Venetian Snares: Szamar Madar 

(2005) 

by David O'Reilly is an abstract, stormy animation in which lightning bolts flicker to the syncopated beats of the track while rain pours down on an ancient stone circle.

Shynola subsequently talked so highly of David O'Reilly that video commissioner and co-owner of production company Colonel Blimp, John Hassay, signed him up without having seen any of his work and, in 2005, O'Reilly unleashed his first commissioned promo – for Venetian Snares track Szamar Madar.

The video contains a memorable section where sound and image suddenly cut to a silent blue screen with flickering computer code that makes you think that the equipment you’re watching it on has just died. That screen then twists and morphs back to the animation to appropriately frazzled sounds. That was the last animated music video O’Reilly made, although his reel reveals a cluster of short films produced since, their marked stylistic difference to each other suggesting his desire to experiment with animation techniques and visual style.

 

Source: Creative Review

 

 

Venetian Snares: Szamar Madar, rain, sacral, Video Clip

Reading

Rewind, Play, Fast Forward (2010) – The Past, Present and Future of the Music Video by Henry Keazor, Thorsten Wübbena (eds.) brings together different disciplines as well as journalists, museum curators and gallery owners in order to take a discussion of the past and present of the music video as an opportunity to reflect upon suited methodological approaches to this genre and to allow a glimpse into its future. (transcript Verlag)

Eye 76 (2010) is Eye's first-ever special issue on the dynamic and continually inspiring sector of design for music. Designers are in a privileged position to add visual drama to music; to make it more understandable and enjoyable; to communicate the intangible essence of vibrating air molecules into the worlds of words, images and moving graphics. Design can make music look good, but when they really work together you have magic. (Eye magazine)

Sonic Graphics/Seeing Sound (2000) by Matt Woolman presents exemplary work from studios around the world in three sections: Notation analyses the use of sign and symbol systems in creating identity and branding for music artists, recording projects and performances; Material considers how products can package the intrinsic nature of the music they contain; and Atmosphere looks at how space and multidimensional environmeaants can be used to visualize sound. A reference section includes studio websites and a glossary. (Thames & Hudson)

 

SEE ALSO

Richard Wagner: Götterdämmerung (2009) staged by theatrical group La Fura del Baus. Götterdämmerung forms the forth and final part in Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen cycle. The impressive surroundings of Valencia's Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia provide a suitable backdrop, as this version of Wagner's piece unfolds. (Amazon)

Richard Wagner: Die Walküre (2007) - The idea behind this unusual Ring production comes from Spain's La Fura dels Baus, the ensemble from Barcelona that has wowed audiences in most European capitals with its spectacular performances. La Fura director Carlus Padrissa sees the Ring in terms of Greek tragedy in which the gods descending onto the stage in machines is synonymous with a hopeless situation in which Richard Wagner's gods find themselves. (Opera News)

Richard Wagner: Siegfried (2008) - In the world of opera, La Fura dels Baus has defined its personal style through its exploitation of large-screen projections, the extraordinary mobility of the performers, and the magical use of human beings to create organic structures that evoke objects such as Valhalla (in this Der Ring des Nibelungen production). Indeed, La Fura dels Baus was predestined for Richard Wagner's visionary world: his dream of a Gesamtkunstwerk becomes reality as a shape-shifting sequence of tableaux unfolds before our eyes with all the elements that constitute the lenguaje furero or Fura idiom. (Unitel Classica)

Arabesque (1975) by John Whitney, Sr. Programmed by Larry Cuba. Whitney experimented with the eccentricities of Islamic architecture, which, though ultimately harmonic, contain many characteristic reverse curves in its embellishments. (Animation World Magazine, Dr. William Moritz)

Edwin van der Heide (1970) is a Dutch artist and researcher in the field of sound, space and interaction. He extends the terms composition and musical language into spatial, interactive and interdisciplinary directions. His work comprises installations, performances and environments. The audience is placed in the middle of the work and challenged to actively explore, interact and relate themselves to the work. (Edwin van der Heide)