1923 aka Heaven

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.

Summary

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.

Awards

Credits

DirectorMax Hattler
Technical DirectorDavid René Christensen
SoundBlake Overgaard
Previz/LayoutThorvaldur Gunnarsson
ModellingThorvaldur Gunnarsson, Arnold Bagasha, Blake Overgaard
AnimationCasper Michelsen, Mikkel Vedel, Thorvaldur Gunnarsson, Blake Overgaard, Arnold Bagasha
Produced by Max Hattler & The Animation Workshop
Versions
  • 2 min. festival screening version
  • forever-looping 1923/1925 double-projection installation ‘Heaven & Hell’
Year2010

Still Images

Screenings & Exhibitions

2024-2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

Publications & TV

What others have said​

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.

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.

Clip of the Week

Enter the Void: Somewhere between our electro death and a Tron-inspired DMT trip, Max Hattler blew our mind.

strangely enticing

enigmatic

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.

hypnotic

It’s nice to see someone bring a painting to life like Hattler does here, especially an older work.

…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.

stunning

While ‘Hell’ appears cold and mechanical, ‘Heaven’ reminds me of the solemn atmosphere of a buddhist temple.

mesmerizing

Eine Reise durch animierte Sphären. Der Zuschauer scheint wie im Flug durch ein filigranes Reich aus Farben und Formen zu reisen.

impressive

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.

i suspect the guy that made this sprinkled some dmt in his computer and just hit record

Awesome

… an incredibly complex and addictive world of machinery and pattern

Beautiful

Heute schon LSD gehabt? Nein? Nicht nötig. Augen- und hirnfordernde Animation, die mich erst hypnotisiert und dann eingesogen hat.

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…

brilliant

Animated Heaven

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.

Really trippy stuff

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.

Um mix daqueles antigos livros da coleção ‘Olho Mágico’, caledoscópios e um grande e iluminado cassino.

Loving this … amazing …

A looping masterpiece.

smart use of abstract imagery and music to create a hypnotic piece reminiscent of the dark mood of the classic Metropolis.

Amazingly trippy…

Las Vegas if it was pretty…

Trippy Tech Take on Lesage

An interwoven, rhythmically aligned, neon world unfurls

Max Hattler’s video 1923 aka Heaven envisages a receding digital landscape.

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.

addictively hypnotic … updating Lesage’s vision into a futuristic metropolis.” … “killer animation loop

If this is what heaven is like, I’m ready to go.

… a stunning example of an animation loop that offers up something new through every cycle.

…one of the coolest animations I’ve ever seen.