Client: City of North Vancouver

Overview

This 24′ interactive kinetic sculpture honouring ravens is made extensively from brightly and mirror-polished stainless steel. As visitors approach the interactive sculpture they notice a flock of black cast metal ravens set against the shiny armature of the sculpture. When visitors turn the disk on the stem, the murder of ravens above their heads swirl around them. Looking in the mirrors the viewer sees this swirling flock transformed into a 3-dimensional animation of a flying raven. This sculpture is based on the Victorian-Era novelty called a “Praxinoscope” that pre-dated motion picture films.
Corvus is installed in Rey Sargent Park in North Vancouver, BC in front of the Gordon Smith Gallery.

Goals

Corvus set out to bring attention to the ravens that inhabit North Vancouver.
The public interaction and the analogue animation of the design highlight the raven's reputation of being a trickster. The appearance of the animated ravens in the mirror educates viewers on how animation occurs with multiple images being reflected in quick succession.

Process

Michael Vandermeer and Cheryl Hamilton combined their different approached to creating artwork to collaborate on the installation. Michael used his geometry and engineering skills and Cheryl employed her past work as an animator and sculptor to bring this concept to life.