The Shadow Machine, Jason Eppink's contribution to the Underbelly Project, animates photos of blacksmiths from the late-1800s.
[vimeo][/vimeo]
Jason Eppink, a GOOD 100 honoree, is a remarkable visual artist. His contribution to the Underbelly Project (the massive and illicit installation in an abandoned New York City subway) is a light-projection project that animates two blacksmiths using photographs from the late 1800s taken by Eadweard Muybridge. It's called "The Shaddow Machine," and Eppink explains it thusly:
The Shadow Machine's projected, ghostly figures hammer away in complete darkness at the far end of the platform, ever-toiling spirits working on a never-finished station that was abandoned generations ago.
Inside the Machine, six frames hand-painted on clear plexiglass operate as gobos when lit from behind by narrow beam LEDs. A light sequence, controlled by an Arduino board with custom software using a 9V battery, casts each successive shadow in a loop.
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There's definitely something haunting about those 100-year-old blacksmiths working alone in the dark down there.
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