EMERGENCY LABYRINTH: Animations of Arrington de Dionyso, 2018 – 2025 (VHS)

The EMERGENCY LABYRINTH is a 40-foot long scroll of sumi ink drawings, and a 27-minute stop-motion animated film by the same name, documenting nearly every brushstroke of its creation through roughly 28,000 frames of automatist ink drawings – a leaf becomes a branch becomes a wing becomes an eye becomes a dragon becomes a flower becomes a fountain becomes a star. Many thousands of years ago the original “labyrinth” began as a dance for meditation, fertility and renewal. As we attempt to navigate this age of ecological collapse and political emergency, we need the imagery of the labyrinth now more than ever- a map for getting lost and finding oneself again in the cosmic swirl of eternal return.

This VHS exclusive release includes EMERGENCY LABYRINTH and four other animated films created by the artist between 2018-2025. Produced in collaboration with Neoglyphic Media and Video Arena, published in a numbered edition of 80 copies.

Arrington de Dionyso is an artist, musician, and activist based in Olympia, Washington. He has been a staple of Cascadian underground culture since moving from Chicago in 1992 to study ethnomusicology, music therapy, and Butoh dance at the Evergreed State College. Founder of the bands Old Time Relijun, Malaikat dan Singa, and This Saxophone Kills Fascists, he is a fierce advocate for music and art as cultural diplomacy, spearheading a variety of projects connecting artists and musicians from Indonesia, Morocco, and Siberia with the rest of the world. Featured on album covers and concert posters since the mid 1990’s, his ecstatic visual art has also created quite the splash- ranging from accolades in the fashion world after collaborating with Hedi Slimane for Saint Laurent Paris in 2015, to death threats and derision attempting to implicate his work in the debunked “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory in 2016. Evoking the ancient trance rituals of his namesake, his work is a “war cry for indestructible life”!