Watch: Famous Athletes Redrawn as Hypnotizing Geometric Forms

Watch: Famous Athletes Redrawn as Hypnotizing Geometric Forms

Watch: Famous Athletes Redrawn as Hypnotizing Geometric Forms

When people talk about Olympic athletes in action, they often use the word “beautiful” to describe what they’re watching. And truly, witnessing a gymnast contort her body or a swimmer glide through water is nothing short of living art. The human form can be mesmerizing when pushed to its limits—for evidence, just watch this short film from German designer Felix Deimann.

Deimann created Citius, Altius, Fortius as an investigation into illustrating human motion for his graduating thesis project. The illustrated short translates the movements of famous Olympians into graceful, minimalist graphics that are almost more stunning than watching the real thing.

To create the illustrations, Deimann stripped the human form down to its most basic, retaining only the most important joints—hands, knees, hips, shoulders elbows and feet—to dictate movement. He watched footage from news clips and replays, recreating the athlete's movements in graphics software Cinema 4D frame for frame, camera angle for camera angle.

Even though the human body is totally abstracted in the film, it’s surprisingly recognizable. “I wanted to find out how abstract an animation can be,” says Deimann. “The brain is very good at recognizing human form.”

You’ll see Nadia Comaneci from the 1976 Montreal olympics rendered into a translucent praying mantis-like creature. You can only vaguely make out the human form as the tangle of triangles swings from the uneven bars and back bends on the balance beam. Michael Phelps, too, has been replaced with a swirling jellyfish version of his former self. You see him dive into the pool as the animated tendrils loosely replicate the looping motion of the butterfly stroke.

The most obscure visualization is from the 1992 basketball dream team that played in Barcelona’s games. Instead of visualizing the human body in action, Deimann showcased the dribbling of the ball. As the ball hits the ground, an animated puddle ripples out like a rock hitting a pond.

Seeing such powerful and controlled human motion rendered so simply is hypnotizing. It makes you wonder, what might it look like if Deimann were to visualize our movements as we bumble through our everyday life, falling down subway stairs and tripping over invisible cracks? Let’s just call it really abstract art.

[hat tip: Creator's Project]