Spinnradl Video, shot and edited by J Miles Wolf
Here is a short video showing our Spinnradl sculptures in action in Cincinnati. The video features two songs on two nearly identical sculptures, sited about a block apart from each other along Pendleton Street. The songs are played by turning a crank, which spins a large cylinder that triggers an analog music box. Turning the crank also powers a pulsing, radial Moire animation on either end of the sculpture’s housing. Each song lasts about thirty seconds when spun at the optimal speed, and repeats as long as the crank is continually turned.
The first song featured is a German folk dance called Spinnradl (spinning wheel), where dancers traditionally make star patterns in groups of three. The song would have been familiar to the German immigrants who built the Pendleton neighborhood and lived and worked there in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. The second song is a ragtime composed in Cincinnati during the height of ragtime’s popularity. The song was composed to play on board steamboats that ferried passengers along a canal that once bordered the ‘Over-the Rhine’ neighborhood.
To learn more about the development of Spinnradl, please click here and scroll down.