January 28, 2026

This week we are bringing back the very first shorts program we ever put together for the From Below: SEE/FEEL: Tactile, Experimental, Handmade Animations! on Wednesday, January 28th, at 7 PM.

Here is the link to RSVP. Doors will be at 6:50 and we’ll start the show at 7:10!

I initially put together this program as an outgrowth of my research on decentralized, independent forms of animation that emphasized their materiality as a way of expressing a liberation from standard practice and ideology. Basically, I was interested in forms of filmic and animated experimentation that could be done by oneself, or in small groups, with access to only unorthodox materials, that open up our conceptions of what making a film “ought to” look like. This program traces this strand from early direct animators such as Len Lye and Norman McLaren up to the present, exploring alternative materials such as one’s own blood and skin and landfill waste, animation as decolonial remixing as in Naomi Uman’s or Robert Banks’s work, unconventional applications of other artistic methods, as in William Kentridge’s oeuvre, or animation as a form of documentation in the work of Harry Smith.

It only makes sense to bring back this program this week—many obligations abound for your From Below programmers, and not just the Horsebag album release show this evening! I (Charlie) also have a newly completed fabric animation, deeply indebted to the films and research on display in this screening that is debuting at the “Outsider Embroidery” gallery show at GO Gallery (2939 NE Alberta St.) this week. The opening reception is on Thursday, January 29th, 5-8 PM, and I humbly invite you all to stop by. ICE / cops / fascists off this planet forever.

Charlie, Stefan, Stark