'Empire' by Nature Theater of Oklahoma is a project inspired by Andy Warhol's 1964 silent, black-and-white film Empire (8hrs. 5 minutes in length) which is a static shot of the Empire State Building from late afternoon into night. You can watch a ten minute clip of Warhol's original here: youtube.com/watch?v=VMCeDBn1Zu0.
We’re going to remake this film - all eight plus hours of it; but instead of filming the Empire State Building, we’ve decided to create an animated version, and we're asking everyone in the world to participate. This 8 minute clip is an example of some of the work on the project thus far.
We are building this animation entirely from 4"x6’’ index cards. Each index card is initially stamped with an image we've designed of the Empire State Building, and those contributing may create and design and decorate however they choose with two stipulations: 1) Please try to recreate the SAME image 10 times. Even though the goal is to recreate the same exact image in each card, the natural details and imperfections reveal movement in what initially seems static. And 2) please only use 2D techniques. We will scan these in order to make the film, so 3D submissions (while I‘m sure they would be awesome...) will be unusable.
If you are interested in participating, please email your name and mailing address to empire@oktheater.org. We will send you an envelope of 10 cards and you can work your artistic magic and send them back to us. While you will receive credit for helping us, these cards will not be returned to you.
Currently there is no deadline for requesting cards. Work on this project commenced in 2013 and we will continue the work in 2014, 2015, 2016... until we get it done. But please hurry! We do really want to see it completed before we die.