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Vice Blog

ABOVEGROUND ANIMATION IN A BASEMENT TONIGHT

I know we already advised you to go to the Machotaildrop screening, but if a feature film about some weird skateboarder kid doesn't tickle your cinematic fancy, there's also a screening of short films tonight. Aboveground Animation is a collection of Chicago-based animators and their experimental film shorts. All of the works are pretty great in their own way, and reminiscent of Liquid Television, crafty student work, and Saturday morning cartoons with a dark undertone. There are 21 shorts total.

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The screenings are hosted in a hidden Chinatown basement art space known as Ramiken Crucible located on East Broadway at Clinton. The show starts at 8pm and admission is 5 bucks.

Here are some stills from a few of my favorite shorts:

Myth Labs- Martha Colburn
This is a meth fever dream with a folk aesthetic. It weaves in ideas of religion and puritan vision and obsessively explores faith and addiction.

Old Friends - Kathleen Daniel
These old friends are good friends, unified by their love of smoking weed. Visuals are Sims-like digital animation. It is kind of like a soul-music video.

Sweet Hearts - Casey Jane Ellison
A teenager lays in bed, naked, fearing the man who has abducted her. He is carrying a knife. As the plot develops the two become lovers, even though he has stabbed her.

Walk for Walk - Amy Lockhart
A bizarre narrative with perpetual transformative surprises. The characters in this short all have a silly way of walking and a silly way of talking. The visuals are hallucinatory, as if your eyes were permanently glazed in acid. Walk for Walk was created from 1,000 hand painted cut outs and paper puppets.

At the Heart of a Sarrow - Barry Doupe
This one's got some sinister digital animation with Dune references. There was a scene where the water hose was spewing blood, and that's it up there.

Here's a list of all the artists showing: Martha Colburn, Kathleen Daniels, Bruno B. Dicolla, Ryan Doherty, Barry Doupe, Erin Dunn, Casey Jane Ellison, Steve Emmons, Lauren Gregory, Clara Kim, Chris Letson, Amy Lockhart, Seth Scriver, Chris Taylor, and Lale Westvind

MAGGIE LEE