It was exactly one year ago tomorrow that I first posted about Advanced Beauty. I’ve been literally obsessed with its evolution ever since. Boasting an incredible list with some of the best talent working in motion graphics today – we’re talking Mate Steinforth, Carl Burgess, Karsten Schmidt, Robert Seidel, Pandapanther, Peppermelon, Minivegas, and way more – it’s easily been one of my most anticipated projects of the year.
I was hooked (freakishly in love with, actually) Advanced Beauty from the second I saw its jaw-dropping teaser trailer:
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Finally, after all the waiting, the HD-DVD is now for sale around the world and I got my hands on one last week. This is one of the rare and wonderful moments where you can declare, unequivocably and without reserve, that the result was absolutely beyond worth the wait. I watched it three times in a row on my first sitting. The art it contains doesn’t look and feel like anything you’ve ever seen before. It’s immersing and alive and doesn’t bombard the senses as much as slowly, lucidly, brilliantly fill them. It’s legal mind drugs. Glorious.
Advanced Beauty, hands down, full out, is absolutely my favourite project – in any media or genre – for 2008. And one of the most visually arresting and amazing thing I have ever seen in my whole life.
It feels to me like Advanced Beauty is one of those rarest thing in this modern, economy-threatened, bottom line world: a lush, beautiful, sensory-engrossing work of experimental art… just because. Art for the sake of art. Not for commericals, or movie credits, or music videos. But a forum for masters of a flourishing computer-genre new wave of design to experiment and drive their own forefront. It’s stuff like this that will drive the idea of art forward in the digital age. Advanced beauty indeed.
There is no picking favourites with a list of creators like this, but here are some of my favourite snippets, just to entice you. Curator Matt Pyke and his team at Universal Everything were ingenious in the way they marketed and grew buzz: they were generous with HD film clips like these, there was an Advanced Beauty podcast available on iTunes, there was a Facebook group they actually posted shit to. It was truly modern marketing, to a very wired and tech-savvy target audience, for a decidedly modern work of art. And there’s nothing about it not to love.
Mate Steinforth
Vodpod videos no longer available.Karsten Schmidt
Vodpod videos no longer available.Carl Burgess
Vodpod videos no longer available.Pandapanther
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shape+colour 
Ok, Ive never seen anything like this before. This is so incredible. were can I find other links?
Im seeing the DVD for sale, where is the HD-DVD? A link would be very much appreciated