Sketch Film #3

Sketch Film #3 (Tomonari Nishikawa, 2006, 3 min., super 8, silent, 18/24fps, b&w, USA/Japan) The third film in the series, which starts with a sequence of paired images: a focused image and a blurred image of the same subject, which was caused by a diagonal camera movement. Later, it shows an experiment to produce an apparent depth by rotating an apparent shape. It was edited in camera and hand-processed afterwards.

D'art moderne

Trans/Figure/Ground

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

Twilight

An exploration of the relationship between sound and picture inspired by the two lights (twi-light) found inside film projectors.

13 Years Later

A perfect blending of the art of maths and the maths of art.

Let X Equal X

A sequence of hand-drawn experiments. Constants: visualist, technology, run time. Independent variables: musician, drawing materials, theme. Dependent variables: you tell me!

Fly Us To The Moons

A swarm of forms, reminiscent of alien spaceships or mechanical bats suspended in space.

VIVAldi VVinter

A deep dive into a snowstorm of structural chaos and a blizzard of exploding gestural animation.

Divisional Articulations

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.

Two Space

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 Day In LC

A person living in Liberty City goes to work, have some food & gets back home.

Enigma (謎)

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.

Perspectrum

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.

Squares

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.

humming, fast and slow

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

Thine Own Self

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

Rectangle & Rectangles

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.

Keep on Turning

In Wiertz and Verbeek's kinetic, kaleidoscopic opus Keep on Turning (1974, 3 min, 16mm, sound) cubes convey, rotate and shift in tandem.

Not Even Nothing Can Be Free of Ghosts

Rainer Kohlberger’s abstract film was created entirely without a camera. Through digital algorithms, he precisely arranged a rhythm of light and shadow that pulsates off the screen into our physical space with blinding intensity. The presence of light is almost felt as we are sucked into the image to become its ghostly accomplice. As we leave the theatre, the optical vibrations continue to haunt us.

Flesh Flows

“[T]he sense of moving forward [in space or time] alternates with a sense of expansion and contraction, as the finished cycle [of movement] returns to itself and rushes to catch up with its successor.” (Gadassik) Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with iotaCenter and National Film Preservation Foundation in 2007.