Tribute to Symbolism

Using generative AI, I created multiple one-second looping video clips and layered them together in a video editing software to form a dense composition.

These sequences were then expanded into 40 frames and arranged in a circular layout to construct a phenakistoscope. Printed onto a vinyl record and placed on a turntable spinning at 33⅓ RPM, the work was captured through live-action filming.

This method makes possible a looped animation of overwhelming density—something nearly impossible to achieve with hand-drawn phenakistoscopes.

In an age marked by the proliferation of images and the opacity of black-box AI systems, returning to a 19th-century optical toy like the phenakistoscope exposes the primal operations of perception—rotation, afterimage, and sequential vision—and becomes an attempt to re-examine the bodily act of seeing itself.

Moreover, in a time when artistic creation risks being reduced to the writing of prompts, translating AI-generated outputs into an analog medium becomes an experiment in evoking a distinctly human, poetic experience.