Stop. Look. Listen. #1

Stop. Look. Listen. #1
'Solipsist' Andrew Huang

An international selection of award winning short films, music-driven moving image and rarely seen graphic experiments, with an emphasis on new talent, innovative storytelling and original style.

Skin Meal

Une sélection de films par Claire Spencer Cook 

First selection (Foyer historique wall)

1) Skin Meal / Karni and Saul (02:30 / UK)

The predator becomes the prey in this miniature story played out across the body or a woman and her animated tattoos. A beetle wanders up her leg, to become is breakfast for a dragonfly nestled on her stomach, which in turn becomes dinner for a spider. 

2) Strange Arrangements / WeareSeventeen (02:30 / UK)

A series of graphic moving sculptures, mechanical and yet organic.  From speakers to gramophones, merry go rounds to mechanical hands, the shorts take their inspiration from surrealism and in particular, Dali’s iconic lobster telephone.   

3) Scrape / Robert Seidel (02:00 / Germany)

An abstract exploration of organic growth and decay, reminiscent of  underwater creatures and microscopic organisms. Acclaimed visual Artist Robert Seidel originally created Scrape as an exterior building installation for the Gana Arts Center in Seoul Korea. 

4) Psychic Land / 2Veinte (02:00 / Argentina)

A visual feast where alien creatures descend from their moon to create a pinball fantasy world generated from their imaginations. A random and joyous collage of anime and lo fi gaming- inspired characters, which blends computer animation, motion graphics and full on multicoloured psychedelia.

Turning

Second selection (Grande salle wall)

1) Solipsist / Andrew Huang (10:00 / USA)

It is almost impossible to describe this video without seeing it for yourself. Clusters of improbable, plankton like creatures are born out of the merging of two fantastical women, who gently sprout feathers, multicoloured worms and scaly appendages. Two men stand a duel, only to lose their faces in sand, which drains away from their faces. The rightful winner of the special Jury prize at this year’s Slamdance festival. 

2) Forms / Quayola and Memo (03:00 / UK)

The beauty of human athletic movement, distilled into its most simple graphic forms. Quayola and Memo have succeeded in creating both an art installation and visual poem to Olympic sports, from diving and gymnastics to swimming and the pole vault. Commissioned by The National Media Museum in Bradford UK, as part of their Cultural Olympiad programme for the 2012 Games, this film could work equally well as a real time visualisation tool for other sporting activities or even as a series of interactive TV idents celebrating the Olympics.  

3) Turning / Karni and Saul (10:00 / UK)

On his sixth birthday, Robert receives three beautiful broken old birds, his aunts, in his mother's sitting room.  A memory of a magical afternoon with tea and cake, lacy pink slips and the legend of an emperor with no skin, this original, modern fairy tale visualises the free-spirited imagination of childhood, naive and yet wonderfully dark. 

Turning by Karni & Saul / UK / 2010 / 10:00 / BAFTA 2011 film nomination