The-Spinning-Animation-Show is a unique presentation, a mix of exhibition and live performance, with different optical devices, which presents cyclic animation together with a cinematic soundtrack.
The show is the final presentation of a minimum four day Zoetrope workshop. The participants can be young talented youngsters, trainees or professionals, who develop animation on paper stripes, paper discs, record discs or transparent plexiglass. They can present their results themselves in an audio-visual Show on several optical devices like Zoetropes, Praxinoscopes or projection devices.
The duration depends on the number of produced animations. The show can portray a theme, a place or a story.
A Zoetrope is an optical device invented around 1834, which can bring drawings of figures to life as if by magic. In the rotating cylinder of these device short repetitive cycles of movement can be shown such as running, waving, hopping, opening and closing etc.. The repetitions have a hypnotic effect on the observer. Zoetropes and Praxinoscopes are the forerunners of film technology. Despite the invention of film, the old techniques did not disappear. Animators use it to create fascinating animation cycles. I call this art of animation spinning-animation.
Since I’ve been teaching Zoetrope workshops, I’ve been fascinated by this device and loop animation.
I experimented with this in my new short film THE SAUSAGE RUN.
In a Zoetrope workshop, participants produce instantly viewable animation clips that focus on a very short action of less than a second.
This making-of film was realized by Simone Klar for a Zoetrope workshop we led together in 2016. Among the participants were pupils with intellectual disabilities.
I have developed this six-day Zoetrope workshop and The-Spinning-Animation-Show for the first time for the summer academy of the German Prize Winners of the international youth creativ competition in 2015.