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Backhander

4th – 27th November 2011

Richard Squires (using pseudonym ‘Let Me Feel Your Finger First’)

‘Backhander’ was an Arts Council funded solo exhibition at studio 1.1, London, an artist-run gallery whose focus is the ‘quality of encounter’ between artwork and audience. The gallery curated exhibition consisted of three new animations: 'Post-Colonial Cannibal' (looped projection), 'Ontologically Anxious Organism' Episodes 1 & 2 (4 mins 30 seconds on monitor) and 'Backhander' (3 mins 40 seconds: monitor). Also exhibited were several props from the films.

The works represent an interrogative approach applied to the development of animation methods and concepts including frame-by-frame construction, and character-based scenarios or ‘attaining motility’. Post-Colonial Cannibal is a cooking pot whose Jack-in-the-Box inhabitants allude to animation’s ignoble history of racial stereotyping; Ontologically Anxious Organism, a character whose existential anxiety compels him to disguise himself as a rock from an Asterix comic background and Kunst & Snide from ‘Backhander’ a pair of puppets who satirise art world careerism. Each work is intended to function in opposition to familiar aspects of cartooning through Squires’ self-reflexive focus on paradigms of stereotyping and/or unusual themes.

‘Ontologically Anxious Organism (Episode Two)’ was simultaneously premiered in the online Animate Projects exhibition. ‘Acting Dumb and Playing Dead’ a text by writer Angela Kingston accompanied the show and was published online. The research process for developing the Post-Colonial Cannibal character is detailed in Squires’ article, “Anthropophagy and anthropomorphism: constructing 'Post-Colonial Cannibal' published in the inaugural edition of Animation Practice, Process & Production (Volume 1 Number 1, 2011, editor Paul Wells, Intellect. doi: 10.1386/ap3.1.1.155_1), May 2011. Editor, Wells, subsequently discussed Ontologically Anxious Organism in his essay on British animation in ‘British Comedy Cinema’ (Routledge, 2012, editors I.Q. Hunter & L. Porter). Ontologically Anxious Organism was released on Filmarmalade artists DVD label, launched at British Film Institute, 2/12/2012. Squires was commissioned to produce a comic strip for Art Review, January/February 2013 issue.