Marcel Duchamp // Bicycle Wheel

I have been inspired by the 'machine' idea from Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel sculpture. His kinetic sculpture is from his readymade collection. I think the simplicity and combination of the moving wheel and the static stool is really interesting visually. And this was its purpose. Duchamp described the sculpture as "I enjoyed looking at it," he said. "Just as I enjoy looking at the flames dancing in the fireplace." It did not serve any other purpose than visual pleasure. This sense of aesthetic is relevant to my concept as I will portray the sculpture as a void meaningless visual pleasure. Serving as a distraction from the mechanisms of the 'machine.' Jean Francois Lyotard, a contemporary of Duchamp, describes this meaningless visual aesthetic as 'The Sublime' 

I began experimenting with creating a vector version of the Bicycle Wheel sculpture. I decided to use a simple colour palette of only a few greys and blacks. I wanted the animation to be simple and reflect the style of the sculpture, the palette and layout of this was key. 

Initially I plotted one vector in the centre of my canvas, this replicated the images i had drawn inspiration from but i wanted to had more vitality. Firstly I animated the wheel spinning, three rotations around a central reference point allowed for a smooth motion. I duplicated the layer and played around with scale. I wanted an unveiling, re-veiling kind of effect so I skewed and scaled some of the animations and placed a secondary animation of the arm pivoting at the base. I then set the keyframes to start or end off screen, making sure to return to the original points so as to create a loop. I was happy with the effect but wanted more of a main focal point, I applied the power of three to my thinking and created two accompanying sculptures either side of the main focal point. I then added another animation point to the arms in a similar vein to the scaled up sculptures.

I rendered out my animation from After Effects and into Premiere Pro, here I applied an old film layer style and reversed the footage to a negative to create a more 'vintage' aesthetic. Here is my final loop of Duchamp's structure 'Bicycle Wheel.'