THE LASER BIN

“The World of Oskar Fischinger.” “The World of Alexander Alexeieff.”LaserDisc Corp. of America, $99.95 each. Information: (213) 835-6177.

The latest installments in the “Visual Pathfinders” series focus on the work of two of the seminal artists in the history of animation.

One of the pioneers of non-objective film making, Oskar Fischinger (1900-1967) worked in a variety of media, including charcoal on paper, cels, clay, cut-outs and oil paint on glass. In his films, abstract, geometric forms move with an enchanting grace that feels utterly natural. A portfolio of his paintings enables the viewer to compare Fischinger’s filmic works with his still canvases, using the laser disc’s single-frame capabilities.

The husband-and-wife team of Alexander Alexeieff (1901-1982) and Claire Parker (1906-1981) invented the pinscreen, a perversely difficult technique that involves manipulating the shadows of thousands of tiny steel pins to form patterns reminiscent of charcoal drawings. (A short documentary included on the disc demonstrates the technique.) The couple’s somber, atmospheric interpretation of Moussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain” (1933) offers a striking contrast to the familiar version in Walt Disney’s “Fantasia.”