Cyriak is a freelance animator known for his surreal and bizarre animated music videos featuring repetition. He creates the animations and electronic music compositions himself using Adobe Photoshop and After Effects. His videos are weird, hypnotic, and fascinating due to the repetition of strange imagery and his unique style. The electronic music complements the visuals. Cyriak has developed a distinctive style and imagery that is expected in his videos.

1. Music Video Director

2. Cyriak
Cyriak is known for his short web animations which can be described
as very surreal. Despite his undoubted talents he has never worked
with a band to produce a music video, instead deciding to make
animated videos to his own self made electronic music compositions.
He has mentioned to his fans via YouTube that he uses both Adobe
Photoshop and Adobe After Effects for the animation side of things,
which shows us that a normal person like you or I could produce
something like Cyriak to it, obvious there would be a vast difference in
quality but it’s something that is easily available to the public.
Interestingly he is a freelance animator which means he isn’t tied
down to any certain projects for certain bands and can choose various
different things and people to work for.

3. Links To His Work
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FavUpD_IjVY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0Xa4bHcJu8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNwCojCJ3-Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3JCESdFNyw&feature=related

4. Repetition
One of the main constant themes throughout Cyriak’s different videos is the
use of repetition throughout. This is prevalent in most videos but especially
prevalent in the Cycles video with the Teddy Bears. There’s very little in terms
of different things in the video but there’s enough changes with the Teddy
Bears, Cars etc to keep us interested throughout.
The repetition is fascinating and keeps you glued to the screen. Having
random Teddy Bears throughout shouldn’t be as effective as it is but the way
Cyriak has used the animation and differences in the animation keeps us
hooked throughout.

5. Weirdness
I’m sure Cyriak would be the first to admit it himself that his videos
do seem incredibly weird but this is a good thing.
For example in the Cows video, the first 30 seconds basically just
features Cows nodding their head. This normally would not be of
interest at all but it has a hypnotising effect that keeps us fascinated
and want to watch more.
The video gets weirder throughout as Cyriak uses his animating
brilliance to showcase the weirdness. Cows start becoming different
sizes, with weird shapes and movements. The theme of cows
nodding their head is maintained through this.
I think the key word to this is that we are simply fascinated by what
Cyriak is producing, it’s different to anything else that is out there
which makes him unique and the experimentation that he does,
however weird it may seem should be applauded.

6. Music
One key element that should not be ignored in Cyriak’s work is the role
that the electronic music plays in the background.
The music is usually a constant tune throughout, with very few changes
used. While it is harder to use Andrew Goodwin’s forms and conventions
to Cyriak’s work (Lets be honest, Cyriak’s work is so unique you wouldn’t
expect him to be following any forms and conventions) the music that is
used by Cyriak follows the 2nd of Andrew Goodwin’s forms and
conventions.
“There is a relationship between the music and the visuals (again with
visuals either illustrating, amplifying or contradicting the music)” – The
music combines with the visuals to give that hypnotising feel and the two
compliment each other perfect.

7. Star Iconography
The one other Andrew Goodwin theory that you could relate to Cyriak is “The
artist may develop their own star iconography, in and out of their videos,
which over time, becomes part of their star image”
I don’t think there’s many video directors out there who have created a star
iconography similar to that which Cyriak has created for himself. With Cyriak
you expect the weird, you expect the mental and you expect for your head to
be completely spinning after just watching one of his videos.
In the Meow video you have cats clawing eyes out, eating brains out etc. This
could be seen as disgusting but it isn’t, at least to me. Because of Cyriak’s star
iconography you automatically associate it with just being the weird and the
wonderful which you’ve come to expect from a Cyriak video.
If you could somehow manage to watch 5/6 videos of Cyriak back to back you
would notice similarities in all of them, which creates the star iconography.
However there’s plenty of differences in all of them also, making the viewer
want to keep coming back to his work.

8. Why I like Cyriak
One of the main reasons I researched Cyriak is because having seen one
video of his I was immediately intrigued. I watched around half a dozen of his
videos back to back and was amazed by the weirdness of every single one,
despite the weirdness it seemed perfectly natural to watch.
If I decide to use any sort of animation in my final project, I feel Cyriak is one
of the best music video directors to take inspiration from. He’s taking basic
things such as images of animals and doing extraordinary things with them
and creating fascinating pieces of work. As mentioned earlier, while it’s
impossible to reach the standards that Cyriak has set it is possible to aspire
to achieve similar stuff to that which Cyriak has produced, although I doubt I
have the creative mind to have the ‘weirdness’ that Cyriak has managed to
convey throughout his work.