A circular looping animation projection installation.
"(...) 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)***
- Best Video Installation, Multivision, St. Petersburg, Russia, 2011
- Special Prize, Visual Music Award, Frankfurt, Germany, 2011
- Special Mention (for "A work of a remarkable artistic importance and a high technical level"), Prize Simona Gesmundo for Animated Short Films, Naples, Italy, 2011
- Vimeo Staff Picks, October 2011
EXHIBITIONS + SCREENINGS 2012
- REEL, Lincoln, UK, Mon 28 May
- AniFest, Teplice, Czech Republic, 26 Apr - 1 May
- Gulbenkian Foundation, as part of Monstra Festival, Lisbon, Portugal, 19-25 Mar
- Bart kunst in huis / Go Short, Nijmegen, Holland, 14-18 Mar (TBC)
- Go Short, Nijmegen, Holland, Sun 18 Mar, 16:00 (Max Hattler Special Screening)
- Animac, Lleida, Catalonia, Spain, 1-4 Mar (Max Hattler Special Screening)
- 7th Annual Music Video Showcase, Memphis, TN, USA, 1-4 Mar
- 8th Berlin International Directors Lounge, Berlin, 9-19 Feb
- London Short Film Festival, London, 8 Jan
2011
- Festival Tous Courts, Aix-en-Provence, France, 29 Nov - 4 Dec
- Anilogue, Budapest, Hungary + Vienna, Austria, 23 Nov - 1 Dec
- Max Hattler Special Screening, Off and Free Film Festival, Seoul, Korea, 17-23 Nov
- Fredrikstad Animation Festival, Fredrikstad, Norway, 9-13 Nov
- Multivision, St. Petersburg, Russia, 3-15 Nov (installation at AL Gallery)
- Animae Caribe Festival, Port of Spain, Trinidad, 30 Oct - 6 Nov
- Visual Music Award, Frankfurt, Germany, 1 Nov
- Premio Simona Gesmundo, Naples, Italy, 29 Oct
- Kinofest, Bucharest, Romania, 28-30 Oct
- Un festival c'est trop court - 11th Nice short film festival, Nice, France, 18–23 Oct
- Ulm Szenen - Szene Ulm, Stadthaus, Ulm, Germany, 11 Oct
- SIMULTAN Festival, Timisoara, Romania, 6-8 Oct
- East Pop West, London, 30 Sep - 2 Oct (group exhibition; Max Hattler solo screen)
- Video Dumbo, New York City, NY, USA, 23-25 Sep
- Ottawa International Animation Festival, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 21-25 Sep
- The People Pile: The Studio Event, London Studio Centre, London, Sat 10 Sep
- Fantoche, Baden, Switzerland, 6-11 Sep
- Hackney Film Festival launch event, The Others, London, 19 Aug
- Secret Garden Party, Mill Hill Field, Abbots Ripton, UK, 24 Jul
- FILE - Electronic Language International Festival, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 19 Jul - 21 Aug
- Time, What Makes Us Tick?, Nacht van Kunst & Wetenschap, Groningen, NL, 4 Jun
- Festival les Uns chez les Autres, Hôtel le Canal, Paris, 19 May, 18:00
- Transform, Asifakeil, quartier21, Vienna, 6 May - 2 June (2-person exhibition)
- Transform: Max Hattler + Noriko Okaku, Raum D, quartier21, Vienna, 5 May
- San Francisco Int'l Film Festival, San Francisco, CA, USA, 25 Apr - 5 May
- NOVA Contemporary Culture, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, April (group show)
- Max Hattler Masterclass, Anima Festival, Brussels, Belgium, 11 Mar
- Body Transformation, MOCA Taipei, Taiwan, 15 Jan - 15 Feb (3-person show)
- Relations & Abstractions, Directors Lounge, Berlin, Sat 8 Jan (solo screening)
2010
- Videomedeja Festival, Novi Sad, Serbia, 17-19 Dec
- Goethe-Institut, Ankara, Turkey, Wed 13 Oct
- TAW Talk, The Animation Workshop, Viborg, Denmark, Mon 20 Sep
- Time, What Makes Us Tick?, Noorderzon Festival, Groningen, NL, 25-29 Aug
ONLINE SCREENINGS
- Instant Cinema, 2011 (curated by Center for Visual Music)
Sync installation view at 'Time, What Makes Us Tick?', Noorderzon Festival. Photo: Roelof Bos
CREDITS
Director: Max Hattler
Production: Pavlov E-Lab, Nathalie Beekman, Max Hattler
Scientific Advisors: Eric Bergshoeff, Martha Merrow
Animation: Andreas Thomsen
Music: Dennis van Tilburg
Supported by: Open Workshop dept. of The Animation Workshop, Viborg, DK
Year: 2010
Versions:
- 9'15" 1080p HD festival screening version, stereo sound
- forever-looping 9'00" circular projection installation, quadrophonic sound
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.
*** Max Hattler (2011) 'Sync: Circular Adventures in Animation' in Virginie Selavy (ed.) The End: An Electric Sheep Anthology, London: Strange Attractor Press
"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
"A work of remarkable artistic importance and a high technical level." Special Mention, Prize Simona Gesmundo for Animated Short Films, 2011
"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." Fantoche Int'l Animation Film Festival 2011
"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." Human Resources
"Reminiscent of John Whitney's famous animated mandalas, Max Hattler's work presents a hypnotic, ever-expanding and -contracting series of concentric circles." Sean Uyehara, San Francisco International Film Festival 2011
"Some really beautiful patterns, great sound design, and probable dizziness." thekidshouldseethis.com
"... reminds me of an abstract interpretation of Charles and Ray Eames Powers of Ten ... It's staggeringly hypnotic." Visual Documentary
"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.'" Design Week (6 Jan 2011)
"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." Lifestyle Magick, Mar 2011
"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." Directors Notes
"... not to be missed ... Sync is another exercise in periodic movement and relationships between circulating abstract geometric forms." Paul Prudence, dataisnature, 2011
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." Hell On Frisco Bay, 2011
"Mental Reconditioning Program / Level VIII : The Underlying Theory of Everything." Joyce Bidouzo-Coudray, 2011
"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." KINO 10, 2011
"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." Urbanik, 2011
"Wirklich abgefahrene Animation von Max Hattler, die zwar erst relativ simpel aussieht, einem aber beim genauen Hinsehen ganz schön die Optik verdrehen kann." Das Kraftfuttermischwerk, 2011
"9 минут абсолютной визуальной синхронизации сознания" Mazzacho, d-ko.ru, 2011
"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。" MOCA Taipei, Taiwan, 2011