Porous is an experimental, multi-media film that unpicks the subtle nuances of sexual assault and the irregularities of memory. The enclosed bathroom setting serves as a vessel in which memories are confronted as the boundaries between water and skin blur. Water immersion provides a pathway to healing and entering the unconscious, as suspended and floating our bodies move out of time with the rest of the world.
The motivation for the piece stems from a personal struggle to define my own experience of sexual assault. The allusion to the event through symbolism and sound reflects a profound lack of personal clarity over these events. The influence of magical realism provides a framework for the narrative, as physical space and time stretch and change without explanation.
The film operates as an animated painting, combining various mediums and techniques such as paint-on-glass animation, stop motion, digital frame-by-frame animation, and hand-painted gouache backgrounds. The idea was to create tactile imagery that flows freely, untethered from a canvas.
The material, its limitations, and its capabilities are usually a starting point when beginning a project. Understanding when one material ends and another begins and the implicit symbolism found in the material help to create layers of meaning in animation. I think my process is quite multi-disciplined as I move fluidly between hand-drawn, digital, paint-on-glass animation and painting. My animation process is intertwined with my painting; I often simultaneously work on both. I think this contrast in workflow helps me stay focused and keeps making things exciting. Like probably all animators, I think of animation as the highest form of art, one where figuration, abstraction, sound, and materiality all meet in a time-based medium that immerses the viewer for long after the film runs.