onedotzero adventures in motion 2010: preview

festivals & awards

festivals

A few years ago it might have seemed improbable that onedotzero would last as long as it has. Arguably, the label and touring festival might have been seen as something of a late 1990s phenomenon (what with their lowercase lettering preoccupation). But nearly fifteen years on onedotzero goes from strength to strength, not only surviving in a cut-throat cultural climate but continuing to innovate and inspire similar startup festivals such as Branchage and Abandon Normal Devices.

The annual adventures in motion festival is also firmly established at BFI Southbank, where it now feels like a natural fit, providing a hip venue for onedotzero but also bestowing the BFI with a cutting-edge departure from its core classics retrospectives.

This year's event feels slightly refreshed, featuring several new programmes alongside returning favourites like wow flutter, wavelength and the obligatory multimedia knees-up at the BFI's Imax cinema.

This year onedotzero have decided not to publish full lineups on their website, so in order not to spoil the surprise too much we won't give away too many of the films, but will attempt instead to give you a taster of what to expect.

wow flutter is the festival's signature programme, containing all the latest experiments in digital animation and motion graphics. You can expect to see films such as Sam Stephens' Homonculus, an animation where mouldy food morphs into cannibalistic creatures, and Quayola's incredible Strata (excerpt), which digitally reimagines the ceiling of the Sistine chapel.

wavelength is the dedicated music video section, and interestingly the artists featured seem to grow in stature every year as bigger and bigger acts choose more futuristic video techniques. This year you can catch clips from artists such as Massive Attack, Grizzly Bear and Johnny Cash.

Other returning programmes include sprites, which is nominally aimed at younger viewers but which always contains some excellent work; citystates, the focus on urban landscapes that often makes for the most visually adventurous works; j-star, focusing on hi-tech Japanese experimentalism; and new british talent, which this year contains films like Graham Young's excellent Still Life with Smoke and Mirrors and Thrush from Gabriel Bisset-Smith (writer of the cult play The Charming Man).

Several new programmes make their debut this year, include the pleasingly named ladymation, highlighting animated work from female directors and including works by Lucy Izzard, George Wu and Kris Hofmann.

And another is robotica, which showcases the latest mechanical beings in the audiovisual world. Here you can see two important breakout works which allegedly led to interest from Hollywood headhunters - Federico Alvarez's Panic Attack! and Carl Rinsch's The Gift, both of which contain superlative automatons.

The latter film was created as part of Phillips Cinema's Parralel Lines short film competition, and onedotzero have raided their shortlist for several films, including Johnny Hardstaff's Darkroom. That film can be seen in the nightfall section, which showcases some of the more extreme entries. Adult audiences can enjoy outré offerings like Bastard - Metal on Metal and the outrageous breast augmentation horror, Boob.

There are also a handful of feature films playing at the festival, all of which continue in the vein of digital experimentation. Gareth Edwards Monsters has already built up something of a following during festival appearances and has also just been nominated for six BIFA awards. We can confirm it is an excellent, highly original, genre-confounding work.

Finally you can expect a plethora of stimulating exhibitions, installations and audiovisiual events to be on display at BFI Southbank during the festival, including efforts from frequent collaborators like Bug and Quayola. The workshops on offer also vary slightly from the usual festival fare - where else, for example, could you expect to take part in a robot-building workshop?

All these highlights and more available at the onedotzero adventures in motion festival 2010. More details are available on their website.