{"id":77859,"date":"2026-04-29T12:11:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T19:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=77859"},"modified":"2026-04-29T12:11:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T19:11:18","slug":"animations-on-the-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/animations-on-the-move\/","title":{"rendered":"Animations on the move"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you happen to take an evening\u00a0stroll\u00a0around\u00a0downtown Flagstaff\u00a0during\u00a0the\u00a0first three days of May, be on the lookout for\u00a0<\/span>Chris Johnson<\/span><\/b>,\u00a0professor of visual communication,\u00a0as he moves\u00a0through the city with a mobile projection system, sharing animations in unexpected places.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Pedal<\/a>Johnson started working on the\u00a0<\/span>Pedal-Powered Projections: Animations on the Move<\/span><\/a>\u00a0project\u00a0in January after receiving funding from\u00a0ARTx\u00a02026, transforming\u00a0a bicycle and trailer into a self-contained, human-powered projection system capable of bringing animation into a wide range of environments.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe system is built around a bicycle pulling a trailer that houses a projector, battery and media setup,\u201d Johnson said.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0fully self-contained, which allows me to move through\u00a0different locations\u00a0and\u00a0project\u00a0wherever it can be seen. I use software to sequence and loop animations, often in circular formats that relate to both the mechanics of the bicycle and broader ideas of cycles and systems.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s project is part of\u00a0<\/span>ARTx: Art + Ideas Experience<\/span><\/a>, a three-day festival in Flagstaff designed to inspire creativity by pairing art,\u00a0science\u00a0and community. The festival, which will take place May 1-3, will have\u00a0various\u00a0events with interactive and multidisciplinary installations\u00a0in\u00a0locations throughout the city.\u00a0During the festival,\u00a0Johnson will move through different areas\u00a0around\u00a0downtown in the evenings, projecting onto a range of surfaces.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of asking people to come into a gallery, this project brings the gallery directly to them,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWhether someone\u00a0encounters\u00a0it intentionally or by chance, the goal is to create unexpected moments of art in everyday spaces. In that sense, the project is also grounded in the idea that art is everywhere\u2014it\u2019s\u00a0not something you have to go to, but something you can\u00a0encounter.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For Johnson,\u00a0one of the most important aspects of the project is its accessibility:\u00a0It is free,\u00a0outside\u00a0and open to anyone. His inspiration was driven by his interest in environmental storytelling and his desire to rethink\u00a0how animation exists.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Animation<\/a>\u201cMuch of my work explores ecology, adaptation and systems, and I was interested in creating a format where those ideas could be experienced outside of a traditional screen,\u201d\u00a0Johnson\u00a0said.<\/span>\u00a0\u201c<\/span>I\u2019ve\u00a0also been thinking about how projected imagery changes depending on where it appears. When you project onto something like a tree, the surface\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0neutral\u2014the bark,\u00a0branches\u00a0and movement all affect the image. In one of my early tests, it felt as if\u00a0the tree was looking back,\u00a0and that moment shifted how I thought about the work.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Johnson said the uniqueness of the project lies in the projections being actively transformed by the environment, changing depending on the surfaces upon which they are projected. The images are designed to be subtle and immersive, creating moments of pause within the movement of the city, inviting people to slow down, even briefly, and notice their surroundings differently.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe work explores how projected imagery is transformed by environmental surfaces,\u201d Johnson said.\u00a0\u201cThe final image\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0something I fully control\u2014it\u00a0emerges\u00a0through the interaction between light and landscape. In that sense, authorship shifts away from the artist alone and toward a collaboration between the projection and the environment itself.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After\u00a0ARTx, Johnson\u00a0will continue to develop new animations specifically for this format, including\u00a0looping works that respond to ideas of movement, ecology and\u00a0perception\u00a0while\u00a0exploring ways to expand the project through collaborations with other artists and potentially incorporating\u00a0additional\u00a0interactive or augmented elements.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/a>Mariana Laas | NAU Communications
\n(928) 523-5050 | mariana.laas@nau.edu<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you happen to take an evening\u00a0stroll\u00a0around\u00a0downtown Flagstaff\u00a0during\u00a0the\u00a0first three days of May, be on the lookout for\u00a0Chris Johnson,\u00a0professor of visual communication,\u00a0as he moves\u00a0through the city with a mobile projection system, sharing animations in unexpected places.\u00a0 Johnson started working on the\u00a0Pedal-Powered Projections: Animations on the Move\u00a0project\u00a0in January after receiving funding from\u00a0ARTx\u00a02026, transforming\u00a0a bicycle and trailer into…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":77862,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-staff","category-happenings"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}