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Guest Artist: This

This
(click to play)

Here’s It’s Like Spiders‘ first guest artist, Montreal-based animator Malcolm Sutherland. This is an elaborate meditation on–well, you’ll find out.

format: DV video
software: ToonBoom
Montreal, 2004.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 2nd, 2006 at 9:27 am and is filed under Animation, Guest Artist, Visual Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

8 Responses to “Guest Artist: This”

  1. elena Says:
    July 12th, 2006 at 8:49 am

    hello, I wonder if “the bird’s call” is your film?
    If yes, I have an ergency to talk to you. please let me know at: imageflip@hotmail.com

  2. Matthew Says:
    June 1st, 2007 at 7:00 pm

    Just what exactly is this a meditation on? Ennui? Soul-sucking boredom? If so, it was very good, I was bored to tears. Honestly, I wasted several perfectly good minutes watching this that could have been spent much more productively, like trimming my nosehairs or something. I kept waiting for something interesting or profound or ANYTHING to happen, but instead I got to watch stupid dots dance while some monks pretended to be didgeridoos, and then was treated to bad representations of micro-organisms as a lameass climax. Eww, this is the stinky side of “art”, a.k.a. pretention.

  3. Ephemeral Says:
    June 3rd, 2007 at 10:03 am

    Does art need to be representational? Does it need to be anecdotal? Does it have to be pretty? Does it have to be decorative?

    The answer to all these questions is: not necessarily.

    To me, this piece was fabulous for several reasons. First, the sound was captivating. Just by itself, the sound explored a dimension that is unusual and remarkable. In plain English, you just don’t hear that every day. And, as the monks have discovered, highly conducive to trance-like states.

    Second, the visuals, although seemingly unrelated to the ambient sound, they are nevertheless highly sensitive and reative to changes in the sound.

    Third, there was an element of unpredictability that added to the interest of the piece.

    This piece was refreshing because it was not cheapened by plots, people, recognizable objects, etc. The artist did not succumb to the usual fare we can find in advertisements, video clips, news clips, and the like. With this piece the artist managed to step away from the temptation of showing us again something we get too much of.

    It had no reason to be, but there it was, in all its glory.

  4. ritchie Says:
    July 8th, 2007 at 4:15 pm

    A truely inspiring, wonderful artpiece. thank you - watching this is please. it just gets nicer every time :-)

  5. ritchie Says:
    July 8th, 2007 at 4:17 pm

    sorry, typo - I want to write: watching this is pure pleasure.

  6. LogicalDash Says:
    July 22nd, 2007 at 9:17 pm

    I guess the message is that life forms from connections between simple elementary particles, and there is both order and chaos in the way those connections form, much like in the chanting.

    To me this doesn’t seem like a very profound realization, and I didn’t find the parallels between the chanting and the movement to be meditative, but this is a very well realized piece, and anyone who’s intrigued by the basic concept will likely enjoy it thoroughly.

  7. Impressed Says:
    March 21st, 2008 at 7:38 pm

    It’s simplicity confounds. Amazing.

  8. Impressed Says:
    March 21st, 2008 at 7:38 pm

    Its simplicity confounds. Amazing.

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