Strange Fish
- short
- 4'
To animate is to stimulate and simulate life. The urge to create life is the essence of animation, so animation and evolution are not as far apart as you would think. Loads of animators have tackled the story of evolution (The Simpsons did it!). Steven Subotnick takes a minimalist approach in his short. A single point turns into a shape turns into, hmm, an uncertain figure. Is that a nose, a spine, a tail forming?
But what is it looking to become, and how far is it? In this story of blind evolution, Subotnick’s illustrations play with the theory of evolution not as a straight line, but one with bumps in the road. Reminiscent of doodling while on the phone, the intuitive shapes morph into figures resembling faces or animals. This is where the story starts: lines on white paper. This film won the Grand Prix for Non-Narrative Short at the Holland Animation Film Festival.
KD