MARINA ZURKOW
Custom animated software, custom powder-coated steel boxes, hardware, plywood plinths
Fidelity International corporate art collection purchased a complete set of the eight More&More (the invisible oceans) software sculptures.
Software-driven animation, outdoor projection
Add’l animation: Sarah Rothberg
Software: Sam Brenner
Commissioned by SPUrban, Sao Paulo, Brasil
São Paulo was built on top of the Mata Atlântica, a formerly vast forest habitat that, in spite of the radical reduction to 8% of its original land cover, still contains a large proportion of unique (endemic) species. In the software-driven animation Mesocósmico (Paulista), aspects of urban life and the surrounding Brazilian rainforest–trees, animals, water–are…
Software-driven animation. 73-hour year-long cycle (never repeats).
Triptych. Color, animation, sound
Format: Flash player/projector on (intel) MacPro with 3 monitors / projections
Dimensions variable
Animators: Marina Zurkow, Sarah Rothberg
Software Developer: Sam Brenner
Sound: Lem Jay Ignacio and Marina Zurkow
Add’l Software: Yotam Mann
Commissioned by The Museum of Biblical Art, New York
Mesocosm (Times Square, NY) is an algorithmic work that represents the passage of time in a speculative, hybrid Times Square. 12 minutes of real world time elapse in each minute of screen time, one year lasts 73 hours. No cycle is identical to the last, as the appearance and behavior of the human and non-human characters,…
Two-channel animation, black and white, silent
5 min,12 sec loop
Animation assistance: Lindsay Nordell
Edition of 5
The movement of a pump jack (known colloquially as a “thirsty bird”), and a public water fountain are synchronized in a transitory dance. As the pump pulls oil upward, the water fountain spurts water. An array of archetypal individuals—cowboys and Indians, a father and his son, a county sheriff, a cow, a soldier, a girl…
Single-channel animation, color, silent
Qucktime renders of Processing sketches, custom computers, speedrail, mirror
12 minutes each
Edition 1/5
NeoGeo I-IV is a series of 12-minute Quicktime video captures of algorithmic, moving image work created using the software language Processing. The work visually represents the work of an oil drill as it penetrates through an infinite series of geological layers. The layers of sediment continually auto-generate based on pre-programmed parameters. The videos are mounted and hung…
Single-channel animation, color, sound
2 min 32 sec loop
Edition of 5
Hydrocarbon chains are the base material for all plastics. They know not what they become, they simply proliferate. Extracting and manipulating a clip from The Inside Story of Modern Gasoline, a 1946 industrial film, endless chains of anthropomorphized (and uncomfortably racialized) hydrocarbon molecules dance until they blot out the screen. Hydrocarbons are indeed dispassionately lively actors, taking…
Software-driven animation. 144-hour year-long cycle (never repeats).
Color, animation, sound
Format: Standalone software application on (intel) Mac with monitor / projection
Dimensions variable
Add’l animation: Michelle Mayer
Code Design: Veronique Brossier
Occasional Sound: Lem Jay Ignacio
Developed through a residency at Diverseworks, Houston, Texas
Spring, Summer, Fall, and WinterFour archival pigment prints on Crane MuseoDimensions 26″ x 44″Available as individual prints, or as a set. Mesocosm (Wink, Texas) is part of an ongoing series of animated landscapes that develop and change over time in response to software-driven data inputs. The title is drawn from the field of environmental science…
Software-driven animation. 146-hour year-long cycle (never repeats).
Color, animation, sound
Format: Flash player/projector on (intel) Mac with monitor / projection
Dimensions variable
Add’l animators: Xue Hou, Andrea Lira, Laewook Kang
Code Design: Veronique Brossier
Occasional Sound: Lem Jay Ignacio
Leigh Bowery modeled by Lawrence Goldhuber
Red squirrel source footage generously bartered for with Nicholas Berger
Developed during a residency at ISIS Arts, Newcastle, Northumberland
Four archival pigment prints on Crane MuseoDimensions 26″ x 44″ Mesocosm (Northumberland, UK) is an algorithmic work, representing the passage of time on the moors of Northeast England. One hour of world time elapses in each minute of screen time, so that one year lasts 146 hours. No cycle is identical to the last, as…
Duration: 17’42” (loop)
Edition of 6 plus 2 A/Ps
Color, animation and stereo sound
Format: Mac Mini or media player
Dimensions variable; (dimensions in pixels): 1920 x 1080
Music by Lem Jay Ignacio
Additional animation: Jen Kelly
Commissioned by the City of Tampa, for Lights on Tampa 2009
The animated, carnivalesque tailgate party of Slurb loops and stutters like a vinyl record stuck in a groove. Slurb – a word that collapses “slum” and “suburb” – encapsulates a dreamy ode to the rise of slime, a watery future in which jellyfish have dominion. There is a history of satirical illustration, epitomized by J.J.Grandville in the…
Series of four works
(4) 5:00 minute loops
Editions of 7
Animation, sound/silent
Format: Dimensions variable; custom framed 24″ monitor with MPlayer, or MPlayer only for 1920×1080 projection or monitor
Production Stills Installation views from Bryce Wolkoitz Gallery, New York, 2009 Installation views of Elixir I and IV, Feldman Gallery, Portland Oregon, 2009 The Elixir pieces describe impossible landscapes: cut-crystal bottles bob and toss like buoys in the ocean, beacons bearing potions, poisons, messages, genies. Each bottle contains an animated figure engaged in a repeated,…
Series of 2 works
Animation, (4) 22″ monitors, (2) custom PCs, custom housing
78″ x 14″ x 6″
(Poster Children) 9 minute loop, silent
(Heroes of the Revolution) 3’30”, silent
Editions of 5
The Poster Children and its remix, Heroes of the Revolution are part of a series of animated paintings whose themes circulate around apocalyptic fantasies of the deluge and climate change, of water, ice, animals, and people. Writing Essays in The Scholar & Feminist “Gender on Ice” (Barnard College, 2008):Un-Performing Zoögeopathology, Una Chaudhuri(2009)
Animation, 15″ monitor, custom PC, custom housing
2’44”, silent
Edition of 5
Airplanes, elephants, and plankton – three beautiful “machines.” Weights + Measures compares proverbial apples and oranges, in order to probe a system of relative values. Take any two of the three creatures in the system: in water, airplanes sink while elephants swim. Elephants and airplanes both release methane, and both have been instruments of transport and war….
7-channel installation
animation, DVD and quicktime, sound
Music: Lem Jay Ignacio
Technology: Julian Bleecker
Installation Design (The Kitchen): Palmer Moss & Marina Zurkow
Title Design: Nancy Nowacek
Nicking The Never is a project of Creative Capital, with generous support from Creative Capital, The Jerome Foundation, and The Media Arts Fellowship (supported By The Rockefeller Foundation).
Nicking the Never is a multi-linear installation that incorporates screen-based animated narratives into a sculptural interface. Composed of allegories about a young girl stuck in a kinetic world of emotional pitfalls, this kaleidoscopic trip into the states of selfhood bases its structure in the Tibetan Buddhist Wheel of Existence, whose images luridly and vividly describe…
3′ 51″, sound
Single channel animated video
DVD or Quicktime
How do you wage war on an abstract noun? Terry Jones The Space Invaders is a composite of live-action footage and 2D character animation, redolent of vaudeville sketches, early cartoon pranks, and Grand Guignol’s shock theater. Conceived as a strand of animated paintings, the concept of Code Orange and other viral promulgators of fear are externalized as…
9” x 8” X 16.5” custom metal housing, Mini-ITX PC, High res 6.4” monitor, Sensor interface, 120V power surge box, Speakers
Edition of 5, signed on mounted interior plaque
Pussy Weevil is a screen-based installation of an individual software persona, a 2D animated character, who reacts to the viewer’s distance or proximity.
Braingirl is a nine-episode animated series about a mutant-cute girl who wears her insides on the outside, literally. Braingirl and her hapless sidekick Bagboy live in a world of externalized emotion, where little is hidden yet nothing is what it appears to be. Braingirl is part experimental film and part pop culture blast; it explores how…