Ted Wiggin
An interview with one of the most exciting and highly regarded experimental animators working today, presented alongside his outstanding new film MIMT.
I am thrilled to present this interview with Ted Wiggin, one of the most exciting and highly regarded experimental animators working today. Ted’s films combine dazzling formal experimentation and a unique approach to process with an innocent quality and a tenderness which takes us back to the tales of our childhood.
To accompany this conversation, Ted’s latest film MIMT is presented here online after an impressive round of festival screenings including Ottawa, Slamdance, and New Chitose Festival. This past weekend I was very pleased to show it at Close Up here in London, as part of my new screening series, where it went down very well. It’s a real pleasure to present MIMT here, as it goes online for the first time.
Ted not only creates short films, but also the software tools he makes them with. This highly engaged and somewhat idiosyncratic approach to his animation process is an essential aspect of his recent work. As he has with his previous projects, Ted is making the software for MIMT publicly accessible online, for anyone to use and explore. This software, called Ghost House, can be found here, along with an introductory video.
After graduating from RISD in 2011 (where he made the two wonderful drawn animations Terra Firma (2010) and Star Cross (2011)), Ted developed the software Rose Engine, which creates “organic sinusoidal patterns” inspired by the films of Jordan Belson and which enabled him to make his 2015 film Stella Nova. Following this, Ted produced three more outstanding works - Lo (2017), Lizard Ladder (2020) and MIMT (2024). These most recent films all seemingly take place in the same dark, black void, populated by a cast of brightly coloured creatures. As much as I enjoy and admire his previous works, it feels like with these three films Ted’s work has really gone somewhere wholly new and completely his own, with great assurance, playfulness and skill.
Ted’s films feel welcoming and open, and with their animal characters there is a fable-like quality to proceedings. But something more subtle and complex than a simple fable is taking place. I asked Ted about what his new film MIMT means to him, and what he hopes audiences might take from it. He confirmed my own response, saying “I hope the film will provide food for contemplation. If I had my way it would feel like a logical interpretation is there but just barely out of reach. It's meant to feel like a fable but to leave you without a prescriptive moral.”