Celestial Navigations

Last year the excellent Numero Group released Celestial Navigations, a DVD retrospective of artist and animator Al Jarnow. Ordinarily they reissue forgotten soul or folk rarities on vinyl, but in this case they were exhuming fragments of film embedded in the memories of countless 70s children. Jarnow started out making sequences for Sesame St, including the legendary Cosmic Clock, and from his attic studio in Long Island he created a little cottage industry in curious, brain-tickling little films. Like the best experiments he followed an idea through to its natural conclusion. I particularly like the short which gave the DVD its title, in which he plots the movement of sunlight across his wall and then ends up travelling to Stonehenge to compare and contrast.

All of which is a preamble to say that a juicy selection of Al Jarnow's work will be showing during Flatpack at Ikon Eastside on Sunday 27th March, around lunchtime. Earlier in the weekend there are plenty of other psychedelic animated treats to be found, including some pioneering computer animation and more recent work by the likes of Mirai Mizue, David Wilson and Anthony Francisco Schepperd. More info coming soon. (With thanks to Rick and Alex for the initial tipoff)