Cornish Knitting Pattern Series

Abstract

The Cornish Knitting Pattern Series is a collection of 16mm animation landscape films that use a single frame production technique to translate Guernsey knitting patterns into film. In doing so, the films set up a structural relationship between that of a knitted stitch and a frame of film—drawing out analogies between both forms of production. The article considers methods and processes of the films’ production, including the role of the film charts and location-as-editing system.  The film charts are explored as examples of an approach to systems-based editing and a single frame production in the context of experimental film. They are also discussed as visualizations of the knitting patterns; pragmatic preproduction material; notation documentation and retrospectively a significant aid to reflection on the work carried out. Key aspects of the film series such as how gesture, landscape and film are ‘knitted together’ in the film as a material object, are also highlighted. Further to this the article explores how these aspects reveal readings of the films’ relationship to Landscape, knitting practices and the historical and cultural aspects of the Cornish Guernsey patterns.