Dragonfly

This is a didactic film in disguise. A progression of brilliant geometric shapes bombard the screen to the insistent beat of drums. The filmmaker programmed a computer to coordinate a highly complex operation involving an electronic beam of light, colour filters and a camera. This animation film, without words, is designed to expose the power of the cinematic medium, and to illustrate the abstract nature of time.

In Flesh Flows we see a balance of Beckett’s keen drawing ability, in the probing erotic forms, and his technical acuity, which transforms the carnal images into a compelling, transcendent experience. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with iotaCenter and National Film Preservation Foundation in 2007.

Two Space systematically explores symmetries used by Islamic artists to create abstract temple decorations. The two dimensional patterns, like the tile patterns of Islamic temples, are generated by performing a set of symmetry operations (translations, rotations, and reflections) upon a basic figure or tile. Two Space consists of twelve such patterns produced using each of nine different animating figures (12 x 9 = 108 total). Rendered in stark black and white, the patterns produce optical illusions of figure-ground reversal and afterimages of color. Gamelan music from the classical tradition of Java adds to the mesmerizing effect.

A lensless exploration of hair on 35mm film.

Enigma is something of a more glamorous version of White Hole, with a wide variety of elaborate textures (often composed of iconographic and religious symbols) converging towards the centre of the screen.

A trip towards abstraction, as an hypothesis on how mountains might have been formed.

D'art moderne

Peter Larsson’s Keyhole Conversation draws the eye down to the small gate of the camera. From there, through quivering and percussive forms of direct and stop-motion animation, the eye begins to experience the scale of an image anew. At times segueing into a flicker, but maintaining a charmed form of attention to the marks of pencils and the channels dredged in emulsion by a paintbrush, all to a curious soundtrack of pulses and bleeps.

Torn from their home by a hand in the sky, colorful entities seek freedom from a rigid binary in this short experimental animation.

An abstract computer-generated film. The image is of squares revolving in space around and through each other. Colors and forms multiply and divide against a beautiful symphonic score by George Kleinsinger.

A film about uncanny valleys and the space between. Painted 16mm film undergoes a monstrous transformation becoming neither analog nor digital.

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

Sixteen 'objects', each consisting of one hundred points of light, perform a series of precisely choreographed rhythmic transformations. Accompanied by the sound of a Shakuhachi (the Japanese bamboo flute), the film is an exercise in the visual perception of motion and mathematical structure.

In this animated short, simple geometric forms as thin and flat as playing cards constantly form and re-form to the sound of the koto, a 13-stringed Japanese instrument.

The screen is divided again and again until the picture arranged in ever changing strips bursts into whirring dynamic.

A hand moves gently, its presence shifts continuously.

Repetition and distortion drive this audiovisual collaboration between composer Lux Prima and visual artist Max Hattler, where fuzzy analogue music and geometric digital animation collide in an electronic feedback loop, spawning arrays of divisional articulations in time and space.

A mathematical play on one repeated movement. It imparts a sense of possibilities: that something simple can produce complex and unexpected patterns. As with an atom, the variety of possibilities from a base movement is potentially infinite.

Serlasanha

Hand painted directly onto film stock by Margaret Tait, this film features animated dancing figures, accompanied by authentic calypso music.