“This is sometimes harder than it looks.”

The psychobilly opening to Tom Stern & Alex Winter’s Freaked is strung on the brute wattage of the Henry Rollins/Blind Idiot God track and the unfettered fury of one Mr. David Daniels. The creator of modern stratacut animation, Daniels has essentially refined a process where the image -and the movement of the image- is molded into clay. Take a moment to think about that.

The shape of the clay resembles a loaf of bread. A knife is used to slice one end of the loaf of clay and a camera captures that image as a frame. Another slice, another frame. Put those frames together and, like a flip book or film projection, motion results. Here, the shape distortions of Daniels’ motion sculpture smear like some extended night terror, some piranha at your neck.

Art of the Title was made aware of many profound ideas when sculpting this post. The selection of the nine frames for the above contact sheet was the culmination of one degree of understanding David Daniels’ exacting technique. Stepping through each frame reveals either kohl darkness or something on fire; Möbius stripped earlobes filling their ear holes like snakes, etc.

But how to understand the geometry of the movement within the clay? This “internal clay weaving design” is not easily grasped. The varieties of movement and control in this construct require a dialog with David Daniels. He is kind, cool and has an intelligence that will brighten your day.