Our project presents a pair of fully animated sculptures in real-space and real-time, which users may freely operate themselves in order to bring dynamic motion simulations to life before their very eyes. Harnessed by Arduino microcontrollers, a wide range of materials, such as clay, spare bicycle parts and high voltage LED’s, come together to form stop-motion works which present fluid movement on display, demonstrating artistic areas left underexplored since the pioneering days of early motion-picture experimenters.
While mainstream media and even most fringe artists have long since abandoned the uncanny appeal of contraptions like flipbooks or the zoetrope, we embrace the expressive potential of creating animation in actual physical space. However, the movie-machines of old only offered two-dimensional movement, allowing subjects limited to only simple cartoon drawings, photographs or anything that could be rendered on a flat surface. Our project picks up where their early efforts left off, and creates the illusion of fully animated three-dimensional objects, tricking the eye from every possible direction.
Setting a series of individually sculpted clay figures on sets of metal spokes, we fix our animation sequences on bicycle wheels, both vertically and horizontally, as a reference to the avant-garde artist Marcel Duchamp. After rigging the bicycle wheels with strips of tape and metal for optical infrared and magnetic sensors, our code processes each spoke with a still figure upon it as a switch condition. This triggers our 1 and 3-Watt LED bulbs, attached to the bicycle wheels though independently of their motion, which one-by-one in quick succession creates our own strobe effect.
As the lights flash whenever a figure passes by at high speed, the images combine to form motion in the viewer’s eye, animation that can now be viewed and appreciated from any angle in the physical space and in actual time.

Our group members all share an interest in various facets of early motion-picture experimentation, such as pioneering motion photographer Edweard Muybridge, cartoonist and animator like Windsor McCay and silent-era director Fritz Lang. Recognizing that new developments in the creation of high-wattage LED's allow for a much more precise range of light dispersal, we saw that in conjunction with the high degree of control offered by the Arduino microcontroller we could perform much more complicated animation of 3D objects than has been possible in the past.

Mostly, our research was largely composed of vast amounts of background information we each brought to the project based on our own independent interests. Edweard Muybridge's photographs of figures in motion provided a strong basis for our understanding of the step-by-step process of animation, while studies of the early cartoon shorts of Windsor McCay and the expressionist epics Fritz Lang taught us a degree of showmanship and artistic sophistication which helped us focus our content to fit the particular constraints provided by our project. Alexander Calder's mobiles and circus-themed wireworks helped provide a backbone for our work, both literally in regards to the physical armatures for our animated figures and figuratively in regards to a shared content. On a purely idiosyncratic note, the Dada artist Marcel Duchamp and surrealist Salvador Dali intrigued our curiosities enough to incorporate absurd household items like bicycle wheels and plastic toy ants into the design. As for contemporary figures, the precedent of Gregory Barsamian's animation installations proved a constant reminder of the potential efficacy of this project, though we believe our use of computer controlled high-wattage LED's stands as an innovation in this field.

This is intended for anyone, but could especially find ground in an art gallery.

Sitting in a darkened room, the wheels wait for wanderers to approach, spin and watch them animate.

Bicycle parts, high-wattage LED's, polymer clay, wire, a medical stand, a small wooden stool, various electronics and Arduino microcontrollers.

Principles of animation, coding and microcontrol.