Ben Ridgway's Abstract Forms Contort And Enchant Ad Infinitum

As short, transformative works that can take on a meditative quality, the films of Ben Ridgway invite you to explore the world beyond yourself. He is, after all, an experimental animator who sees himself as an investigator of the metaphysical features of reality. Abstraction for Ridgway is “the most direct way of being able to express” the metaphysical. For the rest of us, his abstract forms are just something pretty to look at.

But then, after your second or third viewing of one of his pieces, you realize that there is more to his work than luminous colors. Much more. Their ability to hook your attention while some alternative mind state morphs before your eyes make them out to be bite-sized mantras suited for the internet age. This is intentional on Ridgway’s part, who states that his work “is intended as something that is meditative and that is for contemplation…It’s something to slow you down so you can watch and enjoy.”

In this, he takes after some if his artistic contemporaries whom he cites as being one of his influences. Though he is inspired by the work of animation giants like Oskar Fischinger, who is best known for his work on Fantasia, and Normal McLaren, he has recently been captivated by contemporary visionary painters whose canvasses “address the spirit, consciousness, and our role in the world on a spiritual level.” Artists like Mars One, Oliver Vernon, and Damon Soule create amazing paintings that would make it almost painful for Ridgway to look at because he wanted them to be moving somehow.

He adds, “I look at them and it’s almost painful to see them not moving. If I could make something like that and just make it move, it would be amazing.”

Amazing, indeed:

Triboluminescence - 2010 from Ben Ridgway

While a student, Ridgway’s work had a more surrealist inclination. Then, about the time he was teaching at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, and after having worked in the gaming industry for five years, he began to see how exciting the resumes of other 3D computer artists looked. That is when he decided to take advantage of the same technology utilized in the creation of video games and movie effects to guide his animation. And is also when he came up with the idea for Ad Infinitum.

Ad Infinitum - 2010 from Ben Ridgway

Ad Infinitum is currently screening at the Detroit Institute of Arts as part of the Avant-Garde Animation program. The program runs through January 05, 2014.

For the time being, he’s just trying to meet his goal of completing at least one film a year. 2013 proved to be a rather productive one as he was able to churn out three of them. At some point, he plans on making something more long-form. “Long-form meaning five minutes instead of two. Maybe a ten-minute film in the future,” he says. Keeping his films short allows him to meet his output goals and has turned out to be the best format for getting attention.

“It seems that short form is good for short attention spans, for online content, and for getting your work out. To ask somebody to watch a half hour-long movie is sometimes difficult to do. But if you have something that’s two minutes long most people are willing to take two minutes of their time to watch something. And you can still do a lot with it.”

Tribocycle, his shortest film at one minute, 20 seconds, for example, was chosen as a Vimeo Staff Pick and has been getting thousands of hits.

The concepts for his films can develop from sketches in his notebook…

…or, from experiments he conducts on the digital sculpting tool ZBrush.

But most ideas come to him from freehand drawing: “That’s really where a lot of my ideas come from. If I’m riding the train someplace or if I’m out at a park, a restaurant, sitting at home, being able to sit just and play on the paper, trying to figure out new forms, new content, new ways of exploring consciousness, of just drawing and seeing what comes out spontaneously.” To him, it is like a form of tactile daydreaming.

It’s one of the ways how the idea for Cosmic Flower Unfolding developed--from the process of experimentation.

Caption: Cosmic Flower Unfolding in its concept stage. Cosmic Flower Unfolding is currently on the film festival circuit so Ridgway hasn’t released it in full but hopes to do so by the end of this year. He releases all of his films online eventually. From doing so, from putting them out “into the world and [saying] ‘here, share it, download it, do whatever you want,’” he’s discovered his work gets the attention and responses it adequately deserves. Fall in love with it some more by viewing the trailer for Cosmic Flower Unfolding below.

Cosmic Flower Unfolding - TRAILER 2013 from Ben Ridgway