Welcome to UD98: a playground for digital filmmakers, animators and artists. As many of you know, 1998 is a non-linear year for us. Striving to bring you the best in digital film and animation, a lot of our time is spent cultivating technically innovative, and as always, provocative web projects.
Millennium approaches and humanity more vehemently lays claim to our gods. With five major religions leading the hundreds more that exist, the world is jumbled with opposing views with little tolerance in between. It seems that each of these religions collide at what filmmaker Richard Sandler calls "the religious crossroads of the world": New York City's Times Square.
Years of extensive filming in Times Square has shown Sandler a much different neighborhood than he knew as a child. No longer the playground of pool halls and arcades it once was, it now supplies ground for apocalyptic madness. The featured clip is excerpted from the original feature length documentary.
In addition to our current feature, don't forget to check Breakdance, by Khoi Uong, as well as some of our recent films: Sandye Wilson's, So Many Things to Consider, and two shorts by Bill Morrison, The Film of Her, and Footprints.
And after you experience the religious fanaticism of Times Square, cruise the archives of the first incarnation of Urban Desires, a zine dedicated to culture high and low, art, and technology. To explore the original e-zine, in its original format, please enter the zine.
Keep an eye out for new pieces in the weeks to come in the current phase of our evolution: UD98. Next at bat is the perverse stick figure animation of Canadian James Paterson. For updates on other upcoming features, sign up for email updates.
To all you web artists, filmmakers, and otherwise digitally inclined persons, UD is actively seeking submissions: short films, animation, games, web art, and other forms that probe the web's potential. To submit work or to find out more, follow this link.
Urban Desires is:
Chan Suh, Kyle Shannon, Publishers
Gabrielle Shannon, Editor-in-Chief
PJ Loughran, Creative Director
Kiley Bates, Editor
James Plath, Producer
Tom Moran, Designer
Dheeraj Vasishta, Building, Scripting, and Video
