CUBES: ZOETROPE Field of Cubes

Throughout history, artists have attempted to capture motion. Limited to work in still formats, artists have taken different approaches to represent movement in their work.

In the 1800’s, Eadweard Muybridge created a photo series that broke motion into photographic frames displayed like a comic strip. For the first time viewers were given the opportunity to see the details in movement they had previously missed.

Marcel Duchamp took a different approach when he interpreted motion in his modernist classic, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 using dynamically overlapping shapes.

In 1949 Gjon Mili reinterpreted the famous painting with photography in Nude Descending a Staircase.

Before the invention film, zoetropes were an animation device that produced the illusion of motion by displaying a sequence of drawings or photographs showing images displayed through slots in a rotating cylinder. For the first time artists could create the illusion of motion in their work.

In ZOETROPE FIELD, A field of frames displays the movement of an isometric cube in three directions. Each frame is animated, showing the relationship between motion and the undulating/morphing shapes. This animation is an exercise in imagining Muybridge’s photo series as an animation. Each quadrant in the row starts at the next frame in a looping animation. The resulting shapes create a meditative, almost breathe-like flow to the piece.

This artwork is part of the #zoetropenft group drop