Boiler Room has launched a new platform - 4:3 - dedicated to a wide range of underground film, video art, documentary, and found footage, connected by themes of "performance, identity, youth culture and anti-establishment."
For the launch, I've contributed a playlist of Experimental Animation - ten clips that provide a swift survey of the art from its dawn shortly after World War I through to the waning of the analogue era in the late Nineties. Digital, for various reasons later to be explored, is a whole other zeit I feel, and possibly a geist-less one.
The playlist is the fruit of the unexpected eruption of a long dormant obsession, one that dates back to adolescence, when for a while I fancied the career of cartoonist as a life path. The slant of my selection is less on laughs, though, and more about abstract beauty, geometries-in-motion, macabre whimsy, zany mania, psychotic Pop Art, and a uniquely East European absurdism.
Do check out the other cool stuff in this debut edition of 4:3, which includes curation from Ryuichi Sakomoto, Peaches, and Elijah Wood, and playlists devoted to archival rave footage, legendary concert films, vintage grime, the early days of house club culture. queer video art, UK garage, and more, including original content. Access is free with registration.
Here's a handful of the scores and scores of animations that easily could have made the cut..