Persistence of Vision

I've been playing around with a Spoke POV kit, and I think I'm going to use it to make an electronic version of Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel. A motor will spin the wheel continuously, and LED's will blink at a specific speed to allow legible text or an image to appear within the spokes. I haven't figured out what to say yet... at the moment I'm deciding between saying something funny like "Duchamp Rules," or using a GIF image I found on the internet of a dancing red flame.

The flame idea comes from reading about how Duchamp said that watching the light reflecting off of wheel's spokes was like watching "flames dancing in a fireplace." I think it's a shame that Duchamp intended for the wheel to spin, but that museums insist that it remains static. I read somewhere that Duchamp himself was once yelled at by a museum security guard for touching and spinning his own sculpture when he was explaining it to a friend.

Anyway, here is an image of the work in progress. I am going to take the tire and tube off of the wheel so it's just the silver rim. And I might paint the stool (which I bought at Target) white. The image/text will completely fill the circular frame once the wheel is spinning at a faster and more consistent speed. As it is now, you can see the S and P that spell "Spoke POV."

I'll tell you what.

Eternity at the Niagara Artists Centre

Eternity (2010) is currently on view in the Plate Glass Gallery at the Niagara Artists Centre in St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada. The exhibition runs 30 June – 31 August, 2012.