The Third Script: Short Animation

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Artist's Statement

My aesthetic taste has developed in a culture in which calligraphy is considered a prominent form of artistic expression. I was exposed to various forms of Persian calligraphy and calligraphic art early on in my life. Looking at various specimens of calligraphy I would find it difficult not to feel a sense of dynamism and not to be inspired by the movement and rhythm that they invoke. To me—an artist whose main medium of expression is animation—various pages of Persian calligraphy possess a life force: They appear to be animated, not in literal terms, but in essence. To my aesthetic sensibilities many specimens of traditional calligraphy and contemporary calligraphic art seem to be imbued with the desire to become animated. The Third Script is an experimental animation that celebrates such a Proto-animated quality of the art of Persian calligraphy.

About the Film
Duration: 05:45
Genre: Fine Art, Experimental, Visual Music, Calligraphic Animation
Technique: Pastel on paper, Pencil on paper, 2D, Frame-by-Frame

Designed, Directed and Animated by:
M Javad Khajavi
Based on a music by:
Siavash Kamkar
Sound Design & Mix by:
Ross Adrian Williams

Acknowledgement
Ishu Patel
Heitor Capuzzo
Ross Adrian Williams
Nagaraju Thummanapalli
NTU, School of Art, Design & Media

Inspiration

In some mystically-inclined literature from the Persianate world, individual letters, words, and other calligraphic-related elements have been used as metaphors to explain the unexplainable secrets of the universe. This film is inspired by some of those metaphors.

The title of the film (The Third Script) refers to one of the sayings of Shams-i-Tabrizi, better known as Shams of Tabriz, who was a mystic and the spiritual instructor of the prominent Persian poet of the 13th century, Rumi. Shams says in his book, Discourse of Shams-i-Tabrizi:

"That calligrapher wrote three scripts
One he read but no one else
Another he read and others too
The third neither he nor anyone else could read
I am that third script."