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10 Transforming Youths is a 4-screen digital animation with quadraphonic sound. This work has been commissioned by the Melbourne City Council's Public Art Program as the inaugral artwork to be projected from dusk to 3am at the new Signal building site - a Youth Arts facility on Northbank overlooking the Yarra River in the city centre of Melbourne.

Rendered in a graphic hard-edged Pop style, a line of 10 youths (framed as heads and torsos) stare blankly at the viewer. Though standing still, they move continually as if on an invisible conveyor belt. They are set against a wash of dark colours, like a brooding eternal dusk. Their bodies are framed centre; their lower torsos disappearing into a luminous fog. Their faces and features are clearly visible as they move left-to-right slowly across the 4 linked projector screens. Moving in the counter direction, one youth at a time enters, then pauses framed in close-up. His/her head occupies the full height of the screens. Sometimes with eyes shut and sometimes staring straight ahead to the viewer, he/she gradually ages. Sometimes, subtly – as if time has not affected him/her too much. Other times, the aging seems accelerated to 50 years. But after each time he/she ages, he/she returns to their youthful state, and exits toward the direction they were heading. Occasionally and randomly, his/her face will move forward in extreme close-up. The spatial shifts grant the viewer differing perspectives on the changing metamorphosis of each depicted youth.

The concept of transformation relates to Brophy's ongoing interest in animation's 'in-between' flux of identity (as in his 2-screen digital animation Vox ifrom 2007). 10 Transforming Youths is not an attack on its subject matter, but an embrace of the uncomfortable schisms acted out by the young people depicted. Their 'inbetween' state is not simply framed by opposing 'young' to 'old', but rather by how the young imagine themselves aged and how the aged imagine themselves young. Neither provides a stable sense of identity, and 10 Transforming Youths depicts this powerful purgatory for the terminally young.

10 Transforming Youths

Concept & direction - Philip Brophy
Design & key animation - Philip Brophy
Inbetweening - Steven Whatmough, Idora Alhabashi, Isobel Knowles, Teishan Ahearne
Source video filming - Philip Brophy
After Effects post-production & scripting - Steven Whatmough
Technical advice - Sam Page, Tom Dawe
Score - Philip Brophy
Vocalists - James Cecil, Lachlan Franklin, Gus Franklin, Adam Green, Isobel Knowles, Sianna Lee, Phip Murray, Que Nguyen, Thembi Soddell, Shannon Smiley
Score proiduction & quadraphonic mix: Philip Brophy
Production assistance - Sam Page
Thanks - Andrea Kleist, Laura Ogden, Karra Rees, Simon Maidment, Byron Scullin

 

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