I created an animation based on James Rosenquist's "Lune" (1991), The major themes I took away from the painting were the motion of flying, rotation, and the presence of astral objects. I decided to take these recurrent themes and create an animation displaying motion and objects of space. Using a similar layout as in Rosenquist's "Lune," I searched for images that could fit into this template. I found images of planes and paper swans, two objects displayed in "Lune," and placed them on an axis of rotation. I then found a picture of the moon, minimized the amount of colors in the picture, and placed it in the animation to respresent the solar objects used in Rosenquist’s original work. Along with the moon, I also created an animated background of pulsating stars. I used the words “Rotate” and “Turn” in my animation to simply express what I was trying to express in pictures and animations: the theme of rotation. I also colored the letters of the two words so that together they look as if they are two halves of a Ying-Yang circle, an image found in the original. The animation presents a very rhythmic and repetitive interpretation of Rosenquist’s “Lune.”

Tom Kracauer
Rotate/Turn