Permanent Collection

Enter Emanuele Kabu’s Sonic Trance With “Locked Groove”

Posted on Sunday, January 11, 2026

Venice-based director/animator Emanuele Kabu (who found his way to motion work via graffiti, painting, and music) just dropped us his latest experiment – a hypnotic hand-drawn piece exploring “repetition as a visual and sonic trance.”

Emanuele Kabu: “I worked on Locked Groove over the past two years in my spare time. The project was conceived both as a standalone video and as a potential site-specific installation suited for immersive environments, public art contexts, and exhibition spaces.

“I was fascinated by how delaying and repeating a simple motion created with basic geometric shapes could generate a much more complex design.”

“I was fascinated by how delaying and repeating a simple motion created with basic geometric shapes could generate a much more complex design. This reminded me of the phenomenon of pareidolia (such as seeing shapes in clouds or hearing voices in static), which was actually the working title of the project.

“One of the main challenges was keeping the design engaging throughout the video, while adding details and variations without making it feel kitschy or repetitive.

“The video was designed in After Effects, while each frame was hand-drawn on an iPad using the Rough Animator app. The sound design was also created by me using samples from a KORG MS-20, a KORG MS-2000, and a few Creative Commons samples found online.”