Introduction
Cyriak Harris is an English freelance animator known mononymously as Cyriak (/ˈsɪriæk/) and his B3ta username Mutated Monty. He is known for his surreal and bizarre short web animationsfrequent use of the Droste effect.
Animations
Cyriak has been a regular contributor to the British website B3ta since 2004.
Cyriak's YouTube account features a compilation of his animations, which have been popular throughout the blogosphere and noted by Wired's Eliot Van Buskirk. Cyriak's animation "MOO" has featured on the front page of Wired. His 2009 video "poo pants" features an animated sample of broadcaster Alan Titchmarsh singing a repeated refrain from the bowls of a series of toilets, some of which fly through space.
As a freelance animator, he has been commissioned by the video sharing website Sumo TV, and a music video for Grand Popo Football Club, among others.
Cyriak made the "Spaceology" animation in the third episode of the fourth season of the TV series The IT Crowd and the "Goth to Boss" animation in the sixth episode. In 2015 he created the opening credits for the Netflix series W/ Bob & David.
Cyriak has directed a number of music videos, including videos for Bonobo's "Cirrus" and Bloc Party's "Ratchet" in 2013 and Flying Lotus's "Putty Boy Strut" in 2014.
Music and other activities
Long before Cyriak started creating animations, Cyriak composed a considerable amount of surreal music. He features the music in his animations, for which he has typically used FL Studio.
On 9 September 2009, British illusionist Derren Brown, live on UK television, claimed to predict the National Lottery numbers. Cyriak uploaded a possible explanation, to his YouTube channel, which gained half a million views within a week and attention from national press. In September 2010 he appeared at "Flash on the Beach" in Brighton and in September 2014 appeared at "Reasons to be Creative", also in Brighton.
On December 2013 he released the mod "Going Down" for the 1994 first-person shooter Doom II.
In September 2019 he published the partly crowd-funded book Horse Destroys the Universe.
On 8 February 2020 Cyriak showcased his music for the first time, as he performed as a disc jockey at the Zanzibar Club in Liverpool.
Awards and recognition
On 3 December 2009 Cyriak was announced as the winner of the 2009 E Stings competition, run by television channel E4, with £5,000 for his video Recursive Culture.
In 2006 he also received a special mention in the results of a Photoshop contest run by the technology series Click.
Controversy
In 2016 Cyriak accused fast food chain McDonald's of plagiarizing his animated video "cows & cows & cows". The studio that animated the advertisement, Buenos Aires-based Juan Solo, openly admitted that they used Cyriak's work as "reference". After Cyriak's tweets about the theft went viral, the advert was pulled. The original video, featuring dancing cows, had received more than 37 million views.