HAPPY DOOM

HAPPY DOOM is an audiovisual poem, an ode to color intoxication and vertigo. The screen a vibrating membrane that simultaneously spits and swallows colors and noisy beats - a hypnotic deformed circumpolar psychedelic short trip.

2022: A Spaced-Out Odyssey. A trip experience that enables exactly those levels of consciousness, or rather their dissolution, that the consumption of certain intoxicants also makes possible. In just three minutes of HAPPY DOOM’s cinematic movement, I get the impression of falling through the screen into an alternative space, am briefly reminded of the material of the screen – its material reality – and in the same instant witness a journey into the interior of my eye. The boundaries between inside and outside, me and the world, the virtual and the material, all become permeable, ambiguous, irrelevant: I am the origin and object of a gaze, I am actually there and gotten lost, sitting in the movie theatre and falling through space and time, with everything in flux in an infinite, neverending circular movement.

The recorded image and sound fragments from a session in a darkened studio, organized by Billy Roisz and Karolina Preuschl last summer, have in a next step been condensed into HAPPY DOOM. Completely absent this time are the horizontal and vertical bars so typical of the artist, which always double and shift the boundaries of the canvas; for the most part, what is seen are colorfully pulsating circles of light that flow beyond the canvas or into the center from beyond it, therein dissolving it, having it implode, consigning it to oblivion. The deep sine wave that initially sounds almost like a four-to-the-floor kick drum, increasingly unravels, frays, and is gradually replaced by various hits, stabs and structures of white noise. (Alejandro Bachmann)

Translation: John Wojtowicz

Orig. Title
HAPPY DOOM
Year
2023
Country
Austria
Duration
3 min 30 sec
Director
Billy Roisz
Category
Experimental
Orig. Language
No Dialogue
Downloads
Happy_Doom_1 (Image)
Happy_Doom_2 (Image)
Happy_Doom_3 (Image)
Credits
Director
Billy Roisz
Concept & Realization
Billy Roisz
Music
Billy Roisz, Karolina Preuschl
Available Formats
DCP 2K flat (Distribution Copy)
Aspect Ratio
16:9
Sound Format
5.1 surround
Frame Rate
25 fps
Color Format
colour
Festivals (Selection)
2023
Berlin - Intern. Filmfestspiele Berlinale - Shorts
New York - Monticello Park Film Festival
Aix-en-Provence - Festival Tous Courts
Best Austrian Animation Film Festival
Cork - Int. Film Festival
Uppsala - Int. Short Film Festival
Kassel Dokumentarfilm & Videofestival
Victoria - Antimatter Underground Film Festival
London Int. Animation Festival LIAF
Lissabon - Punto y Raya Festival
Genève - Animatou Festival Int. du film d´animation
Santiago de Compostela - Curtocircuito
Mexico – Black Canvas Festival de Cine Contemporáno
Paris - L'Etrange Festival
Palic - Festival of European Film
Vila do Conde - Festival Internacional de Curtas-Metragens
Sydney - International Film Festival
Wien - VIS Vienna Shorts
Shkodra - Idromeno Independent Film Festival
Lissabon - Indielisboa Int. Film and Videofestival
Graz - Diagonale, Festival des österreichischen Films
Wien - Tricky Women / Tricky Realities - Int'l Animation Filmfestival
2024
Stuttgart - Filmwinter, Expanded Media Festival