Experimental animation
[3] In 1912, Leopold Survage began his series of abstract watercolour paintings called the ‘Colored Rhythm’, where he planned them in motion by using film animation techniques.
During the same period, Viking Eggeling was struggling with the concept of abstract images as a universal language, and he was yet unaware that motion picture was a medium.
Tzara introduced Eggeling to Hans Richter which led them to pursue a meaningful discovery of abstract forms by using moving pictures.
[4] Diebold's role in influencing the early abstract animators remained unclear as he reviewed paintings, dance, music and films in 1916.
Survage, Eggeling and Richter shared a common interest and history in music in which they had given it up in order to pursue their art career.
Fischinger was the first to combine technical, musical and artistic talent in his works as well as being the first to make abstract animation be part of his art career.
In the 1950s, Perry Miller’s Film Advisory Center sponsored several Art Film Festivals in New York City to present experimental animation created by Mary Ellen Bute, Douglass Crockwell and Francis Lee, as well as documentaries about artists and art.
[11] The growth of technology, computer science and electronic communication is producing profound changes in the cultural environment, which have significantly affected people’s perceptions of the world.
His main objective is for motion picture to take part in the art media by using film as a means to reject the expectations of industry standardization.
Abstract films bring imagery that may carry no real-world references but also encompasses to capture a deeper meaning that can shape the society's traditional perspectives and expectations of the real world.
It defines itself to have illogical, irrational and multiple connections in animated films due to the fact that it ignores the narrative or storytelling structure.
Experimental animation ignores the conservative and predictable nature the exterior world because it generally focuses the abstract forms in motion.
Because of its subjective nature, the audiences have different perspectives as they interpret the experimental animated works on their own and create their own meanings and speculations that are beyond the surface value.
[16] Forms, shapes and colours are primarily focused in which they symbolise and evoke the artist or filmmaker's emotions and thoughts in experimental animation.
[18] Experimental animation often resists the dialogue, clichéd sound effects and easy emotiveness of certain music genres.
Instead, silence, an avant-garde score and unusual sounds are used in experimental animated films to create a variety of deeper messages that the artist or film-maker conveys.
[20] John C. Flinn Sr. (1940) defines Fantasia as a successful experiment that highlights the relationship between animation and classical music.
Disney had collaborated with his own staff of highly-trained animators and story-tellers along with Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Symphony orchestra.
[22] On its third segment, George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue was presented through the use of lines drawings and abstract designs (in the style of cartoonist Al Hirschfeld) and fragmentary stories to illustrate emotional tales that parallel to the music.
