This film is based on a sculpture from the New Babylon project by the dutch artist Constant Nieuwenhuys. From 1956 to 1974 Constant was presenting blueprints, texts and scale models for his visionary, global city, where the Homo Ludens of the future would live as a new kind of nomad, free from material wants and possessions, no longer bound to fixed locations or fixed relationships with either family or tribe. Mankind would live in an ever-evolving environment, interacting with constantly changing constellations of people and fulfilling life through play.

Hy Hirsh started making films in San Francisco and moved to Amsterdam in the middle of the fifties.
Gyromorphosis was the first film he made there. He wrote: "Gyromorphosis strives to bring into actuality the inherent kinetic qualities seen in the construction-sculpture of Constant Nieuwenhuys of Amsterdam. To realize this aim I have put into motion, one by one, pieces of this sculpture and, with coloured lighting, filmed them in various detail, overlaying the images on the film as they appear and disappear. In this way, I have hoped to produce sensations of acceleration and suspension which are suggested to me by the sculpture itself."