Twilight

A wordless short homage to the maestro of pittura metafisica.

Psychedelic animation that impresses with eyeballs and other motifs.

Photos taken with pinhole camera, sky + clouds. Swirling animation like smoke against a black background.

Circles printed on white paper. Animation frenzy as music becomes more erotic/erratic.

Images of the sea and clouds seen from the top of the mountain, the candles of the Tibetan temple, etc., and a chaotic psychedelic animation are juxtaposed.

Vivid, chromatic animation.

Set in a cave imagined as an air-raid shelter, images of the surrounding trees are painted over directly on the film. Vivid colors intermixed with the sound of wartime radio communications and bombing create a harmonious composition of documentary and animation.

Following on from Shelter (1981), the setting is again an air-raid shelter. Close-up images of trees are dissected and reformed abstractly. The film culminates with images of elderly survivors of the war in another example of Aihara’s unique blending of documentary storytelling with abstract illustration.

A uniquely psychedelic animation of sordid and chaotic images.

Begun in 8mm film, but completed in 16mm following the purchase of a new camera, this work continues with the psychedelic and anti-war themes, while moments provide the seeds of his later abstract exploration.

An animation that combines the motion of abstract lines and the motif of an apple.

A tense abstract animation with delicate line drawing. Contemporary musician Nakamura Shigenobu is in charge of the music used in the work.

The scenery of the forest in Ogawa and the city of Kyoto and the abstract animation conceived from there are juxtaposed.

Steps with shadows. An arm shadow in the landscape - concrete/grass/flowers. Flicker and a finger morphs into abstraction. A real hand appears above the animation, a zoom - drawings/hands/feet.

Regarded as a creative extension of Stone (1975), animation unfolds on drawing paper placed on a field and farm.

Originally titled Stone No. 2, this is considered a seminal work of Japanese independent animation. Stones, houses and the surrounding natural landscape transform continuously.