Our annual survey of abstract and experimental animation. Animators working in this field employ every technique from hand-drawn ‘musical scores’ all the way across the scale to high definition, computer assisted image making. These films share a pure love of animated movement and an artist’s eye for filling the screen, harnessing colour and creating non-narrative imagery.
At Barbican book tickets
Until we Coleidescape (Reinhold Bidner, Austria)
Harmonic oscillations, created hand in hand with sound and diffraction glasses. A colourful kaleidoscope of abstract animation loops.
2017, 4min
Bird Milk (Christopher Strickler, Canada)
The magnified details of inks, stencils, and printed media.
2018, 4min
String of Sound (John Morena, USA)
Human mouth noises and a single piece of string.
2017, 1min
Sun Zoom Spark (Gina Kamentsky, USA)
The magnetic sun looms over lonely water towers and hidden spaces under a highway overpass. Inspired by the song “Sun Zoom Spark” by Captain Beefheart.
2017, 2min
Max Planck (Jonathan Gillie, UK)
Dilate your eyes and enjoy. A pulsating cornucopia of visual delights.
2017, 3min
Not My Type (Gerd Gockell, Switzerland)
The history of typography, print media and a mosquito.
2017, 3min
Aerobie (Bastien Dupriez, France)
On the track of a velodrome, a cyclist starts his race.
2017, 4min
Kajtek (Aga Jarzab, Poland)
Serene objects, shapes and spheres gently collide in a celestial world.
2017, 3min
Twilight (Richard Reeves, Canada)
Exploring the relationship between sound and picture, and the two lights (twi-light) found inside of film projectors.
2018, 2min
Elegy (Paul Bush, Switzerland/UK)
A film of stone and light – just stone and light.
2017, 6min
Divisional Articulations (Max Hattler, Hong Kong)
Fuzzy analogue music and geometric digital animation collide in an electronic feedback loop spawning arrays of divisional articulations in time and space.
2017, 4min
Cosmopolite (Rina Okada, Japan)
A subtle and softened x-ray tinted journey through an opaque, undescribable stratosphere.
2017, 4min
A One-Minute History of Image Distortions (Betina Kuntzsch, Germany)
We see the machinery of image projection fail all the time. What happens when art steps in and takes over the process?
2017, 1min
Chante en Couleur (Dirk de Bruyn, Australia)
A caravan of experimental imagery created from reaching deep in the soundtrack area of analogue film stock.
2017, 4min
Via (Maria Ferreira, USA)
An increasingly astounding patchwork quilt unfolds as the earth from the air provides more and more creative inspiration.
2017, 6min
Small Things Moving in Unison (Vicky Smith, UK)
Perforations made directly into 16mm black leader –the effect of retarding motion.
2018, 5min
Home (A Portrait of New York City) (John Morena, USA)
A portrait of New York City in three parts.
2017, 2min
Dreamland (Mirai Mizue, France)
Retro-futuristic structures proliferate and pulsate to synthetic baroque music. Geometric grandeur with maximum opulence.
2017, 5min
