2025
Multi-screen version
animation, software
Marina Zurkow and James Schmitz
Animation: Ewan Creed
Research: David Guzman
Photo Documentation: Michael Hull
Presented by Midnight Moment, co-presented by Times Square Arts, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and The Armory Show
This work is part of the project:
A multi-channel animation that journeys through a complex choreography of ecological and social systems, The River is a Circle (Times Square Edition) by artists Marina Zurkow and James Schmitz depicts a split view of the Hudson River that spans centuries. Below the water, we encounter schools of fish, oyster reefs, maritime wreckage and divers; above the water,…
2025
Marina Zurkow and James Schmitz
Animation: Ewan Creed
Research: David Guzman
Architectural installation: Blake Goble
Mural Painting: Frey Stahler and Josiah McCloud
Courtesy bitforms gallery
Documentation photos: Yi Hsuan Lai
Hyundai Artlab, Whitney Museum of American Art
This work is part of the project:
Marina Zurkow: Parting Worlds presents three digital works featured both inside the gallery and on the adjacent terrace, each of which explores the inextricable weave of ecological and societal systems. Mesocosm (Wink, TX) (2012) and The Earth Eaters (2025) focus on the environmental consequences of relentless resource extraction. Her installation for the Hyundai Terrace Commission, The River is a Circle (2025), is…
2025
Marina Zurkow and James Schmitz
Animation: Ewan Creed
Research: David Guzman
Architectural installation: Blake Goble
Mural Painting: Frey Stahler and Josiah McCloud
Courtesy bitforms gallery
Documentation photos: Yi Hsuan Lai
Commissioned in 2025 for The Hyundai Terrace at the Whitney Museum of American Art
This work is part of the project:
Commissioned in 2025 for The Hyundai Terrace at the Whitney Museum of American Art, The River is a Circle is a generative animation that portrays the Hudson River as a layered scene, dividing the view between life above and below the water’s surface. The animated imagery continuously shifts based on algorithmic probabilities, incorporating real-time weather, seasonal…
2022
Custom software, color, silent
8K screen and computer
Dimensions approximately 40′ x 10′
In collaboration with Jim Schmitz
Animation assistance: Ewan Creed
Hudson River consultants: Hudson River Park’s River Project: Hudson River consultants: Carrie Roble, Tina Walsh, Siddhartha Hayes, Toland Kister
Worldbuilding consultants:Una Chaudhuri, Lafayette Cruise, Carolyn Hall, Clarinda Mac Low, Tony Patrick
Commissioned by Google for Pier 57
This work is part of the project:
The animated software-driven work Hudson Follies is a site-specific commission by Google for the lobby of their event space occupying Pier 57 along the Hudson River in Chelsea, Manhattan. It explores an alternate, present-day Hudson River estuary in which happy social and biological ecosystems live in harmony, where humans can interact with the water in…
2022
Custom software, color, silent
Projection or monitor and computer
Dimensions variable
This work is part of the project:
In this animated software-driven work, an alternate, present-day Hudson River estuary exists in which relatively healthy social and biological ecosystems live in harmony; where humans can interact with the water in intimate ways, and experience what is happening below the surface.