the faqs

Born in the 1830’s, decades before Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd, William Horner was making movies on a much smaller scale. He created a small cylinder with equally spaced slits around the circumference. Inside, was a printed strip of paper with an equal number of images. As the zoetrope spun, the slits acted like a film camera shutter, causing the images inside to flicker and come to life with a phenomenon known as "persistence of vision." The animated strips could easily be swapped out for other strips. It was like an analog version of instagram.

They stand 22” high and 8” front to back and side to side.

The Zoëtropes will spin for about 20 minutes then slow to a blur before turning back into a normal, non-spinning, yet beautiful lamp. To restart the animation, flip the switch again. Enjoy.

I’ve always been fascinated by the early cinematic devices. I love the way they bring images to life. Both the art and the mechanics.

That led me to re-imagine them as animated art pieces. I make Flipbooks-as-sculptures, Phénakistiscopes, and have even deconstructed the Mutoscope. Finally I looked at the Zoetrope….

So, I replaced the slits with some custom tech and lit the Zoëtrope from within. This allowed me to put the art on the outside. And with that came more room with more frames—hundreds of frames. Now, armed with a larger canvas and more frames, the fun was just starting. 

I soon discovered new ways to create animations that are linear, cyclical, up, down, backwards, forwards—sometimes all at once. I look at each Zoëtrope Lamp like a short, recuring film. It can tell a story or it can simply recreate an action, a moment in time. All that’s needed is a simple spin of a dial and suddenly it’s more than just a beautiful lamp. It’s an animated piece of pre-cinema.

Yes, from content to construction we would be happy to help make that come to life.

Any Questions? Let me know