“Demoni” by Theodore Ushev

A new animated piece by Theodore Ushev is always cause for celebration. His latest, “Demoni,” is a zoetrope-inspired music video for the Bulgarian band Kottarashky & The Rain Dogs. Ushev, whose artwork tends to be dramatic (Lipsett Diaries, Tower Bawher, Drux Flux), takes a light-hearted turn in this video and fills a series of spinning records with playful bouncing shapes and figures. Graphically, he’s playing in the same sandbox as early-20th century surrealists and abstract painters. One imagines if Miro, Kandinsky and Klee had teamed up to make an animated music video, it would have looked something like this.

Theo describes his process:

The animation film was created using about 50 vinyl recordings. It was painted directly on the plates with oil and gel paint markers, and acrylics. Different speeds of the “Viking” gramophone were used to create the movement. Some shots were done also with stopmotion using a Canon 5D, Carl-Zeiss macro lenses.