Larose Guyon has developed a design for the New York-based Rockwell Group’s new EMC2 Hotel in Chicago. Inspired by machines drawn and manufactured for the New York Art Director Club in 2015, the interactive sculpture combines ingenuity, art and science.
In revisiting the zoetrope, a forerunner to cinema invented in 1834 by William George Horner and Simon von Stampfer, Larose Guyon was inspired to create its own new way to animate objects. Forty-four pairs of laser-cut copper wings are arranged inside a large wheel, which is cranked by hand. Looking inside while turning the hand crank will give life to the otherwise motionless display.
The usually cold and inert materials suddenly become light and alive. The crank handle, itself a lacework flower, brims with femininity and romanticism. This work is a mere reminder that inventions of old are still something to marvel at.
