For three months, Julia Fernandez would spend the hours between 8 a.m. and noon waiting for the right light to filter into her Brooklyn studio. Once the shared space was properly lit, she would swap out a grid of 12 ceramic tiles and take overhead photos that would eventually be pieced together into the charming stop-motion animation, “Dirt.”

The music video for an acoustic song by Los Angeles-based Emory, Fernandez’s film cycles through 300 tiles that reveal a small rabbit hopping across the frame, children running, and a spindly, line-drawn flower blooming and wilting. Each carved character is set within the grainy patchwork, which highlights the medium’s particularities through irregular edges and differences in the glazes. Combined with the physical manipulations required of stop-motion, the ceramic animation is a poetic ode to an unlikely pairing of tactile media.

In a conversation with It’s Nice That, Fernandez shares that she first melded the two after etching a small cup that doubled as a zoetrope. Also featuring a rabbit and a flower, this playful compilation is a clear precursor to the techniques and characters that shine in “Dirt.” “Seeing a material that’s supposed to be still and permanent begin to move felt like magic, like I had cracked some code in reality to create movement that should otherwise be impossible,” she said.

Watch more of the artist’s ceramic animations on Instagram.

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When a 65-year-old tree succumbed to a fungus known as oak wilt, Steve Parker wanted to pay tribute. The wooded habitat had previously loomed above Parker’s front yard and provided refuge to migratory birds. Rather than turn its limbs and trunk into mulch, though, Parker did as he often does with a material that’s no longer primed for its original purpose: he created a sound sculpture.

Recently on view at Ivester Contemporary in Austin, “Funeral for a Tree” is a sprawling and poetic ode to the oak. Parker cut slices from the trunk that he then carved like vinyl, encoding bird song into the grain. When placed on a Victrola-style turntable, the records play the avian soundscapes.

To accompany these dirges, Parker also constructed a suspended brass and copper sculpture with tubing that splays like roots, some of which display blue-bag ventilators at their tips. These medical devices appear alongside CPAP machines in another installation of bark-clad limbs and vintage instruments known as shengs sourced from a Taipei flea market.

Emphasizing breath and the rhythmic pulse of life, these additions also reference the artist’s late father. “The project emerged from Parker’s recognition that his grief for the tree echoed the loss of his father to cancer—both slow, inevitable declines where care could not prevent loss,” a statement says.

Watch “Funeral for a Tree” in the video above, and find more from the artist on Instagram.

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What do you want to express that you feel you can’t in everyday life? That’s the question composer and producer Max Cooper posed to his audience in hopes of unearthing some of the hidden parts of our shared emotional landscape. In return, he received more responses than expected, many of which tapped into passionate displays of pleasure and pain. “It was like finding a secret window into our collective psyches,” he writes.

These submissions spawned a tender project in collaboration with musician Félix Gerbelot and animator Masanobu Hiraoka. A multi-part endeavor spanning an album and digital installation, On Being opens with a poignant music video. “It started from the sound of Felix Gerbelot’s viola and eventually became the title track of the album,” Cooper shares.

Paired with the meditative instrumentals, Hiraoka’s monochromatic visuals appear to emerge from a single line, leading viewers on a swirling journey of growth and loss. While the film references what Cooper’s community had shared, it also incorporates Hiraoka’s own family videos through rotoscoping, a technique that involves tracing over live-action footage frame by frame.

“At first, I planned to create random cuts and gradually link them together. But as I worked, the concept itself evolved, and in the end, I focused more on vivid personal memories,” Hiraoka told It’s Nice That.

The result is a tender portrait of universal human emotion, one that races through the birth and development of a child. Energetic and dynamic, the animation gives the feeling of being a bit too quick to allow viewers to savor any singular moment, instead resigning us to a chaotic swirl of time passing.

Find more of On Being on the project website.

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Technology is always changing, quickly becoming dated or even obsolete as new updates are released. Remember LaserDiscs? What about 8-tracks? For Japanese musical trio Open Reel Ensemble, analog contraptions meet digital combinations to make unique and experimental sounds. Using reel-to-reel recorders from the 1970s and 1980s as musical instruments, the stage and studio setup is just as interesting as the recordings.

To achieve mesmerizing and ethereal tunes like “Tape Bowing Ensemble,” the group attaches bows to the analog tape wound around a reel, and they’ve been known to strum the tape like a guitar, tap suspended lengths with drumsticks, or spin reels like DJ turntables. Open Reel Ensemble uses multi-track recorders to gather the sounds, which can then be separated or layered during performances.

Delving into a nostalgic technology, the group describes their hybrid contraptions and techniques as “magnetic folklore instruments. They tap into a sense of nostalgia for reel-to-reel, also known as magnetic tapes. They’ve described their genre as “Magnetikpunk.”

Open Reel Ensemble has performed during several of Issey Miyake’s fashion shows in Paris and continues to play at international festivals. Hear more on the group’s YouTube channel and website.

You might also enjoy ensemble member Ei Wada’s work under the moniker Electronicos Fantasticos.

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Known for their innovative music videos and dance-worthy tracks, OK Go knows the power of great visuals. Coordination is often the name of the game, from the viral treadmills in “Here It Goes Again” to 64 synced and choreographed smartphones in “A Stone Only Rolls Downhill.” For their latest release, “Impulse Purchase,” the group turned to another means of collaboration: open-source animation.

OK Go teamed up with animators Lucas Zanotto (previously) and Will Anderson, along with Blender Studio, to create a digital music video unlike any they’ve made so far. The song “Impulse Purchase” takes Zanotto’s characteristic cartoonish characters, which roll and explode in a variety of playful, geometric shapes and combines the imagery with real-time motion captures of lead singer Damien Kulash’s face.

The video opens with a hint of the process behind the scenes, and the credits reveal even more insights into how the software captured the movements of all the band members.

Blender is an open-source software that enables dynamic 3D modeling and animation, instrumental in the recent Academy Award-winning film Flow. Zanotto and Anderson used a tool called Geometry Nodes, “a node-based way of creating complex geometry that can change dynamically, involve simulations, and ultimately drive a performance in an adaptive way,” Anderson told It’s Nice That. In the spirit of the application used to build it, the music video itself is open-source, allowing viewers to download the source files and tinker around with it.

Move around to more tunes on OK Go’s website and YouTube.

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In a new music video for Lisbon-based musician Xinobi’s song “Strides,” a quirky concept came to fruition thanks to the Callner Brothers. Both directors and producers who specialize in commercials, Ben and Adam Callner worked a different kind of filmmaking magic for this dance-worthy track.

The video opens on two men, seated near a fountain, who discover—or are perhaps chosen by—a pair of floating fanny packs. The accessories, which appear to glow and sparkle, are filled with stickers that read “muy bien,” or “very good.” As the two frolic around Lisbon, practically effervescing with good cheer and a desire to connect with others, they facilitate a diverse and joyful group of people who gather in a court.

But not everyone is happy about this new movement, and in a dramatic clash, anti-muy-bien demonstrators let everyone know how they feel, even though the temptation to join in the fun is real. “Is this about embracing different people and ideas, or is it about two guys wearing fanny packs getting their 10,000 steps in?” the Callner Brothers ask. (There isn’t a right answer.)

See more on the creators’ Vimeo and website.

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For his latest single, “Soft Gradient Beckons,” British electronic musician Ryan Lee West, a.k.a. Rival Consoles, tapped multidisciplinary artist Anthony Dickenson to create a music video that plays with a sense of perception and reality—especially the distinction between analog and digital processes.

Dickenson employs a range of photography and film processes in his practice, focusing predominantly on nature and portraiture. For the “Soft Gradient Beckons” music video, he dove headlong into a nine-month experimental process, creating multiple, long paper scrolls with hand-painted frames in black ink. He then animated these by documenting in a sequence akin to the way film is fed through a projector.

The video above features the complete music video, followed by a revealing making-of segment that delves into Dickenson’s labor-intensive process.

His installation “reflects the intricacies and dedication of the creative process,” the artist says in a statement. “The result is both a visual and emotional journey, seamlessly blending art and music into one cohesive experience.” Using cameras attached to a drone and a skateboard, he captures distinct details and patterns while also panning out to see the entire grouping arranged carefully on a warehouse floor.

The concept originated from what Dickenson calls a “mistake” that occurred when, a few years back, he was experimenting with making monoprints using ink rollers. He had a realization that little blemishes or so-called defects various textures from the roller actually lent themselves well to animation.

“Sometimes the mistakes are the bits that really reveal new techniques,” Dickenson says. “I love these little moments of imperfection. Otherwise, you know, you might as well just build in AI.” Find more on his website.

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Teenage Engineering, a Stockholm-based electronics company, has introduced a quirky and charming new lineup to its selection of audio systems. The Choir, a line of linkable digital speakers is an eclectic octuple of sweet, robotic, wooden characters.

Comprising eight distinctive designs, each beechwood figurine has its own vocal range. Olga, for example, is a “Russian contralto,” shaped like a nesting Matryoshka doll. Bogdan is a bass and wears a bulky hat. And Miki, representing Japan, is a tenor. Every member of the international Choir has an internal speaker that can run for three to four hours continuously, and they can be linked together via BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) with up to 15 other choral singers.

The Choir can perform prerecorded compositions or, with the assistance of a midi keyboard linked via BLE, belt out original tunes. The effect is a kind of unearthly, alluring audio that wavers between human and digital sounds.

For composer Rob Simonsen, who has scored films like The Whale, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and Deadpool & Wolverine—among many others—the Choir was a welcome addition for his latest project, Elio. Disney and Pixar’s newest film is set in space, and Simonsen sought something distinctive from a traditional orchestra to really bring that otherworldly element to the fore. After seeing a video demonstration of the Choir, he knew it was the perfect fit. He says:

We were looking for an otherworldly sound—something that sounded relatable, that echoed vocalizations (and) communication that humans could understand but felt like it was from another world. I came across these Choir dolls and heard their sound. It was beautiful—electronic, but human. Each body is handcrafted. They have a robotic but organic sound at the same time. It felt like a perfect answer to what we were looking for.

Choir members are available for purchase in Teenage Engineering’s online store for $249 individually or $1,992 for the entire set. (via Kottke)

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It’s hard to believe that a song like “Psycho Killer,” a pioneering New Wave track by Talking Heads, is nearly five decades old. While the song was released in 1977 as part of the album Talking Heads: 77, an acoustic version was recorded before that with late musician Arthur Russell, and at the time, it didn’t get a music video.

Head-heads are in luck with a fantastic, better-late-than-never video marking the anniversary. Directed by Mike Mills, the short stars Irish actor Saoirse Ronan as she voyages across the spectrum of human emotions during her daily grind. Watch it on Vimeo.

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Known for their elaborate performances almost as much as their albums, the American band OK Go just released a new music video that is very literally a hall of mirrors. Filmed in a Budapest train station, “Love” incorporates 29 robots and 60 mirrors that move in perfect synchronicity. The result is an endlessly evolving kaleidoscope that distorts reality and illusion, connecting the band and their surroundings through a trippy, impeccably timed production.

To get a closer look at the making of this iconic video, check out the behind-the-scenes video shot from the perspective of each band member.

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