Cities of Ladies 2 (YOU)

“Cities of Ladies” is an immersive poetic animation documentary trilogy created through multi-disciplinary art practices to foster hope, change and promote self-development; through the exploration and recognition of personal views and ideologies.

"I’m Only Human" is a commission from Animate Projects to respond to the theme related the sensory, physical and empathetic qualities of immersive platforms to the human senses, with the plan that artists will be encouraged to engage other disciplines and the people affected.

I developed the idea during lockdown whilst being on the vulnerable list and I had not left my apartment even for shopping. Like everyone I found coping mechanisms. I started reading about past pandemics. The Black Death resulted in a shift in the world view of people in 1400 Italy and led to the Renaissance, allowing new individual voices to come to the forefront and a deeper social responsibility developing across Europe. The Spanish flu led to free health care. These changes started with self-discovery and the importance of individual voices being courageous in saying what they believed in, even if it was against the norm. To feel a new way, sensing a new future.

The film is inspired by the life and writing of Christine de Pizan (1364–1430). Christine lived through the year of the Black Death epidemic, losing her husband and father and to survive she became the first woman-mother in Europe to support herself by writing. Christine wrote in many different literary forms on a wide range of topics including debates about equality and justice that are still discussed today.

In “The Book of the City of Ladies” Christine creates a symbolic city where she enters into a dialogue with allegorical and real past female figures; fostering a different view of love, compassion and social responsibility. She explores their importance in society by voicing their unique individual and personal ideology discovered through self-reflection and based on her own “peculiar senses” as a woman. Through this film I want people to feel and think new ideas, new ways, individually: this is the time for change.

Following the structure of the “The Book of the City of Ladies” I created a trilogy of short-animated films to explore the question Christine asks. I interviewed people from different social strata, cultures and life journeys; expressing their view for a new world today. view that come from their inner self. I received more than 50 recordings. I could not include all the voices, but they are all beautiful, intriguing, wise and window onto personal hopes. To view all the participants contributions to the project please head to https://citiesofladies.wordpress.com/recordings Through the participation process I hoped to create a collective voice of a snippet of today wishes for humanity.

Visually I captured the slowness and solitude of the confined environment of “a traditional under the camera animation set up” as a 360 portrait of myself in the act of painting and animating. The process, the location and the time to make the film it is for me as important as the final result; and it is incorporated in the film. The act of making, thinking, feeling through time. The film is created in 2 mediums : one in traditional flat screen and the other in 360 monoscopic. The film has a total of three version. One flat screen version and two 360 versions. Each version captures a different stage of the process of thinking, making, watching and feeling.