Sync

A circular looping animation projection installation and award-winning abstract universe by Max Hattler.

Summary

“(…) the film is based on the idea that there is an underlying unchanging synchronisation at the centre of everything; a sync that was decided at the very beginning of time. Everything follows from it, everything is ruled by it: all time, all physics, all life. And all animation.” (Max Hattler)***

Awards

Credits

DirectorMax Hattler
ProductionPavlov E-Lab, Nathalie Beekman, Max Hattler
Scientific AdvisorsEric Bergshoeff, Martha Merrow
AnimationAndreas Thomsen
MusicDennis van Tilburg
Supported byOpen Workshop dept. of The Animation Workshop, Viborg, DK
Versions
  • 9’15” 1080p HD festival screening version, stereo sound
  • Forever-looping 9’00” circular projection installation, quadrophonic sound
Year2010

Further Information:
Sync premiered in 2010 as part of ‘Time, What Makes Us Tick?’, an exhibition by artists Max Hattler and Nelleke Koop and scientists Prof. Dr. Eric Bergshoeff and Prof. Dr. Martha Merrow, conceptualised by Nathalie Beekman, produced by Pavlov E-Lab as part of their ‘Open Mind’ series of sci-art collaborations, and supported by the Open Workshop department at The Animation Workshop in Viborg, Denmark.

Still Images

PressKit

Dowload a presskit here with an artist statement, screening information, awards and sample photos Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisici elit, sed eiusmod tempor incidunt ut labore et dolore magna.

Screenings & Exhibitions

2024-2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

Online Screenings

Open Mind / Process Time, what makes us tick?

Cinematic meeting of science and art: This year Pavlov E-lab again presents Open Mind, a project in which art and science encounter one another in an adventurous way. This year’s theme is TIME. You are carried off on a journey through various time scales in an exciting audiovisual installation. Chronobiologist Martha Merrow, a specialist in the field of the biological clock, and theoretical physician Eric Bergshoeff, specialized in the String Theory, are linked to cinematographer Nelleke Koop and animator Max Hattler.

Noorderzon Festival, 2010

Circular Adventures in Animation

*** Max Hattler (2011) Sync: Circular Adventures in Animation in Virginie Selavy (ed.) The End: An Electric Sheep Anthology, London: Strange Attractor Press

OpenM: Sync installation view at 'Time, What Makes Us Tick?', Noorderzon Festival. Photo: Roelof Bos
Sync installation view at 'Time, What Makes Us Tick?', Noorderzon Festival. Photo: Roelof Bos

What others have said​

Sync is modelled on a zoetrope (‘wheel of life’ in Greek), an optical device that produces the illusion of movement from a rapid circular succession of static images. The narrative and animation of the whole film are produced by one single image, a gigantic virtual disc spinning at 7400 degrees per second, which a virtual camera continuously zooms out of and which serves to encapsulate the central premise of the film, that there is an underlying unchanging synchronisation at the centre of everything, a sync that was decided at the beginning of everything, the Big Bang. The sound is derived from a continuous modulation of frequencies, corresponding to the progression of time scales that the image plane describes.

A centripetal force – suggesting both biological organisms and synthetic creations – oscillate hypnotically on an axis in this animated projection.

A work of remarkable artistic importance and a high technical level.

Animated film as a never-ending, animated mandala pattern rotating around its central axis. In ‘Sync’, originally devised as an installation piece, Max Hattler begins a quest to discover the unchanging origin of all things. He finds this in an endless spiral and circular motion.

In this film, the rotation produced intentionally, continues to repeat in the dark background by the computer-based program. It shows the circulation of the universe and life. Also, it depicts the rotational motion in the social and economic cycle, and history. We can also see, the presence of the central axis and rotation of a planet. The centripetal force trying to move to the center and the centrifugal force trying to move away from the center. Born, grow, and disappear then reappear, disappear. It is a great video to act in perfect harmony of the visual elements.

Max Hattler decided to portray‚ in a stunningly abstracted manner‚ the whole universe on ONE huge disk that is rotating at the same speed throughout … Best watched in full screen with the lights off and your headphones on.

Reminiscent of John Whitney’s famous animated mandalas, Max Hattler’s work presents a hypnotic, ever-expanding and -contracting series of concentric circles.

Some really beautiful patterns, great sound design, and probable dizziness.

… reminds me of an abstract interpretation of Charles and Ray Eames Powers of Ten … It’s staggeringly hypnotic.

Another recent creation is Sync, a 2010 collaboration with a physicist and a chronobiologist that visualises ideas about time and the universe, starting with the Big Bang. ‘Physics was created at that moment [the Big Bang]. Time was created at that moment. To try and visualise that, I created this massive spinning disk, Sync, that we’re zooming out of continually until the end of time.’

The underlying “sync” at the center of everything is a very interesting concept which can be found in the Tao (The Lo Shu square and the Dance of Yu), in the contraction of God as described by Kabbalist under the Term of TzimTzum of En Soph, or maybe also in the Ensō in Zen. It can also be found in an overtone and therfore in the holy Syllable Aum.

Little did The Mamas and The Papas know when penning the words, ‘To everything (turn, turn, turn). There is a season (turn, turn, turn)’, that they very well could have been talking about Max Hattler’s future piece of work Sync in which he sets his canvas to the celestial scale by representing the life of the universe, from big bang to present day, as a constantly evolving spinning disk. Max’s work often has a hypnotic quality, but Sync holds your attention tighter than Kaa from the Jungle Book ever could. As used to watching shorts on the small screen as I’ve become, I’m tempted to hire a projector, a massive screen and throw a party just to do Sync the justice it deserves.

This film is the perfect mix between a conceptual essay and a rigorous mastering of craft and artistry. This experimental animation renders the overwhelming feelings of missing horizon views within megalopoles subjected to densification, while using a photographic technique to reveal the continuity in the buildings’ facades. 

… not to be missed … Sync is another exercise in periodic movement and relationships between circulating abstract geometric forms.

video-dumbo-max-hattler-sync-tshirt
Max Hattler x video_dumbo 2011 limited edition Sync t-shirt

… the short in this set I feel most powerfully demands being seen on the big screen is Max Hattler’s Sync, which was not in competition for an award at all. Hattler’s had a piece in each of the past five SFIFF editions now, starting with Collision in 2007. Sync is much less overtly political than that piece, and in fact might be argued to be an example of animation completely free of representational attributes. But it’s even more beautiful, and in fact hypnotizing in its constantly spiraling, expanding complexity.

Mental Reconditioning Program / Level VIII : The Underlying Theory of Everything.

Max Hattler is becoming a bit of a regular on here but while he keeps producing impressive psychedelic animations like this, it’s no wonder.

Max Hattler parte do princípio de que existe uma sincronização secreta no centro de todas as coisas, algo definido desde os primórdios da existência e que rege o funcionamento e desenvolvimento do todo. Sua animação produz uma sensação hipnotizante de imersão nas entranhas de um coração pulsante feito de luz, para logo se transformar em uma mandala a cada nova sequência de movimentos. Cada segundo nos mantém conectados com a tela em uma atração constante. Trabalho maravilhoso.

Wirklich abgefahrene Animation von Max Hattler, die zwar erst relativ simpel aussieht, einem aber beim genauen Hinsehen ganz schön die Optik verdrehen kann.

9 минут абсолютной визуальной синхронизации сознания

馬克斯‧哈特勒(Max Hattler)的作品,雖然也在演繹變形,但是藝術家認為,物體在千變萬化之中,仍保有一個不變的核心。作品「同步」呈現的是圍著這個核心同步運轉的小宇宙。這個在宇宙初起時即已存在的核心,主導著萬物的運行。有如萬花筒般流暢運轉的幾何圖形,顯示萬物於變異中仍保有自然的規律與和諧。至於控制同步運轉的核心究竟象徵什麼?是人的自我意志,抑或造物主之手?作品,留下開放式的想像空間。