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Selected Video Works

Out to Sea (2011)   Music video for the song 'Johnny' by German band Freizeit98 consisting of a scratch remix of an old horror/mystery film from the 1930s entitled 'The Phantom Ship' in which the oblivious wife of a sea captain falls prey to the titular vessel's motley crew as they answer that other call of nature. Band website: freizeit98.de/​ Here is a link to the source film on archive.org: archive.org/​details/​PhantomShip

Between The Scan Lines (2011)   Generated from footage of common household surfaces processed with editing software to the point of complete abstraction offering a colorful glimpse into what goes on behind even the most life-like video images and serving as a reminder that no matter how hard people try to capture ‘reality’ with a camera, at the end of the day it’s all just pixels and scan lines, bits and bytes. Mixed in real-time using Arkaos Grand VJ with a soundtrack generated with the video mixer and Ableton Live in collaboration with Ian Harper on guitar. For best results, listen with headphones ;)

 

Decomposition (2011)   A demonstration of the extreme perceptual shifts that can occur when mediated reality literally starts to break down, 'Decomposition' is a remix of found footage shot by an unknown amateur filmmaker documenting a trip to a local carnival or amusement park in Rochester, NY circa the 1960s in which the already chemically damaged film is randomly subjected to five cumulative layers of digital distortion (six if you count the original uploader's act of converting the source film to a digital format) and mashed up in real time using Arkaos Grand VJ mixing software. The soundtrack consists of a synthesized organ rendition of the popular song 'Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head' which accompanies a carousel located in New York's Central Park and is also mashed up in tandem with the visuals. Finally, the repetitive droning note at the end is the result of the VJ program crashing during the climax of the performance--an occurrence which happened so consistently during rehearsals that I decided to incorporate it into the piece. Viva la glitch! Special thanks to Chad Hunter for making the source film freely available online: http://www.archive.org/details/homemovie_decomposed_carnival

IMC (2011)   An experiment in image/sound relationships and time-manipulation consisting of footage shot during a rehearsal of Scott Putman’s “Escaping The Silence of Winters Night’ performed by an ensemble of dancers representing multiple companies participating in the 2010 Great Friends Dance Festival held in Newport, Rhode Island. The footage was intentionally shot with a slow shutter effect in order to cause the images to ‘streak’ in a manner that accentuated the dancers’ movements and the clips were then arranged within Arkaos Grand VJ with medium opacity and luma key settings that created near-abstract images when layered multiple times. The soundtrack is an improvised composition performed in Ableton Live with the same MIDI keyboard that simultaneously triggered the video clips within Grand VJ in an attempt to ‘play’ the video like a musical instrument. Special thanks to the Island Moving Company for hosting the event, performing with the ensemble and allowing me to film the rehearsal.

Detour I (2010)   A performance experiment consisting of nearly 3 hours of home video footage arranged in an edit timeline and manually scrubbed at high speed in an attempt to generate random sensory impressions similar to memory fragments within the viewer's mind from which a personal subliminal narrative can be derived, similar to that of a recovering amnesia patient. Viewers are encouraged to share their interpretations of the footage with one another and to discuss the moral/ethical implications of high-impact editing techniques as a possible form of conditioning for future direct neural data transfer technologies. Now that there is increasing speculation amongst analysts that things are moving in that direction, one has to wonder if such a development will usher in a new era of interactivity with users engaging in free-association with raw data with only limited mediation or will it merely increase the entertainment industry's stranglehold on passive viewers?	Detour II (2010)   This second installment of the Detour series invites the viewer to revisit the perceptual experiment conducted in Detour 1 only instead of presenting the images in a rapid succession, here they are slowly fragmented almost like a puzzle occasionally coming together to form complete images. The video consists of footage acquired with a computer screen recording program which captured the visual distortion generated when a tape containing alternate takes of the Detour 1 performance was fast forwarded through a tape deck while the signal was still being fed back into the computer. The new recording which resulted was then slowed down considerably, broken into clips and slowly dissolved between one another using a variety of transitions and blending modes available within Final Cut Pro.   Like Detour 1, the resulting video was then “performed” by scrubbing the playback marker back and forth across the edit timeline in order to ‘shuffle the puzzle pieces’ only this time it is also allowed to roll naturally for extended periods. The soundtrack consists of an acoustic guitar improvisation recorded in my backyard with nature and city noises in the background.	Detour III A Requiem for the Cathode Ray Tube (2010)   A remix of the first two installments of the Detour series, in this version all previous visual and conceptual associations are broken down as the mashed-up video fades and shifts between three different perspectives:  1.) the reedited source images as seen directly from the computer timeline  2.) the screen surface of an old CRT television monitor filmed with a macro lens as it plays back the aforementioned images  3.) the same television as seen from the vantage point of an ordinary viewer sitting in a common living room.  The resulting perceptual muddle is an attempt to disorient the viewer in a way that causes them to question their own role as an observer as well as the ways in which media inherently distorts those observations, whether it be through the manipulative voyeurism of reality television, clinical surveillance via closed-circuit monitor or the simple distraction of enjoying the pretty flickering lights emitted by the machine. The subtitle “A Requiem for the Cathode Ray Tube” is a homage to the type of monitor used in the creation of this video which was common in most homes from the inception of consumer television technology right up until the early 2000s when flat-panel TVs rendered them obsolete (though they are still used to a limited extent by broadcast professionals and others).  The unique pixel patterns and scan line distortions literally hypnotized me as a kid whenever I ignored my parent’s advice not to sit too close to the television and are something that I wanted to celebrate on a purely aesthetic level in addition to everything else I have been trying to convey with this series of videos

Seasonal Transmutation Suite (2010)   Four short videos (Drift, Data Stream, Regeneration & Autumnation) edited into a suite depicting the seasonal changes in New York State as seen from both human and technological perspectives at the macro and micro levels with the two often overlapping, interfering and/or complimenting each other. As people’s senses become increasingly augmented by machines at rates previously envisioned only in science fiction stories, this project attempts to encapsulate the experience of viewing the cycle of nature through the current lens of relative technological/biological equilibrium for posterity should our cyborgian descendents ever decide to eschew one element in favor of the other in the course of their evolution. One question that arises from all of this is whether natural beauty will have any meaning in a post-human world or will we simply appreciate it in new ways?

Drive (2009)   While technology can help us experience the real and virtual worlds in new and vibrant ways, I believe that it is still helpful to maintain an organic view of the world as a perceptual counterbalance.  In this case, editing software is used to slow footage that I filmed through the window of a car I was riding in during a rainstorm.  This, along with the subtle, repetitive soundtrack alters the viewer’s perception of time and the colorless imagery could be perceived either as a limitation of outdated technology or as a representation of a person’s subconscious, since it is said that many people dream in black and white.  Finally, in an ironic twist, many people have asked what computer effect I used to create the wavy distortion of the imagery when it was in fact caused by the rainwater streaking across the window I was shooting through.  To me, this popular misconception reasserts the role of organic sight in determining our view of the world despite the onslaught of technology and brings the piece full circle.

Stations (Oh, The Humanity) (2008)   A collision of found images and sounds pertaining to manmade economic and geopolitical crises with a dash of Depression-era nostalgia resulting in sensory overload. Completed in the fall of 2008, this piece has a wide array of inspirations ranging from the recession to the highly contentious presidential election, as well as America's ongoing involvement in two foreign wars. All of this is presented in a rapid-fire collage of found images and sounds that is both critical and reminiscent of the mass media's presentation of such events with little regard for audience contemplation or comprehension.

Ascent (2008)   Impressionistic depiction of the disastrous Challenger space shuttle flight which broke up shortly after liftoff in January 1986. With the subsequent investigation revealing that the astronauts likely did not die until the separated crew compartment impacted on the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, this piece attempts to present the equally muddled vantage points of both the astronauts during their final moments as well as the artist's memories of watching the tragedy unfold on live television at the age of three years old.

Toasted (2008)   An experiment in shifting perspectives.  Life passes by a Paris cafe as seen through champagne goggles.

Barren (2008)   Increasing distance from a seemingly barren landscape allows one to contemplate their perception of age, decay and obsolescence.  Featuring the painting Venus and Cupid With a Satyr by Antonio Allegri de Correggio on display at the Louvre in Paris.

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