Things That Float by John Fadeff

Stefan: The installation that you designed at the showroom ASIFAKEIL during your artist residency at the MQ Vienna is called ”Things That Float”. So what’s up Things That Float?

John: Well, float is just one of those great words; you can float someone’s boat, you can drink a root beer float, you can float an idea to see who salutes, you can feel like your floating on air, seeds float in the wind, embers float up the chimney, images in a flip book float.

Stefan: I see what you mean, please expand.

John: The simple mechanism of persistence of vision, a series of images, a fluttering of leaves; on the one hand there’s the physical spectacle, the blur and flicker of the motion, and then there’s the whole idea of the so-called in-between and the inherent possibilities, a liminal space if there ever was one.

Stefan: The images themselves, what’s up with those things?

John: The images were made using a printing process I discovered by accident using felt, rubber, and ink. I found a roll of rubber in a box someone had left on the street with a note stuck to it containing one word, FREE.

I took it to my studio and found that I could place a plant fragment on a clean piece of paper, then press the inked rubber onto the plant and paper. The plant fragment acting like a stencil, blocked the ink—producing a reverse silhouette. But, the ink is still within the rubber pad where it was blocked by the plant fragment, and the pressure displaces the trapped ink—in measure to the thickness, surface variation, and texture of the fragment. Setting the plant fragment and first impression aside, and pressing the same pad onto a clean piece of paper produces a second image resembling a microphotograph or rubbing taken from a low relief. Manipulating the plant fragments incrementally and repeating the pressings produces a sequence of frames for animation or mutoscope cards. In this project I also used hand cut stencils.

Stefan: The combination of mechanics and nature in form of botanical shapes gives this installation a special appeal.

John: The mechanics and methods of things underlies my work. It is interesting to me in itself, but I also notice themes and ideas I have been kicking around find their way in to the work is more interesting when my focus is occupied with process.

Stefan: And the mechanism, weren’t the first films made using a rotary flipping machine?

John: Yes, the first films weren’t films, they were a series of photographs attached to a hub and cranked by hand called mutoscopes, apparently muto is  latin for move or change. As a kid I saw them in the penny arcade at an old amusement park near where we lived called Playland At The Beach.

Stefan: And this experience influenced your work?

John: No it didn’t. Maybe because of the amusement park being nearby, there were related businesses in the neighborhood. One was a carnival supply store called Royal Merchandise that rented festival pinwheels and sold novelties and geegaws. One of the proprietors had a crudely made room made of plywood in the back locked with a padlock. If you were lucky he would invite you to see the room and you would enter into the dark. The sound of the small chain on the light bulb. Every inch of every wall, floor to ceiling, shiny plastic masks.

Stefan: Thank you for talking time from your busy schedule to talk to us today

John: Thanks for having me

With his film “Things In Between Other Things” John Fadeff won the Radar Award at the Under_the_Radar Festival 2023 together with an MQ Artist Residency.

Stefan Stratil is animation artist, chairman of ASIFA Austria and part of the Executive Board of ASIFA, the Association Internationale du Film d’Animation.