Imagine an animator's boot stamping on a cartoon face -- forever

August 8, 2010 6:52 AM

Featuring thousands of transformations - from Little Lulu to Donald Duck to Spongebob to Bert from Sesame Street - Love and Theft is a twisted "face kaleidoscope" of the animation living in your pop culture brain. From Andreas Hykade, the creator of the "country" trilogy (We Lived in Grass, Ring of Fire and Runt).

Mildly NSFW - some cartoon body parts visible during the 'transporter-malfunction' morphing. Do not show to the uptight or easily disturbed. [via]
posted by Hardcore Poser (39 comments total)

I need more drugs, man. Thoroughly impressed.
posted by notsnot at 7:05 AM on August 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

the music is by turns addictive, compelling and disturbing
posted by infini at 7:08 AM on August 8, 2010

I recommend watching it in full screen and high def.
posted by Pseudonumb at 7:29 AM on August 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

Holy shit. Just enough drugs here, thanks.
posted by carsonb at 7:43 AM on August 8, 2010

Saw this a while ago – it came second in a short film competition* at Cannes. It's insane and brilliant and hypnotic and I refuse to watch it full screen for fear of a seizure.

*The film that won was Crash! Bang! Wallow! by Jon Dunleavy – if I hadn't co-written the script, I'd have made an FPP for it at the time.
posted by him at 7:53 AM on August 8, 2010 [8 favorites]

I like this. It reminds me of the cat paintings made by Louis Wain as he descended into schizophrenia.
posted by Philosopher Dirtbike at 7:54 AM on August 8, 2010 [10 favorites]

Wowz.
My two previously favourite Hykade videos: "Walkampf" - Quicktime stream/YouTube (stick with it), and the deceptively minimal "Bla bla bla" - YouTube.
posted by progosk at 8:02 AM on August 8, 2010

Looks like I picked the wrong day to quit salvia.
posted by Splunge at 8:16 AM on August 8, 2010 [2 favorites]

Beautiful.

Interestingly enough, I had closed-eye visual hallucinations EXACTLY LIKE THAT VIDEO when I abruptly stopped smoking marijuana, back when I was younger. Exactly the same thing. A little faster and a little rougher, but exactly the same thing.
posted by krilli at 8:23 AM on August 8, 2010

(I didn't care for the music; This is most beautiful on Mute.)
posted by krilli at 8:23 AM on August 8, 2010

Brilliant use of line and form for suggestion.

Jim Woodring finally has an heir apparent.
posted by seanmpuckett at 8:23 AM on August 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

Remember this?
posted by Splunge at 8:25 AM on August 8, 2010

That was wild. I'm also watching the "Tom" cartoons posted under the same account - they're equal parts lovely and wtf.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 8:25 AM on August 8, 2010

Meh.
posted by Doohickie at 8:40 AM on August 8, 2010

Reminds me of Vince Collins (not safe for work/sanity)
posted by gubo at 8:42 AM on August 8, 2010

Amazing.
posted by nitsuj at 8:47 AM on August 8, 2010

Neat imagery but about twice as long as it needed to be. A three minute edit would be awesome.
posted by octothorpe at 9:15 AM on August 8, 2010

This is really nicely done. It reminds me a little of Oliver Laric's 787 Cliparts.
posted by oulipian at 9:20 AM on August 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

Very cool, very evocative. I just hope that Disney et al. don't end up suing him.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:35 AM on August 8, 2010

Nicely done. Reminds me of Don't go in the basement
posted by samsara at 9:57 AM on August 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

Wow. The interplay between the music and visuals really takes this into something special territory. For some reason Hello Charlie Brown Kitty sticks in my mind.


It reminds me of the cat paintings made by Louis Wain as he descended into schizophrenia.
The evolution from oh so cute kitteh in her garden room to psychotic period stage 3 Aztec demon kitty spirit is incredible.
posted by Babblesort at 10:44 AM on August 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

Good stuff, it reminds me why I was interested enough in animation to study it in a past life. It also reminds me of Bruce Bickford's animations. (Totally NSFW.)
posted by usonian at 10:45 AM on August 8, 2010

what just happened to my brain
posted by karminai at 10:47 AM on August 8, 2010

Now that's the way to kick off a Sunday morning :)
posted by mosk at 10:52 AM on August 8, 2010

Dazzling and bizarre and mind-warping. Loved it.
posted by kinnakeet at 11:30 AM on August 8, 2010

That was beautiful.
posted by dirty lies at 12:13 PM on August 8, 2010

> I like this. It reminds me of the cat paintings made by Louis Wain as he descended into schizophrenia.

I love those paintings, but, [t]he dramatically satisfying idea that these beautiful pieces reflect Wain's ongoing descent into schizophrenia is most likely untrue.
posted by shponglespore at 12:17 PM on August 8, 2010 [2 favorites]

Sort of physically difficult to watch. I kept unfocusing.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 12:30 PM on August 8, 2010

Overall a very nice piece of work, but after looking at the likes of Mickey and Bert and such, the repeated this-character's-breasts-becomes-that-person's-eyes in the middle was a bit... huanting. Still, this will go in my list of go-to videos when I need some visual stimulation.
posted by Golfhaus at 1:50 PM on August 8, 2010

DAYMAKER.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 1:59 PM on August 8, 2010

Thought it was cool but wasn't expecting much, until the transition at 2:17. Then it entered full on must-see-in-planetarium territory. I hadn't guessed that it would have differently evocative movements -- very, very nice, thanks.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 2:29 PM on August 8, 2010

A lot of the 'toons reminded me of Charles Burns and Jim Woodring. My guess is the artist was a fan of RAW.
posted by Jimmy Havok at 2:38 PM on August 8, 2010

love it!
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 3:01 PM on August 8, 2010

One wonders what this would look like in IMAX.
posted by bwg at 5:04 PM on August 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

One wonders what this would look like in IMAX.

Considerably bigger, I imagine.
posted by mhjb at 5:54 PM on August 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

shponglespore: "> I like this. It reminds me of the cat paintings made by Louis Wain as he descended into schizophrenia.

I love those paintings, but, [t]he dramatically satisfying idea that these beautiful pieces reflect Wain's ongoing descent into schizophrenia is most likely untrue."

Well. Gotta trust a Fortean. Case closed.
posted by Splunge at 6:27 PM on August 8, 2010

daaaaaaaaaaaaaamn.
posted by danb at 8:49 PM on August 8, 2010

Reminds me of Vince Collins

I was going to say that it reminded me of the opening act at a Coldplay concert I attended a couple of years ago - Jon Hopkins, it was - but then I looked it up and the visuals Hopkins used for that set were actually by Collins anyway.

Very similar feel here, the way the music repeats and drones and changes the same way the images do, unsettling in a way that's negative but not bad. "Interesting."
posted by titus n. owl at 4:00 AM on August 9, 2010

So, for a while it was just black and white faces in the middle, cycling through, and i was all 'really? thass it?' then that happened.
posted by Makwa at 7:43 AM on August 9, 2010