A large-scale zoetrope — a pre-cinematic animation toy — made for the Socrates Sculpture Park exhibition LIC, NYC (2007).
Steel and adhesive outdoor polyvinyl signage, 7′ diameter × 5.5′ high, 2007.
Silvercup Studios, the film and television production facility in Long Island City, was formerly the Silvercup Bread Factory. The zoetrope plays on this layered history: one animation shows bread rising and exploding above an assembly line; an earlier iteration features the Lone Ranger and his horse Silver — Silvercup Bread was a primary sponsor of the television show — alongside Tony Soprano and three ducks frolicking in his pool, the image that precipitates Tony’s blackouts and his foray into therapy. The Sopranos is made at Silvercup Studios; the first productions were allegedly shot in the flour silo room.
The piece pays tribute to Silvercup’s history and to the neighborhood’s transition from industrial enclave to mixed-use community, while foregrounding the material process of analog animation. Viewers experience the persistence of vision that makes film possible only by turning the very large, very heavy steel drum themselves — a gesture that tends to inspire spontaneous collaboration among strangers.
