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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michael fragstein: a wet day.

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

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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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anthony burrill: acid washed.

No words. Should’ve sent a poet. Some vintage-tinged graphic kick ass from U.K. designer Anthony Burrill.

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benjamin ducroz: press +.

Grainy, twitchy, glitchy, water-coloury, brown-papery goodness from Benjamin Ducroz’s abstract animation “PRESS +.”

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tom geraedts: eros.

My fascination with colour theory has led me into studying not just the science of colours but also their associated anomalies: colour blindness, synesthesia, and to total blindness itself. Make no mistake: blind people see… just not with their eyes.

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“Eros” is an incredible short by Tom Geraedts that explores this idea. Our senses are all indelibly connected to our thoughts, emotions, feelings, and all over senses. The lack of one actually augments all the others. So what does a blind person see through their mind’s eye when their brain starts to feel; the part of the brain that creates “sight” is still active, it’s the connection to the eyes that’s decided not to co-operate. With its normal route cut off, where does it detour to to visualize the world that’s being sensed around it?

ian stevenson + luke seomore: stare into the sun.

I’m always into exploring the sort of cruel paradox of hiding brutal life lessons inside the guise of children’s things. There’s always a witch heating up an oven just around the corner…

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Directed by Ian Stevenson and Luke Seomore, with audio by Graffiti 6, “Stare Into The Sun” delicately walks the fine line between absurdist children’s animation and inside joke. There’s just something about the hero character’s face that lets you know that, unicorn riding and rainbow hoping aside, this shit ain’t gonna end well. Be sure to watch it to the very end.

gwen vanhee: flightpattern.

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

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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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adam joy: dreamf focus.

Obviously, any exploration into the connection between colour, memory, emotion, and imagination is right up my alley. I could watch this all day long.

“DreamF Focus” is part of an on-going visual investigation into dreams by Adam Joy:

“Color is as much a symbol as is the imagery in a dream. Color appears to represent the emotional conditions that stimulated a dream or dream image. As with any other symbol, color combines with the imagery to form a more complete “meaning” for the dream image.”

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