Just like the main theme of Global Eyes, Bellini had in mind the interchange of different cultures as his theme. "'How do different cultures or different people interact?' is the main theme and this is a very important thing in contemporary society -- at least in Argentinean society -- in my point of view. The reason I use a crane and a giraffe is because there is a port on my way to the university and I saw cranes every day. A crane and a giraffe look alike, don't they? I thought about crane, giraffe, crane, giraffe, every day and I came to think it would be good to make a story in which these two creatures appear. I imagined if a crane and a giraffe met, how would they think of each other."

Bellini worked hard to maintain the features of hand drawing while animating the piece. "Although this is my first animated short film, when I got the idea, I structured a story while drawing drafts and created a storyboard on small sheets of paper. After that, I drew illustrations on the PC using tablets. The Crane and the Giraffe was made with a really cheap genius tablet ($50 more or less) but now with the world prizes, I can afford a beautiful Wacom Intuos3 that I really love."

Russian native Arina Melkozernova's Self-Transparency has been chosen by industry leaders as a premier example of digital artwork from one of the country's best and brightest digital media artists.

Bellini prefers hand drawing to computer animation. "It is nice to draw a picture on paper, as it is traditional, but in my opinion, too much paper will be needed, which is a waste if you think from the point of view of resources. The production of La grua y la jirafa took about four months. It doesn't mean I worked on only that every day, but it was time-consuming to draw sketches one by one -- and also it was my first time. When you move a picture, I love that the line of the character wobbles. That's why I draw pictures by hand. Hand drawing gives a lively impression and warm presentation... full of life characters. I personally am not fond of animation using the full range of CG technology, vector graphics, keyframe-made animation as it gives me a very cold feeling. I'm a big Dr. Katz fan (Comedy Central's Emmy-winning cartoon)!"

Arina Melkozernova's Self-Transparency is an animated work dedicated to painter Remedios Varo. The artist has incorporated aspects of the surrealist's iconography that relate to her own experience and explores the inner world of the person. "It is as though you are just waking up to understanding your body in space and having feelings about it," Sorenson spoke of Melkozernova's work, which she admires a great deal. "It's very, very beautiful." This piece has been chosen by industry leaders as a premier example of digital artwork from one of the country's best and brightest digital media artists.

Dennis Miller was the artistic director of an event called the Visual Music Marathon, which was a 12-hour festival of visual music held in Boston on April 28 of this year as part of the 2007 Boston Cyberarts Festival (www.bostoncyberarts.org). "We ran a call for work and got over 300 entries from 34 countries. Sixty of these works were chosen by our judges and another 60 works were selected by our two principal guest curators, Bruce Wands of the School of Visual Arts and New York Digital Salon and Larry Cuba of the Iota Center, to which were added works from invited artists, an excellent section of historic films (Richter, Bute, Fischinger, McLaren, Hirsh, Breer, Whitney and Lye), and one section of live video art performances. In case you are wondering, visual music is defined broadly as film, video or animation in which the visual elements are informed by musical processes. "That means a lot of different things to a lot of people," says Miller. "For example, some would say a work of visual music does not even need a musical soundtrack, but the original judging was done using a very broad definition of the term."

Dennis Miller was invited by SIGGRAPH to curate two hours from the recent 2007 Northeastern University Visual Music Marathon. His own work, White Noise, will be included in the presentation. © Dennis Miller.

Miller was invited by SIGGRAPH to curate two hours from the 12 and chose 21 works that represented a diversity of styles and approaches to Visual Music. "The works at SIGGRAPH represent just that diversity," Miller states. "There were many priorities for the judging, including geography, professional status (we wanted to include some student works), genre ("challenging" vs. "lite" vs. whatever), compositional approaches, and above all else, quality of work. We were also very keen on including works that represented a wide range of interpretations of the concept of visual music. There are a large number of really excellent works."

What are a few of Miller's favorites? "I would say Eva Toth (Lajka's Memory, music by Gyorgy Kurtag Sr. and Gyorgy Kurtag Jr. ) and Fran Hartnet's work (Navigating the Pearl System) are very representative. Then Jean Detheux (Daydream Mechanics V Sketch 3, music by Michael Oesterle) raises the bar a good bit, and Bum Lee (Sports and Diversions, music by Erik Satie) is entirely different. Also love the VJ work of Kasumi (Ugoku, music by James Lauer) -- too many good ones!"

I would be remiss if I did not mention that Miller's own work, White Noise, will be included in Selections from the 2007 Northeastern University Visual Music Marathon.

Also being shown at Global Eyes will be selected works from the 10th Japan Media Arts Festival. This is a festival that focuses on creative media art works utilizing the latest expression of technology. The festival also supports creative activity through the presentation of a broad base of various works and promotes the development of media arts in Japan by providing opportunities of appreciation for the artists and their work such as exhibitions and sanctioned events.