Humans are naturally drawn to the moving image. Video can be intoxicating and distracting. I am fascinated by the idea of making moving images with physical objects. The two zoetropes below use different techniques to explore this theme.

I was asked to make a piece for the 2018 Furniture Society conference on the theme of integrating CNC technology and traditional fabrication methods. I had been focusing much of my woodworking practice on wood turning and specifically segmented turning. The idea to a zoetrope came from the desire to add CNC inlays to the segments of a turned vessel.

In the winter months my grandfather spends his afternoons making birdhouses for swallows which he hangs come springtime. This inspired me to focus on swallows as the subject for the zoetrope animation.

GIF IRL 1 uses an even more analog approach to viewing a moving image.

If we ever live in a post-computer world, how will we remember what the internet was like? What sort of physical artifacts exist as reminders of the ways in which we communicated. GIF IRL 1 (Graphics Interchange Format In Real Life) is an imagination of such a future. Each frame of the popular internet GIF “Party Parrot” is veneer inlayed on the inside of a plywood ring. Mirrors reflect each frame of the animation as as the object spins.

The piece was made for “Childs Play” an exhibition at Boston’s Society of Arts and Crafts about playful objects that elicit feelings of childlike joy.