Le Retour à la raison (1923)

Emmanuel Radnitsky (in art Man Ray) taught himself photography in order to reproduce his own works of art, which included paintings and mixed media. In 1921 he began to make photograms, which he called "Rayographs" (an object is placed between a light source and photo-sensitive film, in contrast to traditional photography where photographic film captures light reflected off an object). In the 1920s, he also began making moving pictures. He was disappointed that he was recognized only for his photography and not for the filmmaking, painting, sculpture and other media in which he worked.

Le Retour à la raison (Return to Reason, 1923) is one of the first Dada movies: it consists of various animated textures, Rayographs and the torso of Kiki of Montparnasse (Alice Prin), illuminated in striped light. For Le Retour à la raison, Man Ray sought to extend the rayograph technique to a moving image. He sprinkled salt and pepper on one piece of film, pins on another, illuminated the film for a few seconds, then developed the film. Man Ray added additional sequences to make the film of sufficient length to have an impact.
It also features a small segment of his work Danger.
This short film is a highly creative, non-narrative exploration of the possibilities of the cinema medium: the emphasis is, in fact, on playing with the possibility of representing light, shape and movement on film.
You can buy Photographs by Man Ray: 105 Works, 1920-1934, Man Ray (Artists of the 20th Century) and Unseen Cinema - Early American Avant Garde Film 1894-1941.

Salaryman Project


by Bruno Quinquet.

AM Syndicate - To the Peasants of the Emperor (2005)

In many ways, this film is experimental as it makes you dance around the line between reality and fiction through the use of animation and meta-narration. The final effect is awesome. You become a child once more as you watch it.


The music is by AM Syndicate, a band formed in the Spring of 2004 by Omar Chavez of Rhythm of Black Lines, Danny Wood of The Rise and later.
The animation is by Eric Power. He created Clear Productions, an independent production company spanning multiple styles of cinematic expression. Apart from creating films, he works freelance in the fields of photography, art and videography.

Maicol and Mirco


You can read Maicol and Mirco's works on Gli scarabocchi, Grasso, Petrolio, Schizzo, Kerosene, Motorino, Stripburger and many other magazines.

Recycled Life, 2006

Leslie Iwerks, documentarist granddaughter of famed animator and Disney collaborator U.B. Iwerks, helms the 38-minute muckraking nonfiction film Recycled Life.
She was shooting a project on the Mayas and traveling throughout all the country of Guatemala with a small crew. When they drove into the Antigua dump to unload some trash, they noticed two children, a brother and a sister living in a large cardboard box inside the dump. This was their home and they didn’t have any parents. And there are other people who lived like this.

If you watch this short film, you will encounter energetic and courageous people, surreal images: through these the filmaker traces the effects of a devastating cataclysm.
The generosity and spirit of so many people living in the most extreme poverty touched me beyond words.
It received a nomination at the 79th Academy Awards and it won prizes in various festivals.

Octopus



by Jesse Chehak.

Distinctions

2007 Magenta Foundation Emerging Photographer
2005 Print Magazine New Visual Artist Review: 20 Breakthrough Talents
2005 PDN 30

Le Songe d'un garcon de cafe (1910)

The Hasher's Dream in less than a minute & a half shows the surrealistic visions of a man under the influence of alcohol. Hasher, in his delirium, watches beautiful strange events and demons in an enormous moon.
The Hasher's Delirium (Le Songe d'un garcon de cafe, 1910) lends a hint of narrative structure rather than just showing transformations like in his previous shorts.


This short film is influenced by the prevailing art movements of the time. Emile Cohl's works had been associated with a group obsessed with insanity as an aesthetic subject, the Incoherents and with the pre-symbolist newsletter L'Hydropathe. Despite their stick-figure drawings, The Hasher's Delirium shows fluidity of motion, startling perspective animation and strange transformations of objects into one another.
You can buy Emile Cohl, Caricature, and Film and Saved From The Flames - 54 Rare and Restored Films 1896 - 1944.

E.S.U. 7


If you want to read E.S.U. 6, click here.

Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt (1927)

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt), is a 1927 German silent film directed by Walter Ruttmann, in collaboration with Carl Mayer (a screen writer who had co-written the script for Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari), Karl Freund (the director of Fox-Europe Production), and Lore Leudesdorff who had already assisted Ruttmann with Opus III and IV. It took over a year to photograph the film and they used movie cameras concealed in vans and suitcases to get realistic effects.
The music that accompanies the film was written by Edmund Meisel who also directed the orchestra at the film’s public opening at the Tauentzien-Palast in Berlin.
The film displays the filmmaker's knowledge of Soviet montage theory. It portrays the life of a city, mainly through visual impressions in a semi-documentary style, without a narrative content. Shots and scenes are cut together based on relationships of image, motion, point of view and thematic content. It's interesting to note that there many parallels exist between this film and Vertov's 1929 Man with a Movie Camera.

The events of the film are arranged to simulate the passage of a single day. The film is divided into five acts and each act is announced through a title card at the beginning and end. Much of the motion in the film and many of the scene transitions are built around the motion of trains and streetcars.
Berlin: Symphony of a Great City could seem superficial because of its interest in the aesthetics of the city at the expense of its human element and because it doesn't show a more detailed portrait of Berlin. Ruttmann was interested in the dynamism of movement and shapes and he aimed at making the viewer experience Berlin phenomenologically. He relies on editing, on a montage based on analogy and contrast to infuse the film with dynamism.
You can buy Berlin: Symphony of a Great City.

Abtu


Jaime Zollars. Her narrative images are a combination of collage and acrylic paint and often tell stories of people and places far away.

Cyclone Took My Baby (2002)

Paper Rad is a three collective artist group, comprised of Jessica Ciocci, Jacob Ciocci and Ben Jones. The group's name come from an extension of a weekly alternative comics paper that Jones self-published, Paper Radio.
The song is from Mixel Pixel's first album, Mappyland
Paper Rad has performed at the Whitney Biennial, at the Liverpool Biennial, at the New York City Gallery Deitch Projects, as well as the Tate Britain. Their works include videogames remixes, Flash animation, and open source Web projects.


This artistic group narrates story of our times in a way that isn't filtered through big-media spin or the historical revisionism of academic pundits. Their works are constantly infused with rebellious attitudes and iconoclastic positions. They are part of an art establishment that seems distant to many young people who should be getting inspired by art. Their caleidoscopic imagery is the result of mixing psychedelic images with Op Art and the pop culture with humor!
You can buy Taking out the Trash/Faces in the Trash.

Faccia (Face)


Giacomo Nanni's works are issued on Mano, Frame, Lo straniero, Hamelin, Inguine Mahgazine, Nonzi, Glomp, Sai Comics and Internazionale. He was the winner of Best Short Novel at Lucca Comics 2005, and he has received the award Nuove strade at the Napoli Comicon 2006. His books: Clara (Canicola, 2004), ZZZZ (Canicola, 2005), Storia di uno che andò` in cerca della paura (Coconino Press, 2006) and Cronachette (Coconino Press, 2007).

Ah Ma (2007)

Ah Ma is lying in the hospital, her life hanging by a thread. Her family gathers by her deathbed to send her off. Overwhelmed by sadness, they struggle to find their own way of coming to terms with the impending end.


This short film is inspired by the passing of Anthony Chen's grandmother in 2005. It's a sensitive observation of the ways people react and deal with death and seeks to be an honest exploration of the human condition.
It has received a Special Mention Award at the 60th Cannes Film Festival.

Nocturne


by Noel Rodo Vankeulen



AWARDS & DISTINCTIONS

Sheridan Scholar
Member of Dean's Honour Roll 2005 - 2007

Fantasmagorie (1908)

Fantasmagorie is the first all-animated film in history. An American named J. Stuart Blackton got there first with his films such as “The Enchanted Drawing” (1900) and “Humorous Phases of Funny Faces” (1906); but Blackton’s films were a mix of live action and animation.
Fantasmagorie is a surreal story: a series of scenes without much narrative structure, but morphing into each other. Emile Cohl creates a visual spectacle and orchestrates the action as he moves along.


He placed each drawing on an illuminated glass plate and then traced the next drawing-with variations-on top of it until he had some 700 drawings. The white line effect was the result of using a "negative reverse" changing the black line on paper to white on black.
Despite the fact that it has no plot or real point except to show off what animation can do and despite the relative crudeness of the drawings, Cohl’s wild and wacky imagination was daring, vibrant and wickedly funny and its short running time make it a joy to watch.

E.S.U. 6


If you want to read E.S.U. 5, click here.

An Inconvenient Truth, 2006

From director Davis Guggenheim comes the Sundance Film Festival hit, An Inconvenient Truth, which offers a passionate and inspirational look at one man's fervent crusade to halt global warming's deadly progress in its tracks by exposing the myths and misconceptions that surround it. A catastrophe we have helped create. Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb!


Davis Guggenheim's documentary is based mostly on Gore's multimedia presentation on climate change, a lecture he has delivered hundreds of times in recent months. While Gore is managing the show with powerful efficiency, there is nothing dry or tired about it. The former Vice President Al Gore re-set the course of his life to focus on a last-ditch, all-out effort to help save the planet from irrevocable change. With wit, intelligence and hope, An Inconvenient Truth ultimately brings home Gore's persuasive argument that we can no longer afford to view global warming as a political issue - rather, it is the biggest moral challenge facing our global civilization.


I did not find a single negative review based solely on the film’s art. But I found so many errors in this movie!
If the movie will help you judge for yourself which direction we should take, then Gore should dig deeper into the material. If you want to read a full report, you can download this pdf file.
However, this is on the whole a good film. It explains the facts very well, explains away the objections that people have been hearing about from the media and is also pretty funny at times.
You can buy An Inconvenient Truth and An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It.

Small Configuration 2




Patrick Smith has written, produced, animated, and directed five award winning films from 2000-2006. Smith made his directorial debut for the Emmy nominated MTV series "Down-Town", continuing on to direct the popular animated series "Daria." His bizarre, morphing style tells symbolic stories of identity and emotion, and have extended beyond film. His Public Art Installations have earned the artist a multitude of accolades outside the world of animation, his fine art is currently represented internationally by CVZ Contemporary Gallery in New York.. You can buy: Liquid Tales, Avoid Eye Contact, Vol. I, Avoid Eye Contact, Vol. II, Spike and Mike's Cutting Edge Classics.

Sukkis' Story (2005)

Sukki's Story reflects on Thomas Leung's changing relationship with his mother when he leaves Hong Kong to start his new life in a new country. The narration is often non-linear as we are unsure of where Sukki's new life will take him or what obstacles lie ahead in the future which could lead to an inner and/or imaginative journey.


This short film has won the Victorian Student Animation Festival 2005 for Best Sound Design. It has also been selected as part of the Australian Digital Shorts Program at the Sydney Film Festival 2006.
You can feel the sorrow and the joy the scenes bring. It is a simple and yet powerful film with a soul. It's not just a story. It's an incredible animation for its magical atmosphere and tenderness!

La Scala di Schild (Schild's Staircase)


by Franco Brambilla. He has created the cat and dog character Full & Berto. He collaborates weekly with the economic supplement of the Corriere della Sera. He also founded AIRSTUDIO, together with Pierluigi Longo and Giacomo Spazio.
He has worked for some of the biggest italian publishing houses creating the covers for various sci-fi books and novels.

Rhythmus 21 (1921)

Richter's earliest experiments were hardly more than tests, Rhythmus 21 is a serious abstract animation composed solely of squares and rectangles that change shape. Artists like Luis Bunuel & Fritz Lang were influenced by him.
Hans Richter was a painter, graphic artist, avant-gardist, film-experimenter and producer. He was influenced by Cubism and Expressionism and joined in the Dadaist movemet in the 1916. Richter’s collaboration with Viking Eggeling on drawings, abstract sketches, and most importantly on ‘scroll paintings’, provided the inspiration for Rhythmus 21.



The original film was roughly two minutes long. Over the next two years Richter worked on the film and extended it to almost seven minutes. Before October 16th, 1927 when the film was screened at the Film Society in London, Richter divided the film in two parts and later on called it Rhythmus 21 and Rhythmus 23. In the following year Richter created another chapter, Rhytmus 25, which didn't survive.
These forms appear in very simple to very complex compositions-from the beginning shots where the squares appear with the frame. In Rhythmus 23 there are more angle and line overlays rather than adherence to the squares as in Rhytmus 21.
It's very interesting how these short films resemble some aspects of 1950's beatnik art & 1960's op art. The final effect is a subversion of the cinematic illusion of depth. Richter creates a precise rhythm with the movement of these shapes and suggests connections through opposites: black/white, left/right, top/bottom and creates visual associations with geometric patterns.

Greenland


Olaf Otto Becker


Exhibitions


2008 Gallery Cohen Amador New York, Broken line, January - March 2008
2008 Gallery Stephen Cohen, Los Angeles, Broken line, 20th of March 2008
2008 Gallery f.5.6, Munich, Broken line, 3rd.of April. 2008
2008 Powerhouse New York, Shifting Landscapes, April 2008
2008 New York Photofestival, Mai 2008

Le Coeur Est un Metronome (2007)

Father and son. The relationship between children and their parents is always problematic. A father is proud of his new baby son, takes photographs of him and throws the child into the air for sheer joy. What happens when both adults throw a tantrum and storm out of the house? Will the son be proud of the father?



In this short film, dancing is the high point of the exchanges between the two characters: it is their only means of communication.
Le Coeur Est un Metronome is Jean-Charles Mbotti-Malolo's graduation movie and was awarded the "Recommendation Prize".

E.S.U. 5



If you want to read E.S.U. 4, click here.

Rabbit Stories (2006)

Sean Conway has directed Rocco Paris, A Place that Glows, Rabbit Stories and Son of Steve.
Rabbit Stories is a study of mental illness; a portrait of a young schizophrenic man called Fenton Fuller. The film doesn't really have a start, middle and ending narrative because Fenton himself jumps all over the place. We learn things about him but we cannot be sure if they are true or just in his head as many of the scenes (if not all) exist within his head rather than in the reality of the film. Life is an exploration made more manageable by like associations, similar philosophies, and a belief in liberation as both a blessing and a curse .It’s a movie that sticks with you long after the final image has faded away.




Behind the scenes


Aaron Hobson has created a series of images that are quickly gaining international attention with their unique approach to the traditional genre of panoramic photography.

Exhibitions:

Tenderpixel Gallery, 2008
Drkrm. Gallery, Fall 2008
Ivy Brown's Go Fish Gallery, December 2007
7444° Gallery, Septermber 2007