Cosmic Flower Unfolding is the latest psychedelic digital mandala from animator Ben Ridgway. The video opens with pitch black emptiness, before an intricately detailed being or object pulses to life, flooding the frame with otherworldly light and hypnotic patterns. It slowly transforms through several flower-like phases of color and form, remaining in perpetual motion, before fading back to black.Ridgway describes the film—composed using a combination of After Effects and ZBrush—as a "constant flow of emerging and dissolving oceanic, futuristic, and mandala forms. It is a tribute to abstraction, it’s connection to the inner space we inhabit and how it can be externalized." Gazing into the subtlely unfolding depths of the titular Cosmic Flower is more than soothing enough to prompt some proper introspection—especially aided by the zen of arrhythmic bells over mild percussion in the backgroud.Cosmic Flower Unfolding's peaceful tone and riveting visuals earned it a special presentation at Siggraph 2013, a Royal Reel Award at the Canada International Film Festival, and Second Place at the ASIFA Independent Animation Festival last spring.Gaze into the soothing blooms in GIF-form below.
h/t This Is ColossalRelated:Kaleidoscopic Motion Collage Distorts Idyllic Village"Planet Earth" Footage Gets A Tripped-Out MakeoverAbstract Projection Mapping Turns Infrastructure Into ChaosTrip The Light Fantastic With This Cosmic Digital Artwork
Advertisement