Chicago's John Winzeler of Winzeler Gear has an enthusiasm for creating a workspace that is visually appealing as well as functional. His Wilson Avenue plant is a study in meticulous design and craftsmanship, and artwork is carefully chosen or commissioned to dovetail with the environment.
The room shown above is a case in point. John had envisioned a series of gear photographs running along two walls of his metrology lab. We suggested a sequential series showing a compound gear rotating in space, initially as individual prints. The concept later evolved to one continuous band of color wrapping around the room. This posed the formidable challenge of creating 45 individual prints that would blend together as one on the wall. Weeks of digital work leading up to the production of the Fujix prints ensured that the files would blend seamlessly.
The prints were exactingly bevel-cut trimmed to eliminate any chance of a white edge showing through, and then delivered to a laminator to be joined together onto light grey Sintra, a light but dimensionally stable material. The mural was broken up into six panels, which were carefully cut to match on site the day of the installation. As the clear laminate protected against spills and fading, no glass was necessary. Once the lightwieight rails had been painted with the same automotive silver finish as the walls, they were attached and the mural sections slipped into place.
The name "Chromatic Zoetrope" was chosen because the sequence of images echoed the way the first motion pictures were ever seen, in cylindrical slitted drums called Zoetropes. The colors of each gear were shifted 11.25 degrees on the chromatic scale from the previous gear, just as the gear itself was rotated the same amount in space between shots. Thus, the sequence exists as a metaphor for the circular nature of gears, of Zoetrope 'movies', and of color itself.