After attending The Nova Convention in New York City in 1978, I was inspired by Brion Gysin to write permutation poems. This experimental film is based on a permutation poem I wrote in 1979. It explores selective viewing by overloading the brain with different presentations of the same poem. The poem was read by Ann Marie Guidry in 2024.
Cast off from shore. Into the dim, the dark. Away, away. Adrift in an oarless boat. And deep, deeper below the mirror surface. Then snap. Caught in eddies of regret, past slights, tasks undone, worries fresh and aged. Ever searching for a channel back to the elusive elsewhere. Toil and Spin uses the visual language of minimalism to describe sleep and sleeplessness.
Demi-Demons is an essay film about the contradictions of contemporary existence, which separate us from our natural instincts, opening abysses within us. The glorification of the hermaphrodite, the hedonism of virtual realities, the search for new levels of physical attraction and forms of higher consciousness, ambivalence towards sexual reproduction, these abysses embody the existential struggles inherent in navigating the terrain between instinct and enlightenment in a rapidly evolving world. Demi-Demons is made and animated from vintage photos and collages, creating a surreal and thought-provoking atmosphere.
G3N3SIS is an experimental AI-assisted animation that tells an alternative, female-centered, mythology. It will be a journey that begins with the creation of the world and the black Eve by a female deity, it follows the exile of women in the patriarchal world by the jealous biblical god, the women's revolution and liberation, the creation of the new type of men and it ends with the apotheosis of the androgynous, the divine Hermaphrodite. The image is inspired by classical European painting, the overall style is post-renaissance yet hyperrealistic. Unexpected associations, metaphysical atmpsphere, biomorphic connections of organic and inorganic, mystical symbolism, mythological figures and references, constant transformations and dark eroticism. All these elements fit perfectly with the new artistic possibilities of the cutting-edge techniques we have used.
"Jack Kerouac, Jacques Derrida and some Mexican food, plus dancing." - WWD “I think the truly natural things are dreams, which nature can't touch with decay.” – Bob Dylan
A woman’s love for dancing becomes her solace and torment, mirroring a toxic relationship. Once her happiness, it now consumes her, trapping her in a futile pursuit of joy.
The title of the movie “Life - up and down” is self-explanatory! I felt the need the movie end with an “off”.
An inconvenient truth: the Western fashion industry stands on forced child labor in the Third World. Will you still consent to it? FASHION VICTIMS 2.0 is the animated recreation of the mural painted by ESCIF in January 2022 in front of a well-known fashion store in Valencia. The painting exposes our passivity towards child labor and its harsh conditions in developing countries. The animation short film brings to life the people painted on the wall to show their alienation and the nonsense of our unsustainable consumption habits. FASHION VICTIMS 2.0 is also a tribute to Valencia street art and to ESCIF: an artist concerned about a most uncomfortable reality.
"Microcosmos" is a recent study involving frame-by-frame improvised gestural expressions created with my daughters handprints. Throughout the animation development process, these printed images depict multiple directional movements that may resemble not only personal hand gestures, but also silhouettes and patterns reminiscent of our daily landscapes. This transformation of a child's handprints into animated visual symbols aims to bring to life the personal memories associated with my daughter while growing from infant to a teenager, much in the same way that individuals left their handprints on cave walls in prehistoric times.
Two friends, lovers, soulmates, a pair of two, searching and ultimately finding each other. This pair traveling between worlds and changing forms, expressed through 15 styles of animation, by 15 animators from across the world.
“Life Path” is a video poetry short art experimental film where I combine mostly travel, monumental and street photography and poetry by using mixed techniques and exploring the possibilities of digital media, a compact camera and a mobile smartphone, in order to narrate a story in a different way and to entirely create, edit and wrap up the project in the same digital media device.This is visual poetry in photographs, a photo-walk through a fictional life path, composed in steps with pauses that bring the non-ending cycle to a culmination and then to a closure. I tried to give a certain meaning to images through the method and the photo sequence, going beyond the literal content of the frames and thus creating more reading levels open to interpretation. Nothing is absolutely fixed or permanent. Everything shifts and is set in motion, in the subtle dynamic of constant quest and search, sparking life. At the same time, the poem unravels shot after shot, sometimes leading the way or even escaping from the imaginary “reality” and other times finding refuge in the images. It is a game flirting with experimentation. As well as the fact that the subject of observation and the observer are not always distinguishable from each other, but also merge and coincide, practically and symbolically. Observation changes perspective from external point of view, of the surrounding world, of the others and self-observation as well in relation to the surrounding world and the others, to internal observation, in time and space, in a state of interactive solitude that differs from existential loneliness. Time and space therefore become relative dimensions and music acts like a magic wand and a transporter between places and points in time, as if transforming into an intangible portal between dimensions that coordinates and harmonizes the multiple elements and keeps the pace. “Life Path” symbolizes a personal journey in a course of infinite possibilities, leaving open the beginning and the end, as it implies the continuity in both directions. And, to conclude, paraphrasing fragments of Heraclitus: “There is nothing but change. So let’s play like children in the time’s flowing river, making art out of life”.
Distance can be different. How is yours? An exploration of distance in different dimensions of perception and understanding. Valeria and Gregor disconnected by borders ( be it geographical, physical, or mental) are sharing their experience of distance as forest encounters - Gregor from a forest of Bavaria and Valeria from the forest next to her apartment in Chisinau. The forest is regarded as a site where one can explore ecology and interconnectedness but also as a site to seek the path beyond traumas, depression and loneliness. Thoughts, sounds and forests intertwine, connecting and making the distances collaborative. In technologic era, How close can you be without a physical touch?
An aggressive battle unfolds between red and dark blue. The borderlines between the colors vibrate with tension as they fight for their lives.
Finding himself stranded in an unfamiliar afterworld, inhabited by fellow dogs of different circumstances. Fufu meets and befriends other dogs in an attempt to navigate back to his home world. Encountering a mage and a trans dimensional ocean entity on his journey, he finds out that he needs to collect dreams for a bargain for his passage. Listening and learning dreams of his friends along the way he finds himself unable to dream on his own, his previous life’s needs and desires all met. Thrust into a whirlwind of his past, we are left to wonder if he could return home.
On the divided island of Cyprus, the quiet motion of hands shaping lace and making cheese shed new light on a decades old conflict. TO YOUR HANDS is an experimental animated documentary that weaves together the stories of Cypriots who continue these handmade traditions, passed down for generations. Through intimate imagery and hand painted animation, the film reflects on how shared culture endures beyond political borders.
Through each fold of her veil, a Turkish woman recalls her past and her choices in the form of a poetic monologue: she is assailed by her doubts, about her desires and her struggles, and eventually finds herself. Mihri Müşfik (meaning Tender), the first female painter in Turkey who lived an extraordinary life and went against the tide, is the inspiration for this film.
Shot entirely from an apartment on the 36th floor of a high-rise building, the images in this experimental animation survey large parts of Hong Kong’s cityscape, drawing attention to the individual lives hidden inside its buildings - together alone, collectively sequestered. Initially recorded in 2020 during lockdown and completed in 2023 with the advantage of critical distance, TWENTYTИƎWT (“Twenty-Twenty”) attempts to encapsulate the darkness, confinement, and uncertainty of the year of the global pandemic.
ATHENS ANIMFEST
