Garden of Unearthly Delights by Matt Collishaw
The Museum of Arts and Design in New York City showcases the work of emerging artists and designers.
Featured last summer was an otherworldly zoetrope by Matt Collishaw entitled Garden of Unearthly Delights. Witnessing it was true magic. Although video cannot do justice to the frightening beauty (Pulchrist? or not?) of Garden of Unearthly Delights 3D zoetrope, I have posted a short clip which can give an idea of the effect.
What you'll seeing is a series of equal shapes in progressive positions. The flickering light tricks the mind into perceiving motion - similar to cinema.
Matt Collishaw
Garden of Unearthly Delights
2009
Zoetrope operating on a 90"/30" cycle
Steel, aluminum, plaster, resin and stroboscope
From Matt Collishaw's description of the piece:
I'd worked with zoetropes a few times before creating the Garden of Earthy Delights. After a lot of research, I decided to attempt building a 3D version so that the animated image would be made from physical objects rather than a two-dimensional image. The limitations of the zoetrope mean that you can only really achieve one second of animation before the sequence loops. This means that whatever is happening in your scene is a very repetitive motion. Something that doesn't lend itself very well to sophisticated movement but is perfectly suited for depicting sex, violence, and other animalistic behavior.
The first zoetrope I made was a scene of carnal lust, viewed voyeuristically by old men, young maidens, and a barking dog. An eagle presided over the proceedings while a young boy slugged wine in the foreground. I decided to use images of imps that I had seen in various Victorian fairy paintings. Although a lot of these vignettes were quite picturesque, they usually contained malevolent puckish characters instigating chaos on the fringes of the picture.
Watch the first video, then the second video shows how it was made.
Thanks to Keith Henry Williamson!