What’s There – Kōan Web Series Episode One Review
Kōan, the latest animated anthology series (available on YouTube) from Moti Media is experimental and expressionist in an oddly accessible (as demonstrated in its distribution) fashion. With complexity in concepts and inquisitive visuals, the beginning episode ‘What’s There’ perfectly establishes these ambitions with a fluid and inspired tale of opposition.
Derived from Zen Buddhism, Kōan represents a riddle without a solution to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and provoke enlightenment. The collection of 8 shorts (all combining to a minuscule 12 minutes) follow in this vein with a meditative set of animated worlds whose questioned ideals are spiritual in their existentialism and dreamy in their optimism. Yet, their minuscule run time never constrains the potential for depth and profoundly articulated ideas which are the cornerstones of all episodes in this frighteningly audacious collection of conceptual parables. This is never truer than with the opening instalment to this curious anthology, ‘What’s There’. A narratively abstract glance at the conflict which surrounds us.
There is a timeless simplicity to ‘What’s There’. It presents a classic tale of light and dark that binds a quizzically experimentative art style and supremely evocative concept to display opposing forces in an oddly logical manner.
There is much that is nuanced and intuitive in ‘What’s There’s’ assessment of the necessity for opposition and the power and meaning conflict fuels. A concept with which sports fans will find great familiarity. Black and white animation is used to sharply oppose all conflicts, with its established contrast heightening the opposition and grappling for dominance which the twisting visuals beautifully demonstrate. A haunting sharply pitched score covers all this conflict with an apt grandness.
No decision is smarter than the two conflicting colours being treated almost as binary when representing the battles of nature. Both connect and bind before strife and power struggle leads to a dominant force. But, despite the grand imaginative abstraction, the animation remains realistic by never forgetting the oppositions key role in the formation of each adversary. Instead, it is acknowledged for shaping and fuelling the victor as both the black and white mould to form silhouettes of the other. And it is this universal essence of surrounding influence and finding strength in struggle that ‘What’s There’ manipulates to find a connection with an audience when dealing with a topic which could easily have alienated without this core essence being so culturally accepted.
However, it is not the conceptual brilliance that astounds in this 3 minute short but the animation which defies any form with a fluid dynamism melting each idea away but leaving a tangible air of contemplation. Transitions between each rival force melt in drooling beauty but never lose the sense of battle and struggle for harmony which is pervasive in the entirety of the animation.
Thankfully, the despairing weight that this frank assessment of humanity and the animal kingdom brings is offset with an uplift of hope that gives light to the dark, opposing worlds that preside our time and What’s There’ represents with artistic ambition and human conscience.
Frankly, having watched the 3-minute animated short only a handful of times I have barely scratched the surface of what is a layered tale with boundless potential for interpretation. It is fraught with punctuated truth and rich with the struggle for harmonious existence. A harmony that does not evade the beginning of this Kōan anthology series. Instead, managing to find peace in the nature of conflict with a beauty that both perplexes and enraptures in equal measure.
To watch ‘What’s There’ Click Here
To find out about more web series you can watch online Click Here.
