Labocine sat down with Edd Carr, an artist animating with cyanotype and other sustainable processes. He is the co-director of the Northern Sustainable Darkroom.
Interview conducted by Alexis Gambis
Could you tell us more about how your process and how much "intervention" comes into the process. How much do nature/environments take its course in the process of making/revealing versus guiding the process as "human input" or situating the work in a specific habitat.
I use a few different processes for my filmmaking - all of which take an analogue approach. Most people encounter my frame-by-frame animations, where I am basically printing every frame of a video by hand, often using the cyanotype (aka blueprint) process, but also using other processes such as anthotype (just plant pigments) and lumen prints (darkroom paper). More recently, I have been experimenting with moving image formats like 8mm and 16mm - mainly to speed up my laborious process a bit!
As you mention in the question, these works are typically realised within specific environments, and by working with the landscape itself. So for example, my frame-by-frame animations will be printed on soil dug up from the ground, or collected rain water will be poured on the frames, and in some cases - shocking the frames with electricity!
When I started directly involving environments in the physical process, my main motivation was to challenge the fact that digital media is abstracted from material environments. So to create a direct link between the material of the film and the world it is borne from. I’m not sure how successful this has been however, as ultimately it all ends up on a digital screen!
Regarding how much the nonhuman world takes its course - yes, sometimes it can be very unpredictable. For example, printing on soil for my film, YORKSHIRE DIRT. It was difficult to know how the soil would interact with the ink, and this would change frame by frame, creating a spectrum of results. But I am happy for the nonhuman world to take its course in this sense, and for me to exist as something of a link between the two (sorry if that sounds terribly pretentious!).
Still from Lepidoptera (Edd Carr, Moving Image Work, 2022)
I am curious to know more about the term "ecological futures." Do you consider your work to have a look into the future, sci-fi in nature. Is this ecological future, promising, dystopian, alternative, cautionary, nostalgic? Is it important for you to also elaborate on the process / ingredients or to have the images speak for themselves (almost like a living art/organism).
Funnily, sci-fi is my favourite genre! Writers like Philip K. Dick and Joe Haldeman have been a huge influence on me, although this probably doesn’t appear in my recent works. I would say my more recent stuff focuses mostly on the immediate issues that concern me - particularly rural ecologies, animal farming, and ecological trauma. I suppose in some of my works, like LEPIDOPTERA, which parallels butterfly extinction and childhood trauma, there is a desire to heal a wound that can lead towards more positive ecological futures.
Some of my earlier works, like A Guide to British Trees, are more direct in exploring the idea of an ecocentric future, but I’d say generally this theme mostly emerges in the process of elements and my work with the Sustainable Darkroom. We research alternatives to photographic processes with a view of reducing toxicity and increasing overall sustainability. Our goal is imagining an ecological future for photography, decoupled from the current system of mass consumption, and supporting artists who wish to work in these ways. But I think we’re a long way off from this decoupling!
In terms of elaborating on my process, personally I am ambivalent, but a lot of people find it interesting and our new to these methods of working - and so are grateful of the explanation, whereas as an artist I’d perhaps like the images to just exist as you suggest.
Still from Here Comes the Wildfire! (Edd Carr, Edd Carr, Moving Image Work, 2020)
What had led you to go from sustainable photography to animating images/sequences/characters? What is your relationship to the notion of narrative/character/story?
I’ve always been passionate about narrative - when I was a kid, I used to write stories a lot and creative writing was my favourite subject, and I loved to read and watch films. But then I had a long hiatus from all of that due to personal circumstances, and re-entered creativity around 2015/6, in my mid-twenties. I was working with dogs at the time, and starting taking pictures of the dogs with a digital camera. This evolved to generic wildlife/landscape photography, and then I studied a Bachelors degree as a mature student, and it was there I got back into film.
Approaching narrative from an experimental aesthetic was often because I was working alone, and with very lo-fi equipment, whilst lacking the confidence in creating direct narrative pieces. But I also found that the experimental lens allowed me with a lot more room for exploration, and I have had to convince myself to be comfortable as an experimental filmmaker. That said, for my most recent work, COME AND SLEEP, I wrote a script and worked with a voice actor, and plan to do so for future projects.
Narrative, character, and story when discussing the ecological crisis is important, as humans are fundamentally emotional creatures, and I think a neoliberal approach of apocalyptic data dumping, and corporate climate change aesthetics can be alienating. So instead I come at it from the personal.
Still from Yorkshire Dirt (Edd Carr, Edd Carr, Moving Image Work, 2022)
At the core of the Science New Wave is the notion of the interplay between scientific discourse, cinema and magic. How does the SNW and this idea possibly speak to you / your philosophy your work?
I’d say it resonates in the sense of what I briefly mentioned in the last question - in the sense that I am dealing with subjects of ecology, and often they are related to the public through abstractions of data and scientific research, which whilst significant, is tough for the general population to connect with. I feel the overload of data leads to exhaustion or indifference, as people feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the situation - such as temperature rises with climate change, and the resulting effects. And so many are not inspired to action, as they already feel defeated. Therefore, as with my work, I think it is important to connect the research with storytelling in cinema, as a way to evoke an emotional response instead of apathy. Personally, I think it is more effective to tell a story of a local river being poisoned, than it is to relay the mm of glacial ice melting per day in order to motivate people to action. That is why I often use parallel experiences, such as personal trauma, as a way for people to access these more messy and complex realities of ecological collapse, species extinction, and so on. And of course, the magic for me comes in the process, and the revealing of unexpected imagery that results from this experimentation.
I'd love for you to comment about the featured pieces. Tell us what you are working on now and about Sustainable Darkroom.
Sure - all three pieces are connected, in that they relate to my upbringing in rural Yorkshire, UK. the countryside in England is steeped in ideals of rural pastoralism, and is typically idealised as a kind of sacred land where nonhuman nature and human agricultural industry live in peaceful harmony. However, behind this mask is an ecosystem marked by violent control in the form of industrial farming techniques, animal agriculture, blood sports, and more. Not identifying with these aspects of the local culture, I hope to use my works to examine rural life and reawaken a more animist, interconnected spirit with the nonhuman world - as opposed to one of dominion. So each of these works takes an alternative perspective of rural life from different angles, such as the personal in the case of LEPIDOPTERA, or the hyper-violent in the case of YORKSHIRE DIRT.
Currently I am working on a series of films/gallery installations that create parallels between my experience of living with chronic PTSD and different aspects of rural culture, such as fox hunting. I will hope to exhibit these next year!
Regarding the Sustainable Darkroom, we’ve just registered as a charity, so are hoping to expand our reach and one day open an official teaching and research space in London.
