Movies: Abstract

Although only a couple of minutes long, this animated short makes the point that oxygen is the stuff of life whether on land, in the air or water, but that it is becoming scarcer as man-made pollutants crowd it out. This is a film without words in wh...

A ghost follows its non-existent shadow across a series of windows that gives light but no direction. As the ghost moves, a poem is read that serves as its guide....

A woman carries a cat in a shopping bag that refuses to be petted. Tired of its behaviour, she violently strikes the bag repeatedly against a wall. Then, with the blood of the animal, she draws a heart pierced by an arrow....

In stark contrast to video, "Hand Made" focuses on the grain of the celluloid and the organic nature of emulsion. It was created by contact printing images with a flashlight in a darkroom without the use of a camera, labs, digital editing or any type...

Using century old technology, PXXXL creates digital glitch from analog process. It was animated directly on the celluloid without a camera, in a darkroom, using lights, objects, and handmade lenses. There is no digital manipulation involved-- just l...

"An exciting experiment in the tradition of Oskar Fischinger (Komposition in Blau, 1935), Dwinell Grant (Composition No. 1, 1940) and Slavko Vorkapich (Abstract Experiment in Kodachrome, 1950s). Max Hattler presents a well-done interaction between mu...

At dusk, an observer captures an absurd phenomenon....

With 8 Switches, Tim Wright presents six black-and-white microcinematic vignettes of retina-searing, hard-edged, epilepsy-inducing sound and vision; digital hallucinations drained of colour, synchronized to a soundtrack that is relentless and unsenti...

A Dream... is an abstract, horror piece that explores the subconscious mind of modern, western man, touching on cultural guilt, self deception, and maintaining individuality in an impersonal world. The work is inspired by the writings of Franz Kafka....

An attempt at “total art” performed during the 2020 lockdown....

Short experimental animation....

Life in the Atom was never completed but the existing version was digitally restored in 2009. The film depicts an ever-changing world inhabited by a man and woman engaged in surreal, erotic contortions. Their bodies are in a constant state of metamor...

In this powerful abstract film with a soundtrack of African drum music, Lye scratched "white ziggle-zag-splutter scratches" on to black leader, using a variety of tools from saw teeth to arrow heads. The first version of the film won a major award at...

Film by Paul Clipson. Music by Jefre Cantu Ledesma....

The animation referred to as Early Animations or Quacked Jokes is an anomaly among Beckett's films. It was probably not intended to be shown outside of his sphere of friends, being a collection of early experiments and directions. While lacking the s...

Adams Film is a visual collage combining live action footage with abstract images and textures drawn onto 16mm film stock. Footage of a casual Janiak family gathering is sandwiched between superimposed garden scenes and rebellious direct animation. T...

Early Abstractions is a collection of seven short animated films created by Harry Everett Smith between 1939 and 1956. Each film is between two and six minutes long, and is named according to the chronological order in which it was made. The collecti...

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....

An expression of time and memories....

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 o...