Spiral Labyrinth

For the multimedia exhibition Tangenten I (Tangents I), Dammbeck and co-organizer, sculptor and painter Frieder Heinze had planned to collaborate on a film that would combine non-camera animation with 35mm footage of a train ride between the two Dresden districts of Radebeul and Pieschen. When the exhibition was banned in 1978, Heinze turned to other projects, but Dammbeck continued working on the film by himself. Metamorphoses I—the first experimental film ever to be shown publicly in East Germany—marks the filmic beginning of Dammbeck’s long-term art project the Herakles-Konzept (Hercules Concept).

Begins as a whimsical piece with 'sheets' of lines running down the screen, progressing into more and more complex geometic patterns but without deviating from the basic precepts of 'dot and line' animation. Jazz piano on a lazy Sunday afternoon, and a spring color palette. -- Stephanie Sapienza. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2001.

An experimental avant-garde film where the character battles with herself, struggling to understand and embrace her true identity. Blending dream-like and reality sequences together, the film connotes inside the character’s mind. Escaping to different parts of her subconscious, she is met with confrontation, fear & desire. This piece of work highlights themes of identity, surrealism & subjectivity, where the instability of the self is at the forefront of the film. The film uses elements of mixed media montage to portray the character’s inner thoughts.

Hacking a claw machine inside C4D.

An experimental short from Oskar Fischinger

Maxed out, burnt out, and sex-starved, Amber Su falls under the spell of glamorous self-help guru Coco Ging, whose mentorship turns desire and ambition into different kinds of debt. Repression evolves into possession as Amber molts into a new ego: a worksona.

Polish avant-garde animation in which a periodic series of aggressive starbursts interrupt the melodic dancing of fluid shapes, one raid even freezing the image for a moment.

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.

Following a morphing blob of flesh through an artificial landscape of urban textures we take part in a process of creation and adaption. From a simple square to increasingly complex moving patterns, the organic seems to get lost in the artificial which begins to dominate rhythm and structure of the world.

With the abundance of antiques and culture in Jordan, you can only see so much of the essence of traditional craftsmanship in a blink of an eye. This film showcases the beauty of old Hong Kong, all in a glimpse of textiles, flasks, paintings and statuettes.

A minimalist optical sound meditation on simplicity and repetition building complex arrangements of audio-visual oneness, where the most basic geometric shapes draw intricate visual and sonic patterns.

Translating and encapsulating the director's personal childhood experiences as well as past lived experiences, You build a home in my mind comprises of playground rides, the everyday scenery outside the window of the artist's studio, and unique, special objects recalled from memories—weaving together a melody that lures the viewers to roam and wander. As the boat navigates between reality and imagination, resembling a journey of constant loss and persistent search, the scenes become slightly different when they reappear, these scenes alluding to the repetitiveness and uncertainty of life.

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.

An experimental short from Oskar Fischinger

'This Socks' is a stop motion animation short film that experiments with different techniques to illustrate a common everyday annoyance.

Autumn adventurers unite! "Leaf Peeper" takes you on a frantic frolic of Fall foliage until your eyes pop out. Shot on Super 8 in single frames with pixilation, puppet stop motion, frenetic pans, and plenty of plaid, this very short short film packs every second with as many picturesque and picaresque frames as possible, turning leaf peeping into equal parts immersion therapy and extreme sport to capture the sublime bliss of a lovely day out and about.

Seraphim Cloud and his life size doppelgänger enter the netherworld of Calico Ghost Town deep within the Mojave Desert.

This is the second film in the series, ‘Between Regularity and Irregularity’. This work continues to focus on the fluctuations and changes of sounds, tone qualities, movement of particles, and forms. With regard to movements of particles, it uses movements triggered by living organisms such as the structures and cells in the brains of mice, as well as particles and lines in non-living things.

Len Lye usually timed his films with great care to match their soundtracks, but for All Souls Carnival, he and composer Henry Brant worked separately, preferring to see if the score and visual track would synchronise by chance. Lye also experimented with a new Direct Film technique, drenching the filmstrip in colourful paint and marker pen.

In this short film, a young man, a girl and a dog attempt to fly with wings more symbolic than practical.