If you happen to take an evening stroll around downtown Flagstaff during the first three days of May, be on the lookout for Chris Johnson, professor of visual communication, as he moves through the city with a mobile projection system, sharing animations in unexpected places.
Johnson started working on the Pedal-Powered Projections: Animations on the Move project in January after receiving funding from ARTx 2026, transforming a bicycle and trailer into a self-contained, human-powered projection system capable of bringing animation into a wide range of environments.
“The system is built around a bicycle pulling a trailer that houses a projector, battery and media setup,” Johnson said. “It’s fully self-contained, which allows me to move through different locations and project wherever 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.”
Johnson’s project is part of ARTx: Art + Ideas Experience, a three-day festival in Flagstaff designed to inspire creativity by pairing art, science and community. The festival, which will take place May 1-3, will have various events with interactive and multidisciplinary installations in locations throughout the city. During the festival, Johnson will move through different areas around downtown in the evenings, projecting onto a range of surfaces.
“Instead of asking people to come into a gallery, this project brings the gallery directly to them,” Johnson said. “Whether someone encounters it 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—it’s not something you have to go to, but something you can encounter.”
For Johnson, one of the most important aspects of the project is its accessibility: It is free, outside and open to anyone. His inspiration was driven by his interest in environmental storytelling and his desire to rethink how animation exists.
“Much 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,” Johnson said. “I’ve also been thinking about how projected imagery changes depending on where it appears. When you project onto something like a tree, the surface isn’t neutral—the bark, branches and movement all affect the image. In one of my early tests, it felt as if the tree was looking back, and that moment shifted how I thought about the work.”
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.
“The work explores how projected imagery is transformed by environmental surfaces,” Johnson said. “The final image isn’t something I fully control—it emerges through 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.”
After ARTx, Johnson will continue to develop new animations specifically for this format, including looping works that respond to ideas of movement, ecology and perception while exploring ways to expand the project through collaborations with other artists and potentially incorporating additional interactive or augmented elements.
Mariana Laas | NAU Communications
(928) 523-5050 | mariana.laas@nau.edu