Nobuhiro Aihara
Nascimento : 1944-10-17, Isehara, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan
Morte : 2011-04-30
História
Nobuhiro Aihara was born in Kanagawa prefecture in 1944, where he studied at the design school. He began his career in television animation in the 1960s and started producing his own independent animation in 1965. His aesthetic is distinctive for his use of flowing lines, highly complex drawings, and his love of psychedelic colours. He was a prolific artist who often produced several animated shorts a year either on his own or in collaboration with his friend and fellow artist the Keiichi Tanaami. Nobuhiro died on April the 30, 2011 and left behind 85 animated works.
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Circles printed on white paper. Animation frenzy as music becomes more erotic/erratic.
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Darkness and light, as seen by VIFF’s favourite Buddhist erotist. Part of the TOKYO LOOP animation anthology produced by ImageForum Japan.
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Vivid, chromatic animation.
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A series of 16 "short stories" created by the creator's group Images Forum.
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Photos taken with pinhole camera, sky + clouds. Swirling animation like smoke against a black background.
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Ice/ink on white, then into black and red explosive figures, a finger appears.
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Images of the sea and clouds seen from the top of the mountain, the candles of the Tibetan temple, etc., and a chaotic psychedelic animation are juxtaposed.
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A psychedelic animation that starts with an irregular ink spread and develops while increasing the degree of confusion.
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A colorful psychedelic animation developed by drawing motifs of each part of the ear and body.
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As with "SPIN", an abstract animation with delicate line drawings. There are single color and color versions. Nakamura Shigenobu is in charge of the music used in the work like the previous one.
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A tense abstract animation with delicate line drawing. Contemporary musician Nakamura Shigenobu is in charge of the music used in the work.
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It is a monster work that depicts a disturbing air by drawing a scene with the crow as a motif and the scenery of Kyoto in parallel with a frame shot.
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The scenery of the forest in Ogawa and the city of Kyoto and the abstract animation conceived from there are juxtaposed.
Screenplay
A young boy named Takeshi steals an origami crane from his friend Nobu. To Takeshi's surprise the crane begins talking to him and offers to take him and his friends to an amusement park in space where children from many planets play. While riding an attraction designed to test the children's courage, Akiko is sucked into a black hole, leaving Takeshi and his friends to save her.
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A young boy named Takeshi steals an origami crane from his friend Nobu. To Takeshi's surprise the crane begins talking to him and offers to take him and his friends to an amusement park in space where children from many planets play. While riding an attraction designed to test the children's courage, Akiko is sucked into a black hole, leaving Takeshi and his friends to save her.
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Psychedelic animation that impresses with eyeballs and other motifs.
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An abstract animation with a motif of a dragonfly, and a complex multi-exposure landscape of a field and a woman's naked body overlap.
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Steps with shadows. An arm shadow in the landscape - concrete/grass/flowers. Flicker and a finger morphs into abstraction. A real hand appears above the animation, a zoom - drawings/hands/feet.
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A uniquely psychedelic animation of sordid and chaotic images.
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A uniquely psychedelic animation of sordid and chaotic images.
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Hands / flicker / morphing animation suggests sexual organs in a frantic dance.
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An animation that combines the motion of abstract lines and the motif of an apple.
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Project an abstract animation with an apple motif on various places of an old rural house and re-shoot it.
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Following on from Shelter (1981), the setting is again an air-raid shelter. Close-up images of trees are dissected and reformed abstractly. The film culminates with images of elderly survivors of the war in another example of Aihara’s unique blending of documentary storytelling with abstract illustration.
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Set in a cave imagined as an air-raid shelter, images of the surrounding trees are painted over directly on the film. Vivid colors intermixed with the sound of wartime radio communications and bombing create a harmonious composition of documentary and animation.
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The human hand transformed through various animation techniques.
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An animated string held between two youths standing in various locations. The sound negative of this work has unfortunately been lost, and so it is now presented silently.
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Abstract forms animated in drawings.
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Quiet images of statues and fire, followed by animation on drawing paper sinking into the ocean.
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Regarded as a creative extension of Stone (1975), animation unfolds on drawing paper placed on a field and farm.
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Experimental short by Nobuhiro Aihara.
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In his early experimental short Karma (カルマ, 1977), Aihara uses water as his central motif. The film is hand drawn and appears to be shot on 16mm using a blue filter. At first we can only see tiny specks on the screen, coming and going like snow flurries. The specks gradually grow larger and take the shape of bubbles, then even larger into rivulets of water on a transparent surface.
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Understood as an extension of Reckless Daydream (1974), abstract forms are transfigured. This version includes the intended processing of the blue hue and the animation’s timing, as instructed on the film’s original can.
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A stop-motion animation of endlessly moving forward towards a quarry.
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Animation of a devil floating in air, Aihara created both a black and white and color version of this work by painting directly on the film.
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Originally titled Stone No. 2, this is considered a seminal work of Japanese independent animation. Stones, houses and the surrounding natural landscape transform continuously.
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A turning point toward abstraction in Aihara’s career, this work was originally created for the “100 Feet Film Festival”.
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Animations overlaid on a rough grained photo of the Japanese mountain countryside. The physical painting of Japanese lacquer directly onto the film is incorporated into the animation.
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Animation of a large hand toying with a runner, and attempting to stab them with a needle.
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A photograph of Aihara’s grandmother, overlapped with a tranquil documentary style animation of her life ending at her funeral scene.
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An appropriation of an ukiyo-e print of Katsuhika Hokusai, this work incorporates multiple exposures and a range of animation techniques. Recently created from a faded print, this telecine copy restores the vivid red of the original version.
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An image of an Inari shrive, overlapped with the hands of a monk holding a symbol. The work’s shamanistic imagery and rapid speed are precursors to the more spiritual and psychedelic animation of Aihara’s later years.
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A documentary style animation of an apiarist at work in combination with scenes of a seaside village, overlapped with images of a boy trying to escape from fetters.
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An upbeat comical animated collage telling the story of a man attempting to fly with artificial wings.
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The interactions of troops and prostitutes near the Naval Air Facility Atsugi (Kanagawa Prefecture), animated from a child’s perspective. Aihara’s works of this period often contain a documentary view of Japanese society at the time of his childhood.
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This animated documentary is derived from footage shot at the site of the Sanrizuka struggle opposing the construction of Narita Airport. In addition to scenes evidently shot before and after the Nihon Genyasai Festival in Sanrizuka, it features time-lapse sequences showing abandoned houses and construction equipment leveling requisitioned land. “The footage was filmed in Narita. Because this land had been seized, I became conscious of the intensity of my own inner landscape. My time-lapse filming of the landscape was intended for use in an animation-as-documentary.”
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Begun in 8mm film, but completed in 16mm following the purchase of a new camera, this work continues with the psychedelic and anti-war themes, while moments provide the seeds of his later abstract exploration.
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This is Aihara’s earliest surviving work. Motifs of psychedelic culture and the anti-war movement are directly scratched and painted on translucent film.
