Exploring the conscious, the unconscious and the self, By Winds and Tides takes a deep experimental dive into the birth of an idea—how it takes shape, how it is released. An allegorical quest, the film combines images and words into a singular sigh.
Schelby Jean-Baptiste
as (voice)
This is a didactic film in disguise. A progression of brilliant geometric shapes bombard the screen to the insistent beat of drums. The filmmaker programmed a computer to coordinate a highly complex operation involving an electronic beam of light, colour filters and a camera. This animation film, without words, is designed to expose the power of the cinematic medium, and to illustrate the abstract nature of time.
Upon realizing there's not much time left, a teenager stuck in their bedroom, with only a window to the outside world, reflects on their life and tries to find a way out of their prison.
Odds & Ends is a sly comment on the collage film and Beat culture. To discarded travel and advertising footage found at a local film laboratory, Belson Shimane added a mélange of animation—assemblages, cutouts, color fields, and line drawings—and faux hipster narration by Jacobs (credited via the anagram Rheny Bojacs) punctuated by a bongo backing. Strung together with doublespeak and non sequiturs, the monologue skirts the edge of nonsense as Jacobs waxes on about poetry, jazz, “reaching the public,” “having a good time,” and—although “money doesn’t count”—the “possibility of subsidy” through grants. Footage of champagne, tropical beaches, and exotic peoples intermingle with rhythmic drawings and stop-motion flights of fancy. The visuals race on through dazzling transformations, both amplifying and undercutting the patter. —National Film Preservation Foundation. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Iota Center Collection in 2006.
An abstract computer-generated film. The image is of squares revolving in space around and through each other. Colors and forms multiply and divide against a beautiful symphonic score by George Kleinsinger.
Creating a universe between two small pieces of Cardboard. When Jack and Jill of Cardboard City are separated by Jill's torrid illness, Jack must think outside the box to assure they will be together again.
An experimental sampled film which shows the pleasurable art of movies about movies through scenes inside of theaters.
An important sensory organ, the eye, is damaged. The exhausting healing process takes us on an inner journey full of pain, fragility and mental unrest, in which even superstition and witchcraft seem to have an influence on recovery.
In this short film, a young man, a girl and a dog attempt to fly with wings more symbolic than practical.
An abstract animated film inspired by the work of jazz musician Chico Hamilton.
This newly rediscovered short was created in Jim's home studio in Bethesda, MD around 1961. It is one of several experimental shorts inspired by the music of jazz great Chico Hamilton. At the end, in footage probably shot by Jerry Juhl, Jim demonstrates his working method.
A porcelain doll’s explorations of a dreamer’s imagination.
16mm color work by Stan Vanderbeek that takes his work away from the cutups and the commentary and lands him in the psychedelic and abstract. Opticals, repetitions, camera moves and zooms are what make up the bulk of this exploration into fluids. The results bridge that realm between hangout art piece and intersteller stoner trip.
Seraphim Cloud and his life size doppelgänger enter the netherworld of Calico Ghost Town deep within the Mojave Desert.
Seemingly at random, the wings and other bits of moths and insects move rapidly across the screen. Most are brown or sepia; up close, we can see patterns within wings, similar to the veins in a leaf. Sometimes the images look like paper cutouts, like Matisse. Green objects occasionally appear. Most wings are translucent. The technique makes them appear to be stuck directly to the film.
After the title, a white screen gives way to a series of frames suggestive of abstract art, usually with one or two colors dominating and rapid change in the images. Two figures emerge from this jungle of color: the first, a shirtless man, appears twice, coming into focus, then disappearing behind the bursts and patterns of color, then reappearing; the second figure appears later, in the right foreground. This figure suggests someone older, someone of substance. The myth? Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2012.
Composed entirely of AI-generated visuals and providing an abstract representation of the evolution of AI video, processed entirely through a VCR.
Experimental animation film, with a visual focus on geometrical shapes and straight lines
Machinima-adaptation of Albert Camus book "L'étranger", done in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
