Mind's Eye, Early CGI art films!

[ScutigeraColeoptrata]

Greetings fellow Bog Leeches,

For those of you who didn't grow up in the late 80s and early 90s, there was a time when computer animation was a scarcity and something to marvel at. Indeed, when the technology was in its infancy, people were impressed by even its most basic applications; it was a like animation, but in 3 dimensions!

I grew up with shows like Reboot, where you could easily tell how the character models were assembled and appreciate all the effort that was put into each and every bit of animation. It may seem strange to say now, when computer animation is largely considered hollow and even crass compared to practical effects, but there was definitely a humble honesty to early CGI.

Anyway, the point of all this is that, growing up, I saw various entries in the "Mind's Eye" series, which was a collection of artistic 3D animation movies featuring a number of short segments, sometimes tied together by a loose narrative. The first entry in the series was "The Mind's Eye: A Computer Animation Odyssey", which was made back in 1990 and which chronicled the history of planet Earth from its creation, to the advent of human civilization, to beyond present day into the future. It was an ambitious and beautifully executed surrealist art film which, for the time, made stunning use of the new technology. Here's a clip:



The Canadian broadcasting company YTV used to show some of the segments from the various films in between shows when no one had purchased the advertising time, which is how I saw most of the segments. However, the entry in the series I am most familiar with is the 1994 film "The Gate to the Mind's Eye", which I still consider to be one of the most inspiring films I've ever seen. If there is a overarching theme for the sequences of this film, it's the nature in which humanity sees the world and how those perceptions influence reality. These influences range from the positive to the very negative, the latter being illustrated by the first sequence, "Armageddon":



Sequences vary in imagery and tone quite a bit, some, such as "Neo" below being quite calm and contemplative:



Others are just outright bizarre, such as "Quantum Mechanic", which actually featuers the vocals of Dr. Fiorella Terenzi!:



These days CGI isn't such a novelty, and the creation of computer graphics that can be considered impressive is largely restricted to the work of big-budget studios. Between the creation and sophistication of every art form and discipline, there is a window of opportunity for the free thinker to explore the new frontier, heedless of standards and conventions both past and yet to come. It was in such a period that the Mind's Eye series was created, and being allowed to experience these works during the time they were intended to be is something I am truly grateful for.

[Shadgrimgrvy]

Oh my god I remember these! My parents rented the VHS from the library once, I was probably five at the time. All I could remember thinking was "Who are these robot birds why are they singing about eyes?".

It's nice to know that other people remember these movies and it wasn't just some memory I fabricated. Quantum Mechanic's got to be my favorite, just for the sheer cheese factor. It makes me miss the 90's.

[ScutigeraColeoptrata]

I know right? These films were so weird, and, nowadays are so obscure, that they practically seem like dreams from our youth that somebody happened to record.

They might be my favourite art films for that reason alone.

[Shadgrimgrvy]

I stumbled across some of these videos because I was looking through Thomas Dolby's discography and happened to find out he did virtually all of the music for them. I was pretty surprised by that.

I still have no idea how to embed so here's Armageddon.

I forgot how cool this one was. It's weird hearing all those sound effects now, since they've been used in so many video games since then, especially Half-Life.

[ScutigeraColeoptrata]

Imagine if you had an office job working in the giant pentagram building; that couldn't be good for morale.

It was a very dark way to begin the movie; it's almost as though this is how the story of the human race ends, and the rest of the film is showing the viewer a look back in time into all the years of culture and experience which shaped that world to said end, while simultaneously getting away from the material and focusing on the inner beauty of the human soul.

Or maybe they just thought it would be a cool way to begin, who knows?