to flip the tone of my work and indulge in positivity for a change. I innovated a more compact and personal method of display for my work; three monitors, a chair and some headphones. This way, the sense of immersion is more private and personal. This method of display also has the benefit of portability and compatibility. Requiring easy to find objects and little labor for setup, this work can exist in many different settings, from galleries to bedrooms. As someone who has moved a lot during their adolescence and had to fit their living essentials into a few bags, portability and material footprint have been very important to me. Digital art therefore has obvious benefits, though much of my practice is still rooted in traditional, hand-drawn animation from my childhood practice of pencil crayon drawings. This film features a healthy and blossoming relationship between the two female main characters. Reflecting my queer identity in this work does serve to counterbalance the nostalgia in this work. I only discovered this part of myself in recent years, and so this work also serves as a vision for my own future. My work has always been highly personal; my strongest work comes from strong flashes of inspiration, which reflect my core sensibilities. What appears on screen is a combination of raw ideas and vigorous refinement. ”