Ideas in Search of Light

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.

In 1958, graduates of the Film School in Łódź – director Mieczysław Waśkowski and camera operator Adam Nurzyński – produced in cooperation with Tadeusz Kantor the short film Somnambulists. The colourful, painting-like moving image was an attempt at transferring the informel onto film stock.

An abstract animated short by Michael Theodore.

In this surrealistic and free-form follow-up to the Monkees' television show, the band frolic their way through a series of musical set pieces and vignettes containing humor and anti-establishment social commentary.

The working-class Smiths change their initially sunny views on World War I after the five boys of the family witness the harsh reality of trench warfare.

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.

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

Produced by Harvested Records, iShoot, iEdit is a fan-created DVD documenting Roger Waters' 2010 Wall Live tour. Released on Veteran's Day (November 11, 2010) and dedicated to all fallen loved ones. Filmed at The United Center, Chicago, IL September 20 & 21 Additional footage filmed at The Nassau Coliseum, Long Island, NY October 12 & 13. The foundation of all the footage (and audio) was taken from 9/20. Additional shots are from the 9/21, 10/12 and 10/13 shows and all are from tapehead2's HD master files. "iShoot, iEdit" (HRV DVD 019)

袋 Fukuro (Japanese for "bag" or "sack") is a 3-minute short film from 2001. It features Pyramid Head and a Lying Figure from Silent Hill 2, the Fukuro Lady, and many monsters from early sketches for Silent Hill 2. The film contains disturbing, surreal imagery.

Ki-No-Ko is a surreal five-minute short film published on Art of Silent Hill, Lost Memories: The Art & Music of Silent Hill and The Silent Hill Experience.

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.

Borrowing its title from a treatise by Aristotle, the latest film by Makino Takashi is an abstract work that finds its drive in the clash between light and darkness. Entirely composed of superimposed images of Tokyo’s landscape and water sites, the film takes its rhythm from the cycles of repetition that are the pillars of life and civilisation. As light emerges from the chaos, Jim O’Rourke’s ambient drone sets the tone for what is to come.

A horse goddess gives birth to three powerful brothers who set out into the Underworld to save three princesses from three evil dragons and reclaim their ancestors' lost kingdom.

This is no animation, it's one picture. Short experimental film by Mirai Mizue

This short experiments with the flow of oil ink over the surface of the water. Mizue manipulated the ink by blowing with straws or stirring with toothpicks and used stop motion animation techniques to shoot the resulting effects.

A surreal short animation by Mirai Mizue.

Anti-war animation about man's passions for self-destruction by experimenting with dangerous chemicals.

Two baby squirrels ask grandpa to explain what "men" are when he comes in singing "peace on earth, goodwill to men". Grandpa tells the story of man's last war. This classic animation short was an Academy Award Best Short Subject, Cartoons nominee.

She's here. She comes closer. Is she in front of me? Now she, by herself, becomes her.

One day the animals become too colorful: war is constantly going on among the people. When Alois, the lion, learns that the 365th Peace Conference has just failed, the animals decide that it is high time to intervene: they call their own "animal" peace conference. With much courage and even more imagination, they develop a plan so that Frides can finally prevail among the people of the world ...