We know basic moving shapes from famous designers and artists such as Saul Bass and Oskar Fischinger. At their time these visionaries have revolutionized visual communication.

Let’s do a small experiment: Imagine jumping into the year of 2300 and into a setting of a dark, neon, sci-fi, mega city. What would Bass’ and Fischinger’s creations look like in this surreal world? What if the dots, triangles, and lines don’t move to classical music, but to synthesizers and modern sound machines?

Here is my final video creation!

My 2d-video project for the topic »image rhythm, rhythm image« brings old known concepts into futuristic, dystopian, cyber punk settings. With optics and colors inspired by visual concepts of »Blade Runner«, »Star Wars«, »Cowboy Bebop« etc., I created an eye-catching accompaniment to a song by famous, French musician Jean-Michel Jarre. Mostly known for his number 1 albums »Ogygène« and »Equinoxe«, Jarre experiments with simple synthesizer sounds and mixes them into an abstract composition.

For the colors of the appearing shapes, I collected wallpapers from the mentioned sci-fi movies and shows and picked out a strong neon color palette. To choose the fitting shapes for the different sound layers, I analyzed the song and its components. Often, I just closed my eyes to form a spontaneous and live-reacting shape in my head. In the end I had three variations for the main melodies, visuals for singular sound effects such as the timpani and bells and an organic animation for the singing choir. The forms for the sounds generated by the synthesizers appeared more geometric and constructed than the soundelements created through traditional instruments and human voices. I animated every movement manually in After Effects on the musical piece.

After putting together the components, it was time to add effects and layers to sell the idea of a retro-futuristic computer screen. With glitch effects, chromatic aberration, and some roughing through kerning, I simulated an 80s neon computer screen.

Hopefully, in the end, I was able to do justice to the timeless works of Oskar Fischinger and Saul Bass.

Here are some still images
Enjoy the clip above!