Mushroom

"We are powerfully imprisoned by the terms in which we have been conducted to think.” - R. Buckminster Fuller

To the toccata portion of Bach's "Toccata and fugue in D minor," we watch a play of sorts. Blue smoke forms a background; a grid of black lines is the foreground. Behind the lines, a triangle appears, then patterns of multiple triangles. Their movements reflect the music's rhythm. Behind the barrier of the black lines, the triangle moves, jumps, and takes on multiple shapes. In contrast with the blue and the black, the triangles are warm: orange, red, yellow. The black lines bend, swirl into a vortex, then disappear. The triangle pulsates and a set of many of them rises.

Rose, a desperate mother takes her adopted daughter, Sharon, to the town of Silent Hill in an attempt to cure her of her ailment. After a violent car crash, Sharon disappears and Rose begins a desperate search to get her back. She descends into the center of the twisted reality of a town's terrible secret. Pursued by grotesquely deformed creatures and townspeople stuck in permanent purgatory, Rose begins to uncover the truth behind the apocalyptic disaster that burned the town 30 years earlier.

Rhythm and repetition plays an important role in the animated film Allahu Akbar by Usama Alshaibi. With this film, Alshaibi questions the confrontation between tradition and modernity by drawing inspiration from geometric motives of Islamic art. The artist offers a re-interpretation of these motifs through computer animation. By turning the shapes in different direction, new images are generated, freeing them from their fixed state. Traditional spiritual values feed the present and open up to a modern perspective.

The idea of JAM was conceived while I was attending the Ottawa International Animation Festival in 2008.After returning to Japan, I soon began making the film and completed it in four months.This film is based on a very simple idea: the increasingly varied the sounds, the greater is the number of creatures. I wanted to rid myself of the frustrating experience of making Devour Dinner, which was highly unsatisfactory from the viewpoint of the movement in the film. My intention in this film was to fill the screen with chaotic movements.

Coiling and turning orbs travel through the stratosphere. Birth and transcendence short animation from Run Wrake and Howie B.

Rolling animated images of kaleidoscopic heads, skeletons and other absurdities. Abstact, surreal and darkly comic. This short was Run Wrake's (as J.M. Wrake) graduation film from The Royal College of Art, 1990

Three memories that become one. An attempt to merge heterogeneous materials: a film sequence shot in Rome, a photo from the 1930s, a noisy soundtrack. Fragmented lines, exploding bass frequencies and flickering.

Untitled / Aubrac

Claire is composed of digital scans and blow-ups of a series of three ink-on-paper artworks created in 2012 by French-Spanish researcher, publisher and artist Claire Latxague. While collecting drawings, written documents and other printed materials for a (yet unreleased) project called Un film de papier, I’ve stumbled upon Latxague’s artwork, entitled À la renverse. The blow-ups were made in an attempt of unearthing cartographic imagery in abstract compositions.

An attempt to constitute a human / machine dialogue. It shows the filmmaker’s blood as seen / heard with the eyes / ears of the machine which is a film projector with optical sound. He affixed his blood onto clear film leader by cutting into the flesh and then pressing the film leader onto the wound. Additionally he had blood taken with a syringe and afterwards dripped it on the film leader. fresh and clotted blood was used.

Bizarre abstract stop-motion animation questioning traditional values in a period of great social upheaval.

Cut up animation and collage technique by Harry Smith synchronized to the jazz of Thelonious Monk's Mysterioso.

Computer imagery dances before a techno soundtrack.

A classic of abstract animation that follows a tiny red arrow's journey through a multitude of spirals of white and waterfalls of color. Directed by Caroline and Frank Mouris, preserved in 2020 thanks to a collaborative effort between the Academy Film Archive and the Yale Film Archive.

1995 Joan C. Gratz claymation short film

On a bleak island where monolithic concrete buildings rise above the windswept horizon lies work-colony #191286. Piwonka is one of a handful of migrant workers who are forced to work here under harsh conditions. He has been estranged for two months from his beloved wife when a fatal incident at the main drilling-tower occurs. Piwonka has a recurring dream of his wife where it feels like she's trying to communicate with him, to warn him perhaps, or guide his way.

The mutating forms of Tensai Banpaku, or “Genius Expo” create a stunning abstract orchestra.

A Dream... is an abstract, horror piece that explores the subconscious mind of modern, western man, touching on cultural guilt, self deception, and maintaining individuality in an impersonal world. The work is inspired by the writings of Franz Kafka.

Short film by Tomonari Nishikawa