Orogenesis

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.

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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.

A vibrant animation by Patricia Marx. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2000.

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.

A film unmade-- That is, Survage's film was never realized in the traditional sense-- At the time, such a project was beyond technological possibility. His pioneering efforts to combine luminous, expressive painting and the moving picture were further curtailed by the outbreak of WWI. Some have taken it upon themselves to 'animate' his watercolor plates in attempts to set his dream into motion.

It is a 2D experimental animation which is accompanied by the music, “Pulse At The Centre Of Being” composed by Max Cooper. Beautiful things happened inside a human through different combinations of flowers, organs and body parts.

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.

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 hand moves gently, its presence shifts continuously.

This visual poetry is a celebration of the full spectrum of womanhood, from the complex vulnerability to the hidden power.

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.

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.

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.

Abstract animation by Boris Labbé

Abstract animation by Boris Labbé

Abstract animation by Boris Labbé