hydra: homunculus.

“Homunculus” is a bizarrely absurd twist on two concepts; one ancient and one psychological. The first of an annual series of experimental shorts from HumbleTV’s in-house team Hydra, “Homunculus” begins as a study of things too small to be seen and too slow to be known. Air and gas and bacteria that slowly rot, pulling at the molecules and fibres of the natural world until they decay. Time, slowly pulling away at the insides of everything alive.

After that, things get really nasty.

Described by Hydra as “…taking its title from the Latin word for “Little Human”, the piece is an associative mashup between the two concepts behind the word: The first being middle-age alchemical beliefs that “little men” could be spontaneous generated from dead or decaying matter.  The second being Carl Jung’s usage as a personification of pure id.  These ideas, combined with our love of Dutch still life’s “beautiful decay,” sowed the seeds for this unique little monster of a film.”

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They began be sealing off an entire still life inside a plexiglass box and used multiple DSLRs shot a frame every 5 minutes for 11 days to document the slow (and noble!) rot. After that the entire Hydra team spent 4 months, from character conception to scoring, to complete the final HD short.

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alex roman: the third and the seventh.

It’s still messing with my head, but this entire gem of a video is CGI. Like a vision brought into a reality so startlingly real that it almost can’t be believed… yet, there it is. The amount of detailed work that director Alex Roman would have had to put into “The Third and The Seventh” boggles me. His dedication and deft eye is matched only by his extraordinary vision.

An examination of the way we visually record the physical world we live in, chronicling our 3-dimensional reality through a 2-dimensional visual, “The Third and The Seventh” is  a fantastic glimpse into a future world of impossible beauty. Or, rather, hopefully through the inspiration of his vision, a world of possible beauty.

Unlike a grand fantasy, impressive but unattainable, Roman’s detailed, modern, sparse film seems dreamy, yet so close to the truth as to almost be real. It’s like an understandable improvement, an attainable evolution into a world of architectural, environmental, intellectual, elemental, and ecological fusion. A place where all of our potential has been realized.

To me, it feels like fleeting second immediately after you’ve woken from a dream, where for a moment that dream is your entire, thrilling truth.

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Now that you’ve seen it, can you believe that none of that is real footage? This isn’t VFX, it’s fully (painstakingly, amazingly) created with a mix of 3dsmax, Vray, After Effects, and Premiere.

For proof, watch Roman’s compositing vid, where he’s show us his process.

Via Feed

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eb hu: lucky.

I’m like a kid in a candy store today. Scanning through my usual go-to sites is turning up a treasure trove of new work from some of my favourite directors from right before the holidays.

I’m going to start sounding really superlative, but after Robert Seidel’s “_Grau” yesterday, here we have another work from the creator of one of my favourite pieces of motion design ever. Works like these are the reasons I started blogging, so this is emotional stuff for me here.

I first discovered director and animator EB Hu with his breathtaking “Josie’s Lalaland.” Quite simply, it’s one of the most simple, sincere, and exquisite works of art I’ve ever seen.

Like “Josie’s Lalaland”, “Lucky” is noble and compassionate. Hu is not afraid to confront our fears, demons, and ugliest deeds, but does so in such a delicate but impacting way. Clean lines, emotive visuals, sharp edges, and everything in perfect balance to let the emotion of what we’re seeing take focus. It’s the vigour of his subtle touch that strikes me. His work compels us, in dignified and glorious tones, to remember that all life is to be cherished, and, without scolding, reminds us that it is our own lives that are without value if we allow ourselves to forget this.

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And if, for some reason, though I can’t imagine what it would be, you didn’t click on “Josie’s Lalaland” earlier, here it is as well, because it’s simply too beautiful for you to not see. I will not forgive myself if you don’t watch this video, right here, right now.

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Via Motionographer

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robert seidel: _grau hd.

Prepare to have your mind blown. I couldn’t be any more thrilled about this. My first post of 2010 kicks off the year in epic style with the HD re-release of Robert Seidel’s 2004 masterpiece “_Grau.”

Seidel is one of my absolute favourite digital artists in the entire world. I’ve posted before, with my adoration, about his groundbreaking video for Zero 7’s “Futures”, his amazing large-scale outdoor projection “Processes: Living Paintings”, and his gorgeous video installation “Vellum.”

Posted publicly for the first time in HD, “_Grau” has only been seen before at this level of quality and detail at galleries and festivals. To me it’s a trailblazing work, that perfectly personifies Seidel’s digital/organic style clash and attention to detail that first made me fall in love with his work.

Seidel describes it himself as “… a personal reflection on memories coming up during a car accident, where past events emerge, fuse, erode and finally vanish ethereally… various real sources were distorted, filtered and fitted into a sculptural structure to create not a plain abstract, but a very private snapshot of a whole life within its last seconds…”

“Grau” roughly translates into English as “greyish – an achromatic color of any lightness between the extremes of black and white.” Here we have Seidel’s vision of the human spirit in limbo, not between extremes of the afterlife but the unknown moment between life and death. In it he structures the human soul into the most beautiful and terrifying embodiments of its own emotions: prismatic light, splintering bone, gnarled despair, silent torrents of hope, and silky liquid lightness that fades away within itself. It magnifies all of our greatest fears and yearnings and is something I’ve never forgotten. Seeing it again now, in its intended detail and nuance, is nothing less than incredible.

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Via Motionographer.

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shape+colour 2009: i have left, but i have not gone.

Looking back on 2009, I’m unquestionably drawn to my most memorable experience of the year, and one of the most important of my life. More than just recall it, I’m trying to figure out, months later and on the verge of a brand new year, what it is that I actually learned from it.

It would be easy to tell you that I learned a great many things in South Africa. That I had opened myself up to goodness and realizations. That I had become a better person for having been there.

I want to tell you that because it seems the right thing to say. It’s the expected conclusion; the polite transference of an experience from one person to others who may or may not have a similar experience. I want to tell you that what’s been done has filled me, but the effect has been the opposite: I have realized that, in many ways, I am empty.

Or, rather, I’ve been made aware of just how much space there is within me to be filled.

I’m a teacup of water that finds myself poured into the sea. A birthday balloon slipped from the wrist and twirled into the fullness of the sky. I’m the combined glory, the mixed blessing, of a single grain of sand that’s suddenly found itself offered a return to the beach. One in an infinite assembly. No more. No less.

What I want to tell you is that I am not the same, but I am not distinctly better. I am different, but not necessarily improved.  I will only be better, I will only be improved, if I do more.

I have a responsibility now, and with the opening of this door a potential pact is made. You can look through and convince yourself that you know what’s on the other side and continue to live your life as you always have, or you can walk through and actually discover it.

The first option guarantees a safe return; the latter… well, that is the trade-off that must be made. True ignorance may be bliss, but to attempt to reclaim ignorance is an intentional evil. I cannot pretend to not feel what I have felt. I cannot shrink into a shell and pretend to not have seen what I have seen. If I want to look into my own eyes in the mirror until the end of my days, I must honour the truths I’ve been handed.

I must do more, and I must ask you to do the same.

These people have given me far more than I could ever have given them. I have so much, and yet in many ways I have nothing. According to common logic on my side of the planet, many people in South Africa have  “little.” Yet, in reality; in experience; in purity of purpose; in an authentic understanding of joy; in an honest struggle to thrive despite being given so few reasons to be able to; they have infinitely more than I do.

Too often we count our worth through the materials we hold and horde.  They, without materials, express their love in kindnesses. In honour and recognition. In sincerity. In a reluctant hope and a noble, personal type of joy.

Our true meaning simply cannot be held in our hands. Now I fully understand the reality of being “spoiled.” The focus is not on the fact that something has turned bad, but in that it once was good. The tragedy is in all the potential that was never realized. It’s not the intent that was spoiled, but its possibility. It’s not a loss of the present, but of the future.

They’ve shown me the beauty of small mercies. I remember six hungry workers, nestled in the shade around bowls of grain and one large bottle of Orange Fanta, who with only enough for themselves and despite their hard-earned hunger would not hesitate to offer me something to eat.

They’ve show me  the weight of the smallest joys. Ostensibly inconsequential to many people I know, but to these children an experience of joy: the amazement of hunting small mouth-blown bubbles. Glimmering spheres of light bobbing in the thick African sun, captured and then freed with a tiny plastic paddle from jars the colour of candy.

After a day’s voluntary work we’d pass small bags of Jelly Tots into their hands. Then would come the moment of resistance, the expression that says “is this really for me?” before turning to run away and deliciously rip into their prize. Each piece was examined and valued, turned between two tiny fingers, held up to the light and inspected like a jewel, before being almost ceremoniously placed into the mouth and then slowly savoured.

This is the power of a packet of candy.

And this is something we’ve forgotten. We don’t teach this to our children. And when we grow up we have long since forgotten it.

The power of water, cradled in ice and preserved in a bottle. To pass one of these vessels on, to a woman who normally must travel, then pump, then lift and carry it home, usually upon her head, is not anything as arrogant as a gift to her but a burden to me. She walks a mile and takes 50 pounds home; I turn a faucet. The physical weight may be hers, but the heavy realization of the imbalance in our world is mine. Then to see her face, proud and upturned, and to see her drink, quickly, on a day so hot and dry that water tastes as sweet as honey, is more of a joy to me than any gift that’s ever been placed into my hand. Her “thank you” humbles me.

For Eunice, a mother of three and a bedrock of strength, who, despite my soft hands and weak back and obvious lack of skill, left her work to not only show me how to do mine, but in the process of teaching me completed my task for me. Digging a hole, a seemingly rudimentary task, into the rock-hard soil: after my two hours and six inches, Eunice, in a flourish, showed me how to break and remove the last two feet in about fifteen minutes. Requiring nothing, in exchange for nothing more than a smile and the look of bafflement on my face, she returned to her building. The fact that my resulting celebration of her and mockery of myself meant so much to her is a clear testament to the fact that glory grows differently there.

For Nelson, the quickest kid in town. Fourteen years old but looked eleven. The first to lift a sandbag, unafraid of ridicule or mockery from his friends for being the first to talk to us. The joker. A kid with an undeniable intelligence that transcends language.

When I asked his name, he said, “I am Nelson Mandela, President of South Africa.” Fearlessly, he stuck to it.

Later on, “No, really, what is your name?”

Smiling, “I am Nelson Mandela.”

And so Nelson it was.

Nelson worked tirelessly, each day, always smiling. He could not be deterred. Proclaiming himself as the former President of South Africa was about the extent of his English. Somehow, he had that line down perfectly but any other kind of conversation didn’t seem to work. And so a new method of communication was found: a nod to signal the passing of a new sand bag; pointing around to determine where his house was; fingers and hands to calculate his age; and, perhaps the most important of all, the silence. The purity and power of quiet, agreed-upon work. No words at all.

The last day I had a child’s soccer jersey, maple leaf-red and shocking white, with “CANADA” emblazoned across the front. I took it to him and said, “This is thank you.”

Pointing around; to the sun, the sand, the brush and mountains and lemon trees; to the cattle paths and brick huts and wisps of cloth caught in the reeds; to the long, dry, horizon; the harsh beauty of South Africa; I pointed around and said “South Africa, you live here.”

I looked into his eyes, pointing to the jersey, “Canada. I live here.” He nodded, and holding the jersey to my chest I passed it over to his. And that was all.

Finally, we must do more for us. Because when one person suffers, when any one of us is impoverished or unhealthy or forgotten, we are all diminished. Our light dims.

There is one thing I know that I have learned: as Anne Michaels said in her novel Fugitive Pieces, “I know now that I must give what I most need.”

Love. Compassion. Acknowledgment. Health. Safety. We can never truly experience these while they are denied to others. If we do nothing, we harm ourselves equally. For what we give them we give to ourselves, and what we deny them we deny ourselves.

The last day, packing up the trucks to leave, Nelson and his band of compatriots were standing on the side of the road like every other day: waiting to wave and stand in the road, watching us watch them until both of us descend under the dusty hills into a fog of truck trails.

I hugged him and, shaking my head back and forth, said, “This is our last day. We won’t be here tomorrow.”

Grinning, always grinning, he nodded and said “Yes, tomorrow.”

“No, we won’t be back here tomorrow. We fly away…” The flat palm of my hand ascending into the sky and pointing up. As if my hand gesture could explain to him the meaning of a plane when he’s scarcely ever been inside a truck.

The thought that Nelson would come back the next day and we wouldn’t be there leaves a hole in my heart that will never be filled. Because I cannot explain to him that we won’t be back. Because I cannot know if he understood. Because I will never know if he came back the next day.

Because I can’t explain that I will never forget him.

My face grew hot. “No, we are leaving. We won’t be here. I want to say good bye.”

A grin. A nod. “Yes, good bye tomorrow,” he said.

A pause.

“Yes,” I said,

“Good bye tomorrow.”

All images © Tom Oldham Photography

shape+colour = 2.

This week shape+colour turns two years old. I still remember sitting down to start up with WordPress and write the first post. I had no idea how many amazing things would come from it and how many art lovers, fellow bloggers,  and crazy talented people, from all around the world, I would have the privilege of meeting.

Major thanks to everyone who stops by and to everyone who shares their own work, their links, or their thoughts. It means so much to me that you take time to send your art and your opinions my way, and I can never thank you enough. Art is meant to be discussed, pondered, considered, and shared, and sharing what I love with all of you is one of the biggest highlights and most special parts of my life.

Jeremy.

michael fragstein: a wet day.

A haunting, dark, and deceptively simple-looking short from German artist Michael Fragstein.

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matthieu chedid + stéphane berla: est ce que c’est ça.

I love the phosphorescent, x-ray, almost 3D quality to the animation in this video, directed by Stéphane Berla, for French singer-songwriter Matthieu Chedid.

Via Antville

sleep whale: houseboat.

I’ve been anxiously following Texas electroacoustic wizards Sleep Whale ever since I came across the video for “Little Brite.” This month their first full length album, Houseboat, was finally released and it was more than worth the anticipation.

Acoustic and airy and alive, “Houseboat” just feels fresh. Their blend of organic sounds and digital sounds feels authentic, and one is never at the sacrifice of the other. Listening  makes me feel nomadic and untethered.

Here are my two favourite tracks, for your own freedom-inducing listening enjoyment:

Summer Sick

Light Tunnel

charlotte cornaton: vanitas.

I love it when you stumble across something that proves yet again that no matter how often a technique is used, it’s the idea behind it that creates art. Stop motion is anything but new or underused, but with a vision and unique take from Charlotte Cornaton, “Vanitas” becomes an original entity unto itself.

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