Created by the Japanese director and designer Daihei Shibata for the Japanese educational TV programme Design Ah, the short video Gradations relishes in the blurring and stretching of visual borders. With a Zenned-out soundtrack augmenting the pleasing imagery, the short serves up a series of brief sequences in which commonplace visuals – from city lights to coffee and milk – shift from binary to an increasingly gradated spectrum. Beyond its oddly satisfying effect, the piece suggests hidden worlds of complexity even in the most mundane places. For more design wizardry from Shibata, watch Unendurable Line.
Delight as the hard-edged world melts into a full-rainbow spectrum of reality
Director: Daihei Shibata

videoCities
Time dilates and people flow in and out of each other in a hallucinatory urban commute
3 minutes

videoFilm and visual culture
Space and time expand, contract and combust in this propulsive animation
5 minutes

videoInformation and communication
An animation built from road signs is a whirlwind study of flash communication
2 minutes

videoCities
A night-time drive through Tokyo transforms into a dizzying sensory experience
2 minutes

videoCities
Bright nights, lonely crowds – a Tokyo train speeds through urban contradictions
3 minutes

videoMathematics
Getting down with squares – the dance styles of geometry
6 minutes

videoAutomation and robotics
Dance dance automation: music from the factory floor
8 minutes

videoFilm and visual culture
A Palme d’Or-winning animation toys with the way our eyes perceive light
5 minutes

videoFilm and visual culture
Our world has very different contours when a millimetre is blown up to a full screen
8 minutes