The Chronicles of San Francisco at SFMOMA

A digital black-and-white mural by the French graffiti and photo artist JR has gone up on the ground floor of SFMOMA at the museum's Howard Street entrance.

Getting closer to the mural, you realize that many of the figures are moving in slow-motion, GIF-type loops.

The patchwork mixture of people and places, high and low, celebrated and not, elicits an amazed "how in the hell did they do that?"

To add to the surreal excitement, the entire mural also moves slowly from left to right as if on a scroll.

1,200 people in San Francisco were photographed and interviewed over the previous year for the project, and there are a series of kiosks to the side where you can listen to the subjects' stories.

I am not sure if dogs were included in the interview process, but they were my friend Jim Horn's favorite detail. The mural is in the free entrance section of the museum and will be there for an entire year. Swing by and check it out because there is nothing quite like it in the world. (For a well-written background story by Jonathan Curiel at SF Weekly, click here.)