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March 14 to 28, 2025
School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong
The School of Creative Media, the first institution of its kind in the region, located in the stunning one-of-a-kind building designed by world-renowned architect Daniel Libeskind, was founded to train a new generation of enterprising interdisciplinary artists and creative media professionals, and to be a hub of innovation for the creative industries in Hong Kong, mainland China and abroad.
Website : https://www.scm.cityu.edu.hk/
Class presentation :
Responsable : Max Hattler
The “Abstract and Experimental Animation” course, taught by Max Hattler, has produced several short animated films created by students at the City University of Hong Kong’s School of Creative Media over the past few years. The students range from experienced animators to people from different fields of creative media, and from undergraduates to masters students. With a visit from experimental animator Robert Seidel, who provides valuable feedback on the students’ progress, the class learns to work on professional-level projects and create experimental animated films using different techniques and media, from start to finish. The films selected for the Video Art Academy 2025 are all one minute long, and use a photography-based animation technique that enables animators to bring immovable objects to life and uncover hidden perspectives.
VIDEO PROGRAM :::
Choi Hung | CHUNG Yan Yu, GUO Yipeng, WONG Yuk Enid | 2024
The MTR is one of Hong Kong’s major public transport networks. If “Choi Hung” means rainbow, it’s also a lively station with vivid colors and textures. By combining the two, we hope to give you a taste of the underground metro that Hong Kongers use every day.
Erosion | Chu Pui Ying, Ha Wing Yin, Yip Pui Ting | 2023
Erosion is a stop-motion film that transforms the rock textures, lichens and small details of the Hong Kong Geopark into vivid animation. The film presents the amazing patterns and formations created by the forces of nature over time.
Macro Macro | WANG Shuxin Yan | 2024
Macro Micro is a short film that explores the micro and macro aspects of the city of Hong Kong. The film highlights the melody of the environment that we often overlook. It invites us to re-examine the environment in which we live, and to appreciate the sounds and images of the city.
Moonwalking | CHAN Ka Lam, HUNG Kwan Yiu, TSANG Hing Chor | 2023
This video gets close to the textures of the various objects that surround us and that most of our city’s inhabitants ignore. By shuttling between reality and the abstract world, the moving images create a mysterious space we can explore, dive into and feel. We always imagine ourselves walking on the moon, thousands of miles away. Yet a similar myth also lurks beneath the noise of the city.
Quakes | Jaron Kuehmstedt, Lok Tung Kwan Tate,Hiu Yin Tse Aster, Shuxin Wang Yan | 2023
When looked at closely, the urban environment that surrounds us every day is transformed into an abstract place when removed from its public and functional context. In this short animation, urban forms, colors, textures and ordinary objects are contextualized in a composition of abstract visuals and sounds.
Tiles | Aibek Abdirashitov Cheng Cheuk Lam Ching Wai Lok | 2024
Tiles is a stop-motion animation that explores the systemic movements of organized mosaics, including pattern, density, color and luminosity, as well as the human ability to identify patterns and estimate their meaning in abstract graphics.
TinT Timing | Huang Yifei, Dai Yutong, Li Zixian, Zhao Xu | 2024
Time flows steadily, but the marked scale of time measurement can be adjusted. The flashing images are a kind of stopwatch, with the ability to master time and blur the temporality of memory. The hands of the clock turn with the daily corners, and time is tinted by the drilling of details throughout life.
Chorus | Yuze Tian, Jingjing Zhuang, Silu Deng, Jinxuan Hou | 2024
This video uses an experimental production based on sound. The sound is produced by the images in the video. The combination of different optical sounds produces a rhythmic melody, with a black-and-white pictogram, simple colors and simple graphics composing a lively video.
Clash | LIAO Yuming, ZHAN Jingxian, ZHUANG Yingyue | 2024
The film is created by the dynamic synergy of visual movements in two divided spaces. Two geometric objects explore and challenge their respective domains by changing tactics and transforming their bodily forms.
In terms of sound design, most of the sounds are made up of sound effects and musical notes. Optical sound effects are also partially used in the film.
Geometric Symphony | Chan Ka Yuet, Lam Yau Hing | 2024
Combining moving images and optical sounds, the animation shows how moving geometric shapes can be synchronized with music generated by optical sounds. Based on the symphony, different graphics shake, vibrate and form, as if constructing a building full of elements to live in.
The Pixel Path | Bhavisha Hemnani, Yining Liao | 2024
“The Pixel Path” is an optical sound animation that explores the intersection of simple linear lines and organic shapes and patterns. The animation aims to explore the dynamic transformation of objects, movement and the fusion of contrasting elements.