Late August, Studio XX welcomed artist Jessica MacCormack the 09/10 season’s first Artist in Residence. During her residency, Jessica will create an experimental animation called PSYCHIC CAPITAL. The soundtrack will be generated through collaboration with musician and sound artist Rae Spoon. The goal of this project is to combine experimental animation and sound, to explore how identity development is informed (and sometimes controlled) by psychiatry’s relationship with capitalism and it’s broader political objectives. Using various imagery and sound from both archival and contemporary sources, she will develop three experimental stop-motion animations. The video trilogy will focus on three main themes: the history of psychiatry and capitalism/consumerism in North America, the MKULTRA in Montreal during the Cold War, and patient rights within the health care system in Canada today. During her residency, Jessica will collaborate with Rae Spoon to create the soundtrack for the animation. She hopes to produce a non-linear narrative by mixing samples of recordings (such as interviews, music, or sound tracks off of stock footage) as well as by generating electronic sound and noise by manipulating sound waves or acoustic signals on computer programs. Experimenting with innovative combinations of stop-motion, graphic animation, cutouts and hand-drawn processes to explore the visual material, she hopes to expand her understanding of animation and its artistic potential.