Shahzia Sikander

Role

Animation
Imaging
Technical Consulting

Animations

Since 2005, I have collaborated with MacArthur Award-winning artist Shahzia Sikander to create digital animations. These works integrate her drawings and paintings with historical imagery, which are processed and manipulated using various software applications to incorporate movement. Animation techniques include keyframing as well as simulations involving particles, cloth, and rigid and soft body dynamics.

Several of these animations are scored by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Du Yun. Often presented in a gallery exhibition format, the works have been showcased across the United States, Europe, and Asia, including at the Armory Show, Karachi Biennial, Pace Foundation, and Museum MAXXI, among others. Singing Suns is on long-term display at UBS in Century City, CA, while Disruption as Rapture is on permanent display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA).

Reckoning, 2020

Info

Soundtrack by composer Du Yun.
Duration: 4 min 16 sec
Dims: 3840x2160px

Overview

This animation uses historical imagery processed in After Effects with Red Giant Plugins, Cinema 4D, and X-Particles.

Featured as a Time Square Midnight Moment, September 2023.

Midnight Moment photographs by Maria Baranova and Michael Hull.

Reckoning animation sequence.

Disruption as Rapture, 2016

Info

Soundtrack by composer Du Yun.
Duration: 10 min 7 sec
Dims: 3840x2160px

Overview

This animation uses historical imagery processed in After Effects with Red Giant Plugins.

Currently on permanent display in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.Image above from outdoor installation at the Aga Kahn museum in Toronto, 2017.

Disruption as Rapture animation sequence.

Singing Suns, 2016

Info

Soundtrack by composer Du Yun.
Duration: 3 min 24 sec
Dimens: 3484x1056px

Overview

This animation uses the artists work and historical imagery processed in After Effects with Red Giant Plugins

On long-term display at UBS Bank in Century City, CA. Recently on view at Moynihan Train Hall in New York City, November 2023–January 2024.

Gopi Contagion, 2015

Info

Soundtrack by composer Du Yun.
Duration: ~2 min 30 sec
Dimensions: Variable

Overview

This animation uses the artists work and historical imagery processed in After Effects with Red Giant Plugins

Featured as a Time Square Midnight Moment, September 2015.

Additional Animations

2003–05

Dissonance to Detour, 2005
Duration: 3 min 10 sec
Dimensions: 1920x1080

Pursuit Curves, 2003
Duration: 7 min 12 sec
Dimensions: 1920x1080

2013

Parallax, 2013
Soundtrack by composer Du Yun.
Duration: 15 min 25 sec
Dimensions: 5760x1080

For this work I created the particle systems and consulted on approach and techniques.

Credits

Shahzia Sikander Studio

Artist
Shahzia Sikander

Composer
Du Yun

Animation and digital imaging
Patrick O'Rourke