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Visual writing: Thicken time, transform and dissolve text

This article, published in the peer-reviewed journal Animation Practice, Process and Production (2012), documents innovative research undertaken by Ashworth to explore the potential of writing for animation through the incorporation of narrative, structure, images, sound and time. The article focuses on approaches generated to explore tussles between words and images, the dissolving of texts, the development of structures, and the writing of time in the context of animation practice and theory. Using examples from the work of Peter Blegvad, Deborah Levy, William Kentridge, Michaela Pavlatova and Jan Svankmajer, Ashworth explores ways in which visually skilled but reluctant writers could be encouraged to learn to model with the material of text.

To develop the research, Ashworth and Levy successfully applied for a three-year Arts and Humanities Research Council Fellowship for Levy to investigate the secret life of objects, and to develop innovative activities for teaching animation artists to write. A number of workshops have emerged from this in the UK, Spain and India, plus the BBC Radio 3 broadcast of the Glass Princess (2010), a play written during the Fellowship;curation of the ‘Lost Objects of Childhood’ programme for Animac Film Festival Spain; and a presentation of the research at the Freud Museum, London (2012).

Developed through a series of innovative workshops and script surgeries organised in partnership with Blegvad and Levy, Ashworth’s research focused on key topics such as memory theatre and object writing. The outcomes of these activities also formed the basis of a series of keynote lectures, which underpinned the development of the article. ‘Writing time’ was presented at the Sino UK forum on Animation Education, Hangzhou (2012), ‘Dreaming and scheming’ at the Fermentation in Design conference, Taiwan (2011) and ‘Dialogue: Schools of storytelling’ at the Lucerne International Animation Academy (2011) and NAHEMI symposium, London (2010).