RATS!

An address to the nation from beyond the drains…from those that scuttle, crawl, scratch, chew, hoard, bite and before this moment in time, may have been overlooked, RATS! is a film for your senses that dives down the drains and into the sewers..

This project was originally created for Håb Arts Word of Warning day of Live Art for children/families in 2016, translated into film for Transcendence Digital Festival screened in 2020, and also turned into a Podcast commissioned by Feral Arts My Own Private Audio project. In RATS! a lone rat wanders dank and underground places, reflecting on relationships between humans and nature.

Film Concept/Editing: Katy Dye

Filmed/Mixed/Grading: Daniel Hughes

Review Lorna Irvine The Tempo House

Katy Dye’s new film,  RATS!  created in collaboration with Daniel Hughes, and with atmospheric lighting by Jamie Black, is a whispering phantasmagoria, a creepy, provocative waking dream.

Clad in wig, shades, and long tail, Dye scampers, creeps, twitches and tiptoes through the twilight streets of Glasgow, scavenging and scraping, hatching nefarious plans.

Her eerie voiceover warns of taking over the cities, of spreading disease and multiplying. It’s not difficult to see this film as an extended metaphor for the dangers of othering outsiders, of the propaganda of fear perpetuated by our ridiculous, right-wing government talking immigration and multiculturalism, with their recent hateful tirades against ‘swarms’ of foreigners coming into the UK.

Yet even on another level, as a simple chronicle of scurrying rats looking for somewhere cosy to set up home, it’s deeply unnerving. Dye imbues Rat with a quiet malevolence and, perversely,  some elegance, scratching at her itchy wig, slipping by the houses unnoticed and fixing the camera with an unsettling stare. And then, she just stares some more.

As lockdown eases a little, but we’re still wary, now seems like the perfect time to watch this, and ponder the safety of safe spaces. After all, 2020 is The Year of The Rat.