New York Lightboard
1961 · 9m · Canada
Directed by Norman McLaren
Genres: animation, experimental
Tones: whimsical
Paper-cutout symbols animate a giant lightbulb sign in Times Square, promoting Canadian attractions from the Rockies and winter sports to the Montreal Jazz Festival and Calgary Stampede.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
McLaren's turning a corporate billboard into pure animation canvas feels like he's hacking the attention economy itself—but honestly, it's almost too delightful, too IN on the joke; the real subversion would've been making us uncomfortable.
This is McLaren at his most rigorous: the paper-cutout technique becomes a formal constraint that generates meaning, each symbol's staccato appearance against the lightbulb grid echoing a lineage from Dada collage through to structuralist animation—a work that knows exactly what it inherits.
The decision to animate flat paper against the stark geometry of the lightbulb's grid creates this almost claustrophobic depth with minimal materials; watch how the cutouts' shadows suggest dimensionality without ever breaking the 2D premise.