Billy Doucette's Hornpipe

Evolution of the Red Star

January 1973 •English

Music: Carl Stone. Colored pen-and-ink drawings, like topological maps of biomorphic objects, grow and evolve from the red star. Once the master image is formed, this continuously throbbing, pulsating sight is used to ring changes based on years of optical work. Music and picture work together to create a mood of ecstatic tranquility. The bright colors, beautiful music, surprise at the end, etc. make this a good film for young children. Awards: Sinking Creek Film & Video Festival, 1973; Washington National Student Film Festival, 1974; Brooklyn Independent Filmmakers Exposition, 1974; Vanguard Int'l Competition of Electronic Music for Film, 1974; Humboldt Film Festival, 1974. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with iotaCenter and National Film Preservation Foundation in 2007.

Color Cry

November 1952 •English

In 1944 Lye moved to New York City, initially to direct for the documentary newsreel The March of Time. He settled in the West Village, where he mixed with artists who later became the Abstract Expressionists, encouraged New York’s emerging filmmakers such as Francis Lee, taught with Hans Richter, and assisted Ian Hugo on Bells of Atlantis. Color Cry was based on a development of the “rayogram” or “shadow cast” process, using fabrics as stencils, with the images synchronized to a haunting blues song by Sonny Terry, which Lye imagined to be the anguished cry of a runaway slave. —Harvard Film Archive

Plus Minus

January 1967 •Finnish

A short avant-garde film from Finnish director Eino Ruutsalo.

Jet Set

March 2007 •Serbian

The Serbian trash folk "Grand" production is attacked by aliens and a young hero folk singer named Boban Zdravkovic has to time travel with Sejo Kovac to defeat the aliens once and for all.

The Birth of the Robot

October 1936 •English

This experiment was a “prestige advertisement” for Shell Motor Oil. As conventional animation became dominated by Walt Disney, many European filmmakers turned to puppets as an alternative, and Lye enlisted the help of avant-garde friends such as Humphrey Jennings and John Banting to make the amusing puppets. Exploring the still-complex color process, which involved the combination of three separate images, Lye creates such a vivid storm scene that reviewers hailed it as “proof that the color film has entered a new stage.” The music is Holst’s The Planets. - Harvard Film Archive

Tal Farlow

January 1958 •English

Lye created a series of scratched images in the 1950s – more regular or geometric than his usual style – to accompany Rock ‘n’ Rye, a track by jazz guitarist Tal Farlow, but he did not get far with the editing. He returned to the material in 1980 but died before it was completed. His assistant Steven Jones finished the film under the supervision of Lye’s widow Ann, who had been closely involved with all of Lye’s American films. - Harvard Film Archive

Particles in Space

January 1980 •English

Lye completed his last great film a few months before his death at the age of 78. The film returned to the black-and-white techniques of Free Radicals. Lye created what he called “vibrant little images” or “zig-zags” with a sense of “zizz”. The clusters of small scratches gave the film a unique texture – the images looked rough but were in fact extremely subtle. The title Particles in Space referred to flashes of energy of the kind sometimes seen by astronauts in space. The soundtrack combined “Jumping Dance Drums” from the Bahamas with drum music by the Yoruba of Nigeria and the sounds of Lye’s metal kinetic sculptures. The opening titles demonstrated Lye’s mastery of the scratching of letters and words on film, a method imitated by other film-makers such as Stan Brakhage.

Mediterranean Landscape

November 2021 •Greek

This handmade silent film is a sociopolitical satire of our everyday life in Cyprus. Part of the Cyprus Collage Trilogy.

Street Musique

November 1972 •English

Animator Ryan Larkin does a visual improvisation to music performed by a popular group presented as sidewalk entertainers. His take-off point is the music, but his own beat is more boisterous than that of the musicians. The illustrations range from convoluted abstractions to caricatures of familiar rituals. Without words.

Spheres

January 1969 •English

This animated short is a play on motion set against a background of multi-hued sky. Spheres of translucent pearl float weightlessly in the unlimited panorama of the sky, grouping, regrouping or colliding like the stylized burst of some atomic chain reaction. The dance is set to the musical cadences of Bach, played by pianist Glenn Gould.

No. 11: Mirror Animations

December 1956 •English

Cut up animation and collage technique by Harry Smith synchronized to the jazz of Thelonious Monk's Mysterioso.

Artificial Intelligence, 2023

January 2024 •English

Composed entirely of AI-generated visuals and providing an abstract representation of the evolution of AI video, processed entirely through a VCR.

Lotus

January 2007 •Japanese

Vivid, chromatic animation.

Behold the Man

July 1977 •English

Dialogue between a man from Earth and an alien about the advantages and darker sides of earthly civilization

Bunnyhood

February 2024 •English

What could possibly be more important than feeding your daughter?

3-D

February 2024 •English

3-D is a hand-painted experimental short film by Riley Hogan. Acrylic paint, ink and scratching were used to animate on clear Super 8mm film leader.

Zero One

July 2018 •English

Zero One is a code-based generative video commissioned by Zero One Technology Festival 2018 in Shenzhen, PR China. This project consists of multiple interlinked generative systems, each of which has its customized features, but collectively share the core concept of an evolving elementary cellular automaton.

MÜ : Architectures protéiformes

March 2024 •French

Dam$els of Luxury

June 2024 •English

Amanda's stoner slumber party is put to a halt when one of her guests is nowhere to be found.

When the Lights Goes on in the Darkroom

November 2022 •English

Chaotic poem read by a bimbo voice in cute piggery perfumed with poppers, the body loosen and is thinking about other possibilities of bottoming while deconstructing penetration, moving with fluids.