Awesome Surreal

Artist Tomasz Woźniakowski has made numerous surreal and imaginative animation loops. This 7-minute-long compilation showcases some of his best and most captivating clips, from an ashtray that walks on cigarette legs to a twisty-turny house that can’t seem to settle down. Stick around to the end for some behind-the-scenes wireframes.

Can you tell a diamond from a piece of glass? We just watched this animation by Meat Dept., and we came away both hypnotized and perplexed. The surreal short is populated with strange-looking characters embroiled in a war that involves interpretive dance, shawarma cookers, and jet-powered wingsuits. The clip is underscored with an excellent track by Arlo.

(Flashing images) Animator Don Herzfeldt’s engrossing 21-minute animated short ME is well worth the price of admission. In its creator’s own words, “It’s a story about narcissism. It’s a story about pain. It’s also about everyone we know.” Despite losing its original music a year into production, the final product and its rhythmic score are a perfect pairing.

In this surreal and amusing short film by Evan Forrest Mann, a boy stumbles onto a glitch in the matrix that lets him convert ordinary cotton balls into sandwich cookies. As delicious as OREOs are, we’re not sure we’d want to eat these ones after seeing what they’ve been through.

Some may dismiss the use of generative AI for creating art, but in the hands of the right person, it can be used to create things none of us imagined possible. Filmmaker James Gerde used AI tech to help create animations that imagine humans if they were made of noodles. Each clip is based on footage of talented dancers, and Gerde made them into pasta.

Filmmaker Paul Trillo used OpenAI’s generative video tool Sora to help create the music video for The Hardest Part from singer-songwriter Washed Out. Rather than attempting to replicate reality, the video takes us on a surreal and dreamlike journey through the lives a young couple. We think it’s a smart use of AI to bring a creative vision to life.

This incredible short film, directed and animated by Duncan Hatch, takes us on a surreal journey that travels from outer space to a cubicle farm to a colorful forest populated with weird creatures. Noah Kowalski’s sound design and Tom Ippolito’s music deliver a sense of immersion that is truly headphone-worthy.

A faction of the computer graphic Demoscene prides itself on creating visuals with the least code possible. Programmer Alcatraz turned up at the Revision 2024 demo party with this surreal scene – a post-apocalyptic black-and-white city created with just 256 bytes of Gopher code running on DOS. Revision posted some competing 256-byte demos here.

Animator Lee Hardcastle is known for his gory and twisted claymation shorts, including Rick and Morty’s Non Canonical Adventures. In Dreaming Child, we’re transported into the mind of a young boy whose dream starts out joyful but quickly turns into a surreal nightmare.

Scandinavian brand Indigofera is known for its oversized Norwegian wool blankets. They teamed up with artist Björn Atldax to create a series of eye-catching textile art. The surrealist images incorporate skulls, monsters, and traditional Mixtec symbology. Each blanket measures 2 m x 1.5 m (~6.56 ft x 4.92 ft) and will wrap you in warmth and weirdness.

From the late 1970s to the 1990s, George Lucas was featured in a number of ad spots for Japanese electronic brands Panasonic and Technics. On their own, the commercials are a little strange and awkward, but in the hands of editor Neil Cicierega, the weird factor just hit Level 9000.

Artist Guldies spent a year working on their latest short film, a wonderfully weird and inventive stop-motion animation featuring objects that morph between organic and man-made forms. In all, there are more than 4400 individual frames, each composed of hand-sculpted Plastilina and Fimo clay.

Digital artist and illustrator Markos Kay created this captivating short film that features surreal and otherworldly life forms that look like nothing we’ve ever seen before. They definitely look organic, though, combining elements of plants and animals. Markos’ Vimeo channel is loaded with many more strange beings.

(PG-13) Academy Award-winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu (Babel, Birdman, The Revenant) is the mind behind this epic film about a Mexican journalist and documentarian whose return to his country triggers memories and fears from his past. The film’s surrealist visual approach is sure to wow some and bewilder others.

TikTok channel The Art Room is packed with colorful illustrations created with pastels, pencils, correction fluid, and masking tape. This particular image features two people creating a beautiful sky with their flashlights. They took some artistic license with their additive color mixing.

Animator Master Tingus loves to create brief cartoons which generally start out with an animal or a person, but turn strange and unexpected as the motion starts. In addition to this compilation video, we recommend checking out their TikTok and Instagram channels for much more weirdness.