Zap Cat

A wordless short homage to the maestro of pittura metafisica.

A series of 16 "short stories" created by the creator's group Images Forum.

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

It is a monster work that depicts a disturbing air by drawing a scene with the crow as a motif and the scenery of Kyoto in parallel with a frame shot.

Hands / flicker / morphing animation suggests sexual organs in a frantic dance.

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.

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.

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

The interactions of troops and prostitutes near the Naval Air Facility Atsugi (Kanagawa Prefecture), animated from a child’s perspective. Aihara’s works of this period often contain a documentary view of Japanese society at the time of his childhood.

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.

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.

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

A uniquely psychedelic animation of sordid and chaotic images.

By the maker of Yellow Night. Also an exercise in the storyless and meaningless description of a drawn journey through the subconscious. Hallucination as a cheerful firework display. Made with style and skill, because nonchalance obviously has to be conquered. (IFFR)