James Patterson is the shit. If you've never seen his stuff before, its time for you to do some exploring over at his website, PRESSTUBE. After your first exposure, Patterson's distinct style is instantly indentifiable: his fluidly animated scratchy lines form shape-shifting ephemeral objects that proudly acknowledge their hand-drawn origins as they embrace a thoroughly digital habitat of infinite replication and repetition.

At the moment, I'm really loving Patterson's newest work, Davey Jones' Locker, first shown at Bitforms in New York this summer. Over the course of ten minutes, an entire universe of Patterson's creations drifts slowly up the screen in a trance-inducing candy-colored procession set to a dreamy pair of tunes by Evil Pupil and Sixtoo. Its a mesmerizing audio visual experience that might leave you wishing you were inside the frame, weightlessly floating up alongside Patterson's psychedelic detritus.

You'll also want to check out Patterson's fruitful collaborations with the venerable Amit Pitaru over at Insert Silence.

Davey Jones' Locker

Been following Patterson for a while, and enjoyed this one. However, I love the sprouting and flowing motions of his other animations much more.

http://www.presstube.com/PAGES/PAGE_16
http://www.presstube.com/PAGES/PAGE_17

While this one is still great for its ambient qualities, it's less engaging and after a certain point even a bit boring. I think the fact that the compression renders the already fairly abstracted and layered imagery all the more indiscernible is certainly contributing to my inattention. Maybe this was a conscious decision to get people to buy the DVD.

I'm planning a similar approach to Insert Silence for integration of animations and drawings into my thesis. It will be wonderful to get back to a far more immediately satisfying and expressive medium.

this dude was a montrealer... met him through geoff of www.Oculart.com