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The Image Mill: Sustainable Cinema #1

created 9.25.2009 (published 10.26.2009)

Launch Artwork


The Image Mill: Sustainable Cinema #1

Description

The Image Mill is a public sculpture that uses the force and beauty of falling water as the energy to create a moving picture. The artwork merges an optical illusion that led to the invention of movies with one of the first power sources. By referencing the histories of cinema and industrialization, The Image Mill explores a possible future of environmentally responsible media—looking forward by looking back.

One of the first movies created was a galloping horse and this piece also uses it as a metaphor for the region’s auto industry. The ‘horsepower’ that drove the Michigan industrial age is at a transition to a new age of alternative energy…the pony stumbles, but continues on.

This theme was also revealed in the fabrication. Made by Michigan metal workers, the artwork proves that the skills of industrial-era tradesmen can be tapped as a valuable resource as the region considers new sustainable directions.

Rhizome Terms: Allegory, Animation, Cinema, Community, History, Labor, Machine, Public space, Technology, Video

Artist Terms: Ford, Hessels, kinetic sculpture, Muybridge, sustainability, water power, waterwheel

Biography
Producing under the name Damaged Californians, Scott Hessels has released experimental art and commercial projects in several different media including film, video, web, music, broadcast, print, and performance for the last decade. His work has shown in international film and new media festivals, on television, and in contemporary art galleries and museums. As a media artist, his installations have shown at CiberArt in Bilbao, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, and the Japan Media Arts Festival. After 5 years of teaching digital video at UCLA in the Design | Media Arts Department, he is currently a professor and artist-in-residence at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

Forging the Future VocabWiki

As part of the Forging the Future initiative and in collaboration with Franklin Furnace, Rhizome's ArtBase terms have been collectivley defined and expanded upon on at the Forging the Future VocabWiki. We ecnourage our users to continue this process by collaborating on the wiki.

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