The Odyssey Exhibition

An assortment of recently drawn scenes from The God Machine. While news on the film has been fairly quiet over the past few years, things have remained the same as ever behind the scenes. Aside from solo independent animation being a not-so-algorithm-friendly output, as mentioned in the last major production post there's only so much you can write about drawing the same characters and general locations over and over and over and over again. While production has continued over the years ruminating over the same general concepts, they have remained frighteningly relevant with the trajectory of the world. The brutality of war, the way people are left as cattle to the inherent genocide of capitalist structures, the need to cease all militarist colonialism for the sake of our future, the underlying struggle of the human spirit against brutality and horror. The God Machine is a violent film but it’s not a film that glorifies violence. It’s instead as much of a rage-filled call for the countless victims as it is a reimagining of old myths for a modern era of nonstop systematic cruelty. Some think the horrors in history are a thing of the past when in actuality they’ve continued without any interruption, the war criminals just don’t announce their atrocities for what they are.

The silent glare. A brief animated detail for one of the scenes in The God Machine. While it takes extra time to do, especially as an inexperienced animator, there's a fun in drawing the occasional shot devoted to little details like this. Especially with how often in film shots would just be of slight shifts in the eyes of a character to communicate the tension of a scene, note pretty much any death scene in the early-80s Lucio Fulci horror films or the typical standoff in a Leone western. The shots aren't quite close enough to be a Leone standoff, but the homage is there in spirit.

(Contains flashing lights) Jet of blood. A short snippet of a longer sequence I was animating for The God Machine. Along with the animation, I also did the other stuff like sound design and background paintings, etc. The audio was done utilizing found object percussion and analog synthesizers. Links to prior posts about the animation (clips, trailers, screencaps, etc): 2022 Teaser - 2021 Trailer - Violent Reincarnation - Atrocity Driver - Confrontation at the Altar - The Putrified Ascetic - Cemetery Metamorphosis - Atrocities of War Painting - Part-Time Death (Dialogue Scene) - Prologue Scene - Bits of the animation’s soundtrack - March 2022 Production Log (Has a crap-ton of images from the film)

Epilepsy warning: Contains flashing lights and images Vimeo - YouTube This is newly edited trailer for my upcoming independent animated horror film, The God Machine. I began work on The God Machine back in 2018 as a personal solo project with the intentions of it being a short. Production on the film continues to this day (or at least this day as of writing this post in November 2022) as a feature-length film. I’m personally tackling all the behind-the-scenes work including the animation, writing, editing and soundtrack composing. The music backing the trailer is an original track I wrote for the film’s score. I’m hoping to eventually have the film done by early 2023. If you like what you've seen, help spread the word of the film by sharing this trailer around.

While things have been a mess between the state of the world and personal life, I've still been spending as much free time between work as I could to finish the remaining scenes for my God Machine animation. I finished one of the more significant dialogue scenes for the film back in May. One of the many influences on the original plotline for The God Machine was old Japanese folk tales, most specifically how they were adapted in 60s horror films like Kwaidan and The Ghost of Yotsuya. That specific influence shows in the sequences involving the chancellor's priest henchman and the subsequent scenes of the chancellor experiencing paranoid hallucinations of the priest's ghost. In the 2021 Egregore workprint this sequence was just a few lines of text, now it's close to being fully sequenced. For more posts about the making of my animation: - My Twitter (where I sometimes give live updates on the film’s production) - Trailer - Violent Reincarnation - Atrocity Driver - The Putrified Ascetic - Cemetery Metamorphosis - March 2022 Production Log (Has a crap-ton of images from the film) - Atrocities of War Painting - Part-Time Death (Dialogue Scene) - Prologue Scene - Bits of the animation’s soundtrack

A recently finished painting for one of the video collage montages in my independent horror animation, The God Machine. This painting was made for the film's climactic atrocities of war montage sequence. Credit to noxaevum_ on Instagram for generously letting me use one of her photos as a reference in the painting. For more posts about the making of my animation: - Trailer - Violent Reincarnation - Atrocity Driver - The Putrified Ascetic - Cemetery Metamorphosis - March 2022 Production Log (Has a crap-ton of images from the film) - Part-Time Death (Dialogue Scene) - Prologue Scene - Bits of the animation’s soundtrack - My Twitter (where I sometimes give live updates on the film’s production)

A collection of songs from The God Machine’s soundtrack. With the exception of a few preexisting rock tracks I’m seeking legal permission to use, I’ve recorded the entirety of The God Machine’s soundtrack myself. The first song was actually what I originally envisioned the film’s main theme to be, but I wasn’t able to record my concept until later in the film’s production. The last track is the film’s closing credits theme. For those out of the loop, The God Machine is a surrealist horror animation that I’ve been working on since late-2018. It’s an (as of writing this) feature-length animation where I’ve tackled all the behind the scenes work from the designs and animation to the writing, editing and, as mentioned here, original soundtrack. There are even some physical props and practical effects I did by hand for this film. To see previous posts of mine where you can see clips and images from my animation, have a look at the following links: - Trailer - Violent Reincarnation - Atrocity Driver - The Putrified Ascetic - Cemetery Metamorphosis - March 2022 Production Log (Has a crap-ton of images from the film) - Part-Time Death (Dialogue Scene) - Prologue Scene - My Twitter (where I sometimes give live updates on the film’s production)

Good morning, or evening, or whenever you read this. It’s March 13, 2022 and it’s a Sunday. David Lynch weather report impressions don’t quite read out in text form, this’ll just confuse anyone who reads this post in the future. Forget I just wrote that. Back throughout 2021 I’ve been posting a handful of production logs on here about this animation I’ve been working on called The God Machine. It’s basically a lot of the aesthetic junk I’m fascinated by clumped up into one large beast. If you found this blog through any of the horror-related posts I’ve done lately there is a high chance that what brought you here has been in some way or another either referenced or played some sort of direct inspiration in this animation. I originally started making it with the intent of it being a short, but over time it naturally grew until it finally hit its (as of writing this post) current hour-long run-time. And even then I still have a lot left to work on it. There’s not that much exciting stuff you can write out about the process of doing an animation by yourself. It’s a very monotonous process that builds up to really what’s best expressed in the art itself. Variants of this film were basically stirring in my creative stream for years and if there was any time to sink countless hours into a bit of art that requires total solitude to make it, it would be these past several years. Production has slowed down slightly the past month with inevitable burnout, but I’ve kept work on it going through other means like recording music queues for certain scenes and doing video collages for it. I’ll post the music later, but these are some of the more recent shots I’ve drawn for the film. I’m not quite sure what else to write here, it’s same-old for me but it’ll likely be a first impression of this film for many. The pressure! Linked below are a handful of posts with previously shared segments of my animation. If any of what you see here catches your interest please check out what I linked below and consider following my Twitter if you’re active on there: - Trailer - Violent Reincarnation - Atrocity Driver - The Putrified Ascetic - Cemetery Metamorphosis - Part-Time Death (Dialogue Scene) - Prologue Scene - My Twitter (where I sometimes give live updates on the film’s production)

(EPILEPSY WARNING - Contains flashing lights) Originally written on January 22nd, 2022 A short clip of the current sequence I've been animating for The God Machine. The first few seconds of a surreal body horror metamorphosis where I intend to cross animation with Tetsuo-inspired live action cutaways. One thing I attempted in the scene is to contrast horror with a transcendental atmosphere through the soundtrack. It's a detail that stuck with me from certain cyberpunk films in how they handled their music, like Shozin Fukui's "Rubber's Lover". In the original Lychee Light Club play as well, the concluding bloodbath is described as playing out against the Ryuichi Sakamoto song "A Carved Stone". There's a distinct combination of combining horror with an abstract atmosphere to make it appear as a transformative state. - Trailer - Violent Reincarnation - Atrocity Driver - The Putrified Ascetic - Part-Time Death (Dialogue Scene) - Prologue Scene - My Twitter (where I sometimes give live updates on the film’s production)

(EPILEPSY WARNING - Contains flashing lights) A longer excerpt of one of the film's early dialogue scenes, further demonstrating the backmasked dialogue technique I use throughout the film. Many of the subjects discussed in the film are influenced by observations I made when watching various experimental films. The black sinew anomaly for example came from an observation I made while watching Hollis Frampton's "Magellan: At the Gates of Death, Part I: The Red Gate I, 0" where I noted the cadavers in the film resembled the texture of burnt wood. Image credit to @hermetictardigrade for a photo they got at an anatomy museum that I collaged in a later shot. - Trailer - Violent Reincarnation - Atrocity Driver - The Putrified Ascetic - Prologue Scene - My Twitter (where I sometimes give live updates on the film’s production)

While it seems that the film itself will no longer be permitted on YouTube, I decided that I would still upload The God Machine’s trailer to keep some representation for it on my channel. The God Machine is still an ongoing production, once it is finished I plan to upload it to Vimeo. While a more niche site, Vimeo is catered to artists and doesn't have the same glaring flaws in the user experience for independent filmmakers as YouTube does. The following text is my short synopsis of the movie: A mysterious biomechanical phantom washes ashore on the ruins of an island that doubles as a mining facility. Many of the workers are already dead, with only a few left surviving. The phantom possesses one of the already dead miners to take a humanoid form, setting out on a mission to find an equally enigmatic figure that it calls the God Machine, which it believes to be hiding somewhere in the island. A complex interlinking of themes related to Bataillian philosophy, Japanese body horror, cyberpunk, and Russian necrorealist film, The God Machine is an animation that explores the underlying theme in these seemingly unrelated subgenera of existential enlightenment being experienced through the destruction of mortal senses. Decaying ascetics, dictators haunted by the ghosts of past atrocities, bizarre bodily transformations into incomprehensible holy forms, and the enlightenment of death. Animated independently in solitude throughout 2020 into 2021, the film also reflects the social and political turmoils that its production coincided with, resulting in a gloom-riddled apocalyptic atmosphere. - Violent Reincarnation - Atrocity Driver - The Putrified Ascetic - Prologue Scene - My Twitter (where I sometimes give live updates on the film’s production)

(EPILEPSY WARNING - Contains flashing lights) A segment from the opening of The God Machine. It starts off upfront about the multi-media aspects of the film, digital animation that was originally drawn on paper mixed with physical sculpture and analog CRT video synth effects (filmed fresh off the TV screen). The sculpture was one I specially made for the film, using an old ashtray I found as a base where I built the rest of it around that, using the ashtray’s flipping lid as a way to animate the sculpture. With the process of covering it in plaster gauze and painting, it took around 3 days to make the sculpture.

- Violent Reincarnation - Atrocity Driver - The Putrified Ascetic - My Twitter (where I sometimes give live updates on the film’s production)

(EPILEPSY WARNING - Contains flashing lights) A short clip from my upcoming horror animation, The God Machine. This clip shows the unwilling resurrection of the film’s protagonist, Prometheus. Some other clips from the film can be found below:

- Atrocity Driver - The Putrified Ascetic - My Twitter (where I sometimes give live updates on the film’s production)

Incoming post with a shitton of images from The God Machine, my upcoming surrealist guro body horror animation thing that’s coming soonish to an internet near you. My original plan was to have the film completed by April of 2021. I set that completion date back in 2020 though and I forgot that I can be really picky when it comes to my own art. So I’m still going at finishing what’s left to be done of the film. I’m still aiming for a completion date that’s this year. Given all the art that has already been made and how the currently finished scenes have been paced, I’d hazard a guess to say that it’ll be roughly feature-length. Not much I can say on the production aside from the fact that the film will be a sort of mixed-media project, utilizing video synths and some live action footage. I might make a huge photo collage diagram for it soon that I’ll photograph for one of the scenes. Also, when I do have it completed, its release will coincide with me dumping all the original music I recorded for it on Bandcamp. In the meanwhile, I’ll get back to musing over the songs that I wish I could use in this film. Into The Light by JG Thirlwell was one I was eyeballing since I heard it in the adaption of The Atrocity Exhibition. Der Kuss from Einstürzende Neubauten’s Haus der Lüge was a more recent one that just came to my attention, and god is there one scene that would be perfect for the guitar section of that track. Unfortunately I can’t by any means Tarantino my way through this stuff since copyright is a thing. It’s foiled quite a plenty of great would-be film soundtracks. Preview clips of the animation: Atrocity Driver - https://eyeodyssey.tumblr.com/post/649104480966770688 The Putrified Ascetic - https://eyeodyssey.tumblr.com/post/640877556364705792 More info and production updates on the film can be found on my Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheEyeOdyssey

(EPILEPSY WARNING - Contains flashing lights) "Atrocity Driver" from my upcoming surrealist horror animation The God Machine. This is a sample of the film's more "infernal" scenes, the hellish vibe of parts like this being a representation of the dehumanizing nature of capitalism. The tone of the film is abrasive, with the violent visuals and morbid historic references. My intentions with the film aren't to shock or offend. They tie in with an underlining humanitarian anti-capitalist narrative and an homage to the surrealist origins of guro. I intend to write an essay down the line about the general concepts behind the film, both politically and in the context of surrealist philosophy. My intentions with The God Machine are basically to capture a certain period of political turmoil and distress in America with the dangerous slope to nationalism and fascism, to distill the mental state of constant fear and uncertainty. It’s a state of apocalypse, how dehumanization can lead to apocalypse.

A frame-by-frame demonstration of how I use distorted photography to bridge the drawings together. I did this effect by photographing the images through a glass wine flask. More info and production updates on the film can be found on my Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheEyeOdyssey

(EPILEPSY WARNING - Contains flashing lights) The Putrified Ascetic: An abridged version of one of the scenes from my upcoming animation, The God Machine. The film has English subtitles with the spoken dialogue being in a nonexistent language comprised of backmasked dialogue. This scene in the film is heavily inspired by the theory of the limit-experience, where enlightenment is likened to the destruction and transgression of the senses. In theory, death could be taken as a morbid form of enlightenment in that context. In The God Machine, the undead haunt the living as rotting ascetics who were corrupted by their enlightenment. The idea of the putrified ascetic itself came from an essay I heard a while back that compared Bataille's philosophy with the film Hellraiser. I forgot the exact context, but it was something like this: Limit-experiences are made possible through any potential overwhelming and transgression of the senses, no matter what that sort of transgression is. To that degree, the way ascetics deprive themselves and seek enlightenment through suffering can be likened to a limit-experience. More info and production updates on the film can be found on my Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheEyeOdyssey https://twitter.com/i/events/1312653220502810624 I will mirror additional production logs on here down the line.

The carriage shot in motion, with experimental photography and selective motion on just the whip continuing the scene. The audio here is a placeholder, the background music is from a live version of SPK's Leichenschrei. Previous Production Logs: July 15th, 2020 - October 3rd, 2020 - October 5th, 2020 - November 12th, 2020 - November 12th, 2020 - November 12th, 2020