Monsters open their jaws, coloured dots spring from the depths – the art of animation showed its psychedelic potential early on. In 1832, movement illusions were drawn on discs – today, the phenakistiscope has long been a fixture of club culture. An intoxicating evening of optical-kinetic miracles in eight films and a live set by Sculpture from London.
The Phenakistiscope in 3D: Guido Devadder has created a sculpture that shows the ghostly march of silently screaming people across a landscape of stretched-out arms and grasping hands in small animation loops. To Kaitlin McSweeney’s enchanting vocals and the beat of an old machine, he tells the dark fairytale of the constant cycle of desire and greed.
To the sweeping sound of a sitar, thousands and thousands of dots orbit a kaleidoscopic centre, like the individual notes of a raga circle the keynote. Repeated graphic patterns blossom and crumble back into the mass. As traditional as the reference points for James Whitney's breathtaking visual music were, the realisation with early computer animation by his brother John Whitney was just as innovative.
Breathtakingly beautiful and precisely synchronised circles perform linear movements – sensual highs, but based on science. Electronica producer and science PhD Max Cooper has found the perfect visual fit for his euphoric and driving track in a geometrical principle described by Gerolamo Cardano in 1570 and in Mario Carrillo’s animation.
The multicoloured dotted record is on the turntable and spins, the handheld stroboscope emits its flashes of light. The mesmerising rain of confetti begins to the beat of the psychedelic organ krautrock celebrated by the Finnish Shogun Kunitoki quartet. A manual for home use that demonstrates how the picture disc, when used correctly, can sweep us off our feet acoustically and optically.
Photosensitivity warning: Contains flashes of light that may trigger seizures for people with visual sensitivities.
Gruesome grimaces, craftsmen at work, running animals, wild fountains of colours – the “not yet films” from the prehistory of cinema were only sixteen animation images long, but they left people amazed and satisfied the sensation-seekers. Parisian artist Dominique Willoughby has retrieved some 19th century wonder discs from the archives and re-animated them in a variety of ways to minimalist music.
Will Bishop-Stephens has been working on kinetic sculptures he calls “Thrum” since 2020. Version IX links a bicycle wheel to a guitar. Butterfly wings, snail shells, poppy seed capsules and feathers grow and shrink on the spokes, the guitar strings produce a vibrating drone. The animation and sound machine takes us to a state of floating.
Rectangular shapes in luminous colours proliferate in a black void. They resemble phosphenes, the subjective perceptions of lights that can appear when we rub our closed eyelids. Coloured round surfaces circle each other, even though they live in separate graphic worlds. Lillian Schwartz, pioneer of computer animation, uses the EXPLOR 2D programming language to simulate strange and fantastic galaxies.
At first everything in this music video by the London duo Sculpture is two-dimensional. But better duck down while watching! On intricately composed levels of space, graphic elements whiz wildly past your eyes and broken beats whistle violently past your ears. Zyprazol is medicinal, a mind-expanding drug – just like the animation records made by Sculpture.
