Scratch Animations

I know I can’t draw, I also hate the saccharin title I gave it… but I tried and the words are nice… they are my own. x

You are a proud creature!
So dainty a delicate flower,
But you are ephemeral,
In danger of disappearing
Do you think your four thorns will protect you?

There are millions of roses in the world
And you are not the only one.

But you are unique to me
Because I have taken the time to know you
And you have taken the time to tame me
Little by little, you have revealed yourself to me.

Poor Rose, you suffer the caterpillar,
allowing it to make an intricate lace pattern of holes,
until there is nothing left.

And for what?

So, that we may see it turn into a moth –
so dull witted that it flies towards a candle
and burns itself into a cinder.

Or that we may see hundreds of them flocking to our cities,
following the moon
but getting lost in bedroom lampshades,
keeping us awake at night with their
FLAP FLAP FLAP.

Perhaps, I am wrong and this caterpillar will be a butterfly?
A beautiful butterfly of orange and yellow,
or maybe it will be an electric blue and with flecks of black.

All right caterpillar, you may live
and keep my rose company
but do not devour too much of her,
or she will be lost to me forever.

I am afraid you’ll have to endure the caterpillar to see the butterfly.

I originally wrote this as a part of a play I wanted to develop called ‘Preserving the Apple’. I hate the font type I used in this animation but I am not a designer… it’s more the idea that I was exploring with this.

This was a real conversation I had with a computer programme called ‘Eliza’, or based on the conversation I had with her anyway. I wanted to try and write a play where one character is a pre-recorded machine or God-like being and the actor has to act with the machine, filling in the spaces the machine leaves but trying to understand the restraints of the programming.

Imagine the text is not text but dialogue, so that you have a person trapped inside a box having a conversation with an omnipotent being/machine/God/whatever… ok, I was doing an arts degree at time…