martin böttger: foliage shoal.

Staccato leaves and angry chlorophyll. Like plants calling out through static: “Foliage Shoal” is stunning, jarring work from Berlin-based animator and artist Martin Böttger.

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Via Ventilate.

gwen vanhee: flightpattern.

This basically blows my mind. A “handdrawn videoresponsive video exploration” (fuck yes!) by Belgian animator Gwen Vanhee.

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joe lea + laurel collective: fax of death.

This reminds me of Lite Brite. And basically anything that reminds me of Lite Brite is guaranteed win. Animate by Joe Lea for Laurel Collective’s “Fax of Death.”

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Via Motionographer

the decemberists: here come the waves.

I just got hard. Anything involving the visual interpretation of music is pretty exciting. Not just a music video, per se. A lot of the time, music videos are just a literal translation or version of a video. Song bumps, it’s in a club, booties shake, the end. Song is slow, singer holds someone, they gaze at each other, the end. These aren’t interpretations, they’re more like regurgitations.

So, when a band like The Decemberists employs four young film-makers to create animations interpreting their tracks, I get jumpy. For “Here Come The Waves: The Hazards Of Love Visualized” animations were created by Guilherme Marcondes, Julia Pott, Peter Sluszka and Santa Maria. On Oct. 19th, The Decemberists are playing a live show at UCLA synched entirely with the hour-long animation on screen. Which, clearly, would be fucking incredible. If anyone has tickets and feels like flying me to L.A., I would be more than up for it. Kthnx.

daniel franke + ryoji ikeda: one minute soundsculpture.

This kicks serious ass. It’s a chromatic hovering expanding blossom of goodness. Created by Daniel Franke to “One Minute” by Ryoji Ikeda.

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lusine + britta johnson: two dots.

A magical video for Ghostly International artist Lusine’s “Two Dots.” Directed by Britta Johnson, it lives at the geometric intersection of mathematics and emotion. Where love and passion follow concisely laid out scientific laws and there’s a theorum to neatly explain the trajectory of desire.

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francisca valenzuela + smog.tv: peces.

Crazy cool vid for Francisca Valenzuela’s “Peces.” Not a clue what she’s saying, but the stylization and animation in this vid is incredible.

Google tells me “peces” translates as “clay wetted for making mud walls.” Which doesn’t sound quite as incendiary as I was imagining from the cold frenzy of the vid. So maybe it’s wrong.  Any Spanish speakers out there; can you let me know in the comments what the song is all about? Would love to know.

UPDATE: So thanks to some Spanish-savvy readers, it turns out “peces” actually means “fish” (I’m guessing it’s a Latin-based connection with “Pisces”, which is interesting to me because my star sign is Pisces). Thankfully, that’s way more interesting that wet clay walls. Thanks to everyone for their info on this and to “the other Francisca” (coincidence? maybe, maybe not) for her translation down in the comments!

psyop + mtv mhd: crow.

Psyop is the shit. One of my top three animation shops in the world, Psyop constantly turns out innovative, beautiful, purposeful, integrated work. They’re bad ass.  Case closed.

Apparently “Crow” is a few years old but it just went up on their Vimeo a few days ago. Directed by Marie Hyon and Marco Spier for MTV MHD, is a tight, light, black, white, and all around stunning piece of work. Behold it in all its glory:

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blu + david ellis: combo.

Argentine street artist Blu made huge waves on the net a while ago with his incredible street art/stop motion vido “Muto.”

His latest is a collaborative piece with David Ellis. It looks like this would take forever. Even if it’s not your aesthetic, you can’t help but be blown away by the intensity of the process…

Via @MarcDSchiller

siggi eggertsson: a growing pile of work.

Following up on the radness that was “Supernova”, yesterday Siggi Eggertsson released “A Growing Pile Of Work”, a stellar vid made by using After Effects to piece together more than 400 images Eggertsson created between 2003 and 2009.

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