1925 aka Hell

1925 aka Hell is one of two animation loops directed by Max Hattler, inspired by the work of French outsider artist Augustin Lesage (1876-1954). 1925 is based on Lesage’s painting A Symbolic Composition of the Spiritual World from 1925.

Summary

1925 aka Hell is one of two animation loops directed by Max Hattler, inspired by the work of French outsider artist Augustin Lesage (1876-1954). 1925 is based on Lesage’s painting A Symbolic Composition of the Spiritual World from 1925.

The second loop, 1923 aka Heaven, is based on Lesage’s painting of the same name from 1923. The films were created during 5 days in February 2010 with students at The Animation Workshop in Viborg, Denmark.

Awards

Credits

Director Max Hattler
Technical Director Allan Lønskov
Sound Adrian Dexter
Previz/Layout Adrian Dexter
Modelling Adrian Dexter, Allan Lønskov, Casper Wermuth, David Otzen, Jakob Kousholt, Kristoffer Mikkelsen
Animation Adrian Dexter, Allan Lønskov, Casper Wermuth, David Otzen, Ditte Frandsen
Lighting David Otzen
Rendering Adrian Dexter, Allan Lønskov, David Otzen
Produced Max Hattler & The Animation Workshop
Year 2010
Versions
  • 2 min. festival screening version
  • forever-looping 1923/1925 double-projection installation ‘Heaven & Hell’

Still Images

PressKit

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Screenings & Exhibitions

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Publications & TV

What others have said​

Trippy Tech Take on Lesage

incredibly unnerving … Outstanding

Bloody A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

Really trippy stuff

frighteningly hypnotic … you can feel time wrinkle while the cycle tugs you in.

enigmatic

mesmerizing

awesome

remarkable

Wow … mesmerizing in a creepy way.

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.

a retro futurist vision of a possible afterlife, unfolding in a series of mechanistic vistas

Reminiscent of both, a late medieval fear of eternal damnation, and Fritz Lang’s industrial dystopia Metropolis, Hattler’s piece hypnotically draws the viewer in deeper and deeper into its
world. Accompanied by an unsettling, industrial soundtrack, we pass through continuously parting gates, opening to form architectonic moths and beetles, down a Dante‐esque vision of hell.

Max Hattler goes beyond the world with twin pieces, 1923 aka Heaven and 1925 aka Hell, using outsider artist Augustin Lesage’s paintings A symbolic Composition of the Spiritual World (1923 and 1925) as their starting point. However, the technically polished, mirror animations seem worlds away from the visionary artist’s obsessively detailed paintings. On the small screen 1925 aka Hell seems to be more Dante’s circles of Hell-ish, than 1923 aka Heaven is Heavenly, but a big screen might change this.

This is just wonderful, like an adaptation from book to film this digital medium does the same for paintings. this work makes me want to find out more about Augustin Lesage.

…there is something unnervingly cognitive about these films. I’m not sure whether it’s the dynamic of the camera movements that give the films a heavy 1st-person feel or whether it is the intrinsic details, colours and layers that remind me of some magic mushroom-induced visual trip.

LSFF delivered the goods in a selection of shorts that innovatively combined sound and image. The programme was bookended by Max Hattler’s Heaven and Hell, two films inspired by the visionary paintings of Augustin Lesage. They are constructed as loops, with patterns of coloured circles moving in a circular movement to repetitive percussive sounds in Heaven, while in Hell, dark grey machine imagery opens like the wings of an eagle to the noise of a sinister drone. Hypnotic and immersive, with complex variations on visual and aural patterns, they perfectly framed the programme.

programme highlights include max hattler’s 1925 aka hell, an animation inspired by the work of french outsider artist augustin lesage

1925 aka Hell is a much darker proposition [than 1923], darker in fact than the infinitely detailed Arabic style of the original painting, and faintly disturbing sound design by Adrian Dexter. But its just as compelling and hypnotic, and like 1923 can be set to loop indefinitely…

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.

… journey into a dystopian mechanized landscape.

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

Als ob man in ein düsteres Gemälde hineingesogen wird und dabei die Pforten zur Hölle passiert.

Die beiden eindrucksvollen Animations-Loops von Max Hattler sind inspiriert von den Arbeiten des französischen Künstlers und Außenseiters Augustin Lesage.

この作品には今年の中頃に一度出会っている。それは静岡で配られていた映像フェスティバルのチラシの中だった。沢山の作品の中に混じり画像が印刷されているだけの小さな紹介記事であったが、その静止した絵柄からはとても新鮮なものを感じとれた。キャプチャには映像作品特有のそれっぽいごまかしがなく、とても一瞬を切り取っただけの絵とは思えない程の複雑なオブジェクトが存在していた。また、それら全てが絶妙なバランスで成り立っている部分にも関心した。しかしそれだけに、この絵は動いたとたんに破綻するタイプの映像なのでは?といったキャプチャからの疑いをも感じさせるものがあった。DOTMOVではその動く姿にはじめて遭遇する。それは予想もつかなかった極めてシンプルな展開で、実に巧妙であった。作り込まれたオブジェクトが見事に作用し、いつの間にか見る側をトランス状態に導く不思議な映像である。「1925 aka Hell」、「1923 aka Heaven」と2作品ともにすばらしかったが、景色が明るく造形むき出しのこちらを選出した。