AJIMAL
I’ve Known Your Heart
AJIMAL - I've Known Your Heart
Animation by Alex Moy
From the album, As It Grows Dark / Light: https://slinky.to/AsItGrowsDark-Light
ⓟ & © 2020 AJIMAL under exclusive license to Wow & Flutter Records.
Written and performed by Fran O’Hanlon
Produced by Guy Massey and Fran O'Hanlon
All rights reserved.
https://www.ajimal.co.uk
The two characters are seen together: one plays with a toy in front of a lake and a woman watches over him, establishing a mother and son pair. They are then pulled apart from one another by a changing landscape, The boy stands above mountains and turns and looks beyond the water. The two are then caught in this constant cycle of moving back towards one another but growing apart on a journey of self-discovery. In this cycle, they are interrupted by reminders that time is in fact moving (a boat sailing away, plants and flowers blooming and wilting, cities appearing and vanishing) and they eventually find one another again, a lifetime later.
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“The journey is not linear, it is always back and forth, denying the calendar, the wrinkles of the body. The self is not contained in any moment or any place, but it is only in the intersection of moment and place, that the self might, for a moment, be seen vanishing through a door, which disappears at once.” - Sexing the Cherry, Jeanette Winterson
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“The journey is not linear, it is always back and forth, denying the calendar, the wrinkles of the body. The self is not contained in any moment or any place, but it is only in the intersection of moment and place, that the self might, for a moment, be seen vanishing through a door, which disappears at once.” - Sexing the Cherry, Jeanette Winterson
When I first listened to AJIMAL’s song “I’ve Known Your Heart,” I was immediately pulled in by his choice of lyrics. There’s one particular line in the song that caught my attention and quickly became an initial catalyst for a narrative. “Still less for me or you and everything we do makes time slip faster still.” This immediately became a piece about how time creates and archives memories and feelings of the most valuable moments and people in our life. Time is bittersweet by nature. It clouds our ability to notice relationships changing or seeing our loved ones grow old. No matter how hard we try to remain locked in the present moment, time ultimately fails to surrender even a little control back to us.
Early on, Fran brought the idea of developing a piece based on the book Sexing the Cherry by Jeneatte Winterson. It’s this incredible novel that follows the relationship of a mother and her adopted son - only it’s told in a suspended reality where time is nonlinear and pieces of the story are fragmented from one character’s subconscious thoughts to the next. Without establishing a concrete sense of time, it forces you to question what is true and what is only experienced by the character’s imagination. Winterson erases any foundation of past, present, and future. It becomes a story about how different versions of the same experience can be created by allowing the mind to interpret time and space in its own way.
This animated piece is a story of two spiritually-bound figures pulled apart by the currents of time. One grows old, the other grows up and departs from their shared world. But time doesn’t work in a linear, one-dimensional way and this story exists in a suspended reality where time is fragmented. We follow the characters through their separate journeys, watching time steer them back to one another.
Early on, Fran brought the idea of developing a piece based on the book Sexing the Cherry by Jeneatte Winterson. It’s this incredible novel that follows the relationship of a mother and her adopted son - only it’s told in a suspended reality where time is nonlinear and pieces of the story are fragmented from one character’s subconscious thoughts to the next. Without establishing a concrete sense of time, it forces you to question what is true and what is only experienced by the character’s imagination. Winterson erases any foundation of past, present, and future. It becomes a story about how different versions of the same experience can be created by allowing the mind to interpret time and space in its own way.
This animated piece is a story of two spiritually-bound figures pulled apart by the currents of time. One grows old, the other grows up and departs from their shared world. But time doesn’t work in a linear, one-dimensional way and this story exists in a suspended reality where time is fragmented. We follow the characters through their separate journeys, watching time steer them back to one another.
