1923 aka Heaven is one of two animation loops directed by Max Hattler, inspired by the work of French outsider artist Augustin Lesage (1876-1954). 1923 is based on Lesage’s painting A Symbolic Composition of the Spiritual World from 1923.
The second loop, 1925 aka Hell, is based on Lesage’s painting of the same name from 1925. The films were created during 5 days in February 2010 with students at The Animation Workshop in Viborg, Denmark.
| Director | Max Hattler |
| Technical Director | David René Christensen |
| Sound | Blake Overgaard |
| Previz/Layout | Thorvaldur Gunnarsson |
| Modelling | Thorvaldur Gunnarsson, Arnold Bagasha, Blake Overgaard |
| Animation | Casper Michelsen, Mikkel Vedel, Thorvaldur Gunnarsson, Blake Overgaard, Arnold Bagasha |
| Produced by Max Hattler & The Animation Workshop | |
| Versions |
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| Year | 2010 |
I was floored by this piece … 1923 truly harnesses the spiritual nature of the original work which it was based on, for me it was like two great discoveries in one. Just google image search ‘Augustin Lesage’ and you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.
David Montgomery, Silverfish Closet
The French artist Augustin Lesage was an avatar of the French movement known as art brut—a scene like outsider art, but with a spiritual and shamanic overlay—the old, weird Europe, to paraphrase Greil Marcus. Lesage, a former miner whose work was celebrated by Andre Breton and the surrealists, painted vast, intricately patterned canvases that call to mind visions, trance states, the Egyptian Book of the Dead—anything but technology as we think of it. But technology is older than the computer, older than electricity. And as animator Max Hattler’s film inspired by Lesage’s 1923 painting A Symbolic Composition of the Spiritual World shows, the strobing, massing, fluorescent patterns of technological imagery—calling to mind both the neon aesthetic of Tron and the glowering industrial edifices of Fritz Lang’s 1927 film Metropolis—have something visionary in them as well.
Matthew Battles, Gearfuse
Clip of the Week
iotaWeekly (7-13 Feb 2011)
Enter the Void: Somewhere between our electro death and a Tron-inspired DMT trip, Max Hattler blew our mind.
Complex
strangely enticing
Televisual
Taicoclub Film Project / Art Re-Public Tokyo: 1923 aka Heaven on public screen 1 of 7 in Shibuya, Tokyo, 2010-2011.
enigmatic
Motionographer
I’m so taken by this new animation loop by max hattler… whereas this new piece has a special magic that is not quite rivaled by his previous works and colaborations, after watching 1923 for the first time yesterday, i started looking at his other videos and got sucked into nearly all of them. it was an afternoon well spent.
the celluloid index
hypnotic
Boards
It’s nice to see someone bring a painting to life like Hattler does here, especially an older work.
Living Proof Magazine
…one of the most profound motion-graphics, vimeo clips I have witnessed this year. The elements displayed remind me of glimpses of the hidden and unseen worlds of psychedelic experiences, near death experiences & deep meditation.
Prana Genius
stunning
Middle Boop Mag
While ‘Hell’ appears cold and mechanical, ‘Heaven’ reminds me of the solemn atmosphere of a buddhist temple.
Bianca Beuttel, bbianca.net
mesmerizing
BOOOOOOOM!
Eine Reise durch animierte Sphären. Der Zuschauer scheint wie im Flug durch ein filigranes Reich aus Farben und Formen zu reisen.
Filmz, Mainz, Germany, 2011
impressive
Front Row Reviews
Viel Kunstgeschichte verbirgt sich auch in der Arbeit von Max Hattler (HEAVEN AND HELL 2010). An der Oberfläche ein Lichtspiel wie in Las Vegas vielleicht. Auf zwei großen Screens nebeneinander. Das digital in Bewegung versetzte Bildmaterial stammt größtenteils aus dem Œuvre des 1954 verstorbenen Art Brut Künstlers Augustin Lesage. Himmel und Hölle. Man muss nur wissen woher, um die öde Techno-Ornamentik der End 1990er zu überschreiten.
Roland Schöny, artmagazine, 2016
i suspect the guy that made this sprinkled some dmt in his computer and just hit record
Joyce Su Loves You
Awesome
Beautiful/Decay
… an incredibly complex and addictive world of machinery and pattern
Ellen Turnill, Moving Brands
Beautiful
Shift_4ward
Heute schon LSD gehabt? Nein? Nicht nötig. Augen- und hirnfordernde Animation, die mich erst hypnotisiert und dann eingesogen hat.
Das Kraftfuttermischwerk
In 1923, Max has refashioned the Lesage painting as a stunning, futuristic metropolis, composed of countless separate moving elements. It is beautiful and hypnotic, and as one reviewer has already noted, like Las Vegas would be if it was pretty…
Promo News
brilliant
The Curious Brain
Animated Heaven
sleek magazine
The connections between so called outsider art and certain forms of generative/computational art can be intrinsic and implicit. The self-referential motifs and mytho-mathematic patterns that so commonly appear in the work of outsider artists, generated by ‘non-standard’ brain functioning (or whatever the currently accepted catchphrase is), mimic the output of recursive functions, and various iteration species of the mindless algorithm. (…) In this film loop the viewer is taken on a trajectory through a seemingly infinite architecture of moving pillars, sliding steps and shifting façades, each adorned with glowing primitive shapes – circles and squares. The experience seems to be a well worked out exercise in the geometric resonance of nested complexity, the end result is a building that is a machine – a chapter of Tron occurring in Ancient Egypt. The bilateral symmetry, often also favoured by outsider artists, is employed to yield illusions of totemic forms in a way that those who have a fondness for Rorschach ink blots will appreciate.
Paul Prudence, dataisnature, 2011
Really trippy stuff
Light Sound Dimension
Animations-Wizard Max Hattler kommt diesmal psychedelisch daher: Letzten Monat erstellte er mit Filmstudenten beim The Animation Workshop im dänischen Viborg einen Motion Graphics-Clip in Andenken an den französischen Künstler Augustin Lesage.
Page online
Um mix daqueles antigos livros da coleção ‘Olho Mágico’, caledoscópios e um grande e iluminado cassino.
smellycat.com.br
Loving this … amazing …
Ventilate
A looping masterpiece.
Tom Judd, Animade
smart use of abstract imagery and music to create a hypnotic piece reminiscent of the dark mood of the classic Metropolis.
Selected and commented by Jesus de Francisco (Motion Theory) for DOTMOV 2010
Amazingly trippy…
DoseNation
Las Vegas if it was pretty…
Reel Aesthete
onedotzero interviews Max about 1923 + 1925.
Trippy Tech Take on Lesage
Dangerous Minds
An interwoven, rhythmically aligned, neon world unfurls
Worldwide Short Film Festival
Max Hattler’s video 1923 aka Heaven envisages a receding digital landscape.
LUX moving image, 2013
guaranteed to unhinge your worst creative block: 1923 and 1925 from Max Hattler and a hard-driving student crew from the The Animation Workshop in Viborg Denmark.
Stash
addictively hypnotic … updating Lesage’s vision into a futuristic metropolis.” … “killer animation loop
Animation Show
If this is what heaven is like, I’m ready to go.
FICKNISH
… a stunning example of an animation loop that offers up something new through every cycle.
Doodlescreen
Art in Motion: 1923 aka Heaven on public screen at Liverpool Street Underground Station, London, April 2011, thanks to Art Below and tank.tv.
…one of the coolest animations I’ve ever seen.
Hunters & Gatherers
The ever-shifting shape of Analogue Futurism. 100% digital-effects free.
Shapeshifter explores video glitches induced by digital signal processing compression artefacts, which have given rise to a whole genre of YouTube videos dedicated to exposing shapeshifting reptilians hiding behind the surface of the video screen. Shapeshifter was created as the Official Trailer for the 29th Stuttgarter Filmwinter Festival for Expanded Media.
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