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.
Social & External
The screen is divided again and again until the picture arranged in ever changing strips bursts into whirring dynamic.
The story of Adam and Eve with jazzy music. Short experimental animation without words.
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.
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 vibrant animation by Patricia Marx. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2000.
In the darkness of a cave, one man who had never seen even his own figure found a hollow flooded with light. An expression of a chaotic world. This experimental graduation film is a mixture of different animation techniques
High Voltage is constructed from footage James Whitney contributed to Belson for use in one of his Vortex concerts.
This visual poetry is a celebration of the full spectrum of womanhood, from the complex vulnerability to the hidden power.
"Mouris’s film, YOU’RE NOT REAL PRETTY BUT YOU’RE MINE…, built upon the strongest elements of QUICK DREAM, and added a pop music soundtrack. Mouris says, “I shot another 100 foot roll on classmate Jerry Strawbridge’s home animation stand, and edited that into the best sequences from QUICK DREAM. The whole film was a tongue-in-cheek series of odd couples/couplings, which the title suggested. The FRANK FILM photo collage animation evolved here.” - Yale
A unique journey across a topography created entirely from a form of digital light and shadow—a bristling terrain of poles bending the light in every direction. This film is the remake of Barcode, an abstract road-movie about light and shadows.
Three books: a film festival catalogue, a dictionary, the Bible. Three works whose materiality has become obsolete by the digital dematerialization. A commentary on the fragility of culture.
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.
Confined to an endlessly burning waiting room, a dying sedentary woman experiences herself blurring in and out of her body. In her last remaining fragments she tries to make amends with her spirit before her remaining fragments either decay or create.
An abstract animated film inspired by the work of jazz musician Chico Hamilton.
Abstract animation by Boris Labbé
This newly rediscovered short was created in Jim's home studio in Bethesda, MD around 1961. It is one of several experimental shorts inspired by the music of jazz great Chico Hamilton. At the end, in footage probably shot by Jerry Juhl, Jim demonstrates his working method.
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.
A classic of abstract animation that follows a tiny red arrow's journey through a multitude of spirals of white and waterfalls of color. Directed by Caroline and Frank Mouris, preserved in 2020 thanks to a collaborative effort between the Academy Film Archive and the Yale Film Archive.
