Modus Operandi

Have you ever dreamt of being able to guess the contents of a book, at a glance, simply by flipping through the pages ? This would be a very useful superpower for any student, or teacher, to have. When I saw Wonder Woman’s Jaimie Powers using this skill on television at a young age, the fantasy of instant-reading stayed strong in my heart, leading me to finally develop a pile of Flipped Books as part of my own creative practice.

Two and a half years ago, I was asked to replace a friend supervising a flipbook workshop at a library in France. We both work for a charity that organises workshops in libraries, museums, or other institutions. I had the idea it would be fun to give the students the brief to “draw on books” in a library, but I needed to check the results of what could be achieved in the 2 hours 30 minutes workshop. Therefore I developed my first graphic experiments with crafting animation from second-hand books, using stickers and stamps. I had initially only intended to find a quick (yet meaningful) exercise to create animated images, adapted for the client (the library in this case). As part of the formal experimentation in my work, I enjoyed breaking a holy rule of any library: thou shalt not draw on books! Within my creative practice and as I create my flipbooks, I draw on every page of the book, from page three to the end (I only reworked the cover page once). I do not tear any page off. I dive into the act of drawing with permanent markers. No Ctrl-Z, no eraser, and no linetest.

The success that my short animations have received on social media, such as Facebook, helped to spread my work outside my small fanbase, and encouraged me to carry on, to try new techniques and to progressively carve with love my real (if tiny) homages to literature. The series is currently being exhibited in Charleville-Mézières in a wonderful library called Voyelles (in reference to Arthur Rimbaud). The exhibition will later travel to Ljubljana, Slovenia, where the avant-gardist festival Animateka has found a room for it (in the massive Slovenian Cinematheque), and where, on top of supervising a workshop, I shall assume the role of festival juror. Most of my previous short films and other works can be watched from my website, mariepaccou.com. If any visitors wish to become a generous patreon, donating will give you access to exclusive flipped books and making-of features (please visit https://www.patreon.com/MariePaccou).

Biography

Marie Paccou is not a director, not an artist, not a poet. She dreams of being both, don’t wake her up. Born in 1974 in Senegal, Marie spends her childhood in the south of France. She graduated from ENSAD (Paris) and RCA (London) in animation, and her first short One Day (1998) was awarded twenty international prizes. Based near Clermont-Ferrand since 2000, she has directed two shorts for Les Films de l’Arlequin, has founded a BA animation course, and directs and produces music videos and experimental shorts, often with non-animator animators, for La Maison aux Mille Images (The House of Thousand Pictures).