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Space and time expand, contract and combust in this propulsive animation

Name: Space and time expand, contract and combust in this propulsive animation | Aeon Videos
Uploaded: 2025-06-05
Duration: 5 min
Description: This experimental animation repeats and expands a simple eight-second scene until it bursts with colour, sound and abstract images

In this experimental work, the Japanese animator Yutaro Kubo begins with an uncoloured eight-second hand-drawn scene of a character reaching for a cup. From there, the piece gradually repeats and expands until a cacophony of sounds, hues and abstract images is unleashed, as the action grows increasingly untethered from this initial sequence – and indeed from recognisable reality. Per Kubo, the work is ‘about expansion and enlargement, not the passage of time’. In that way, the work perhaps mirrors the artistic process itself, in which a single idea can grow, permute and deepen in unexpected ways. However you approach it, Kubo’s intricately crafted piece makes for an awesome, unpredictable ride.

Director: Yutaro Kubo

Producer: Koji Yamamura

5 June 2025