Statement:
Video—video ART, “film”-making, community video, video documentation,
interventionist video, web video, “home” video, television, all
of it—Video is the CENTER. Video is where all of the moving image ideas
accumulate, like a network of little eddies strewn up and down the mainstream.
And if perhaps video discourse once seemed to bobble like a bit of surface foam
on the deeper cultural current—now, more and more, we see it filling out
a complex 200-year-old technological and social history.
My personal work feels like an oil slick on this flowing current, spreading
in two or three directions at once. On the one hand, I’ve been doing research
tracing the “science and technology” history of music all the way
back into the 17th century, while I’ve also been working with Tony Oursler
on his Influence Machine project, which addresses the twinning of communications
and spiritualism in the nineteenth century. On the other hand, I have been a
constant and dedicated contributor to our media community here in Western NY—whether
through our regional media centers, or public access cable TV, or the galleries
and museum here. Meanwhile, much of my artistic production (and visibility)
in recent years has been in audio performance or installation, often with a
strong visual complement.
I’m looking for people to work with who are ready to test new waters with
their creative thinking and productions. Such as? That—of course—has
to be up to YOU. But some of the areas that I personally find really exciting
at this point in the flow of things are “culture jamming” projects—video
installation—activist approaches to oppositional media—reconceptualizing
narrative, to put the viewer’s attitudes to work—attacking the conceptual
difficulties in “interactivity”—and making history an integral
part of the present discourse.
I would be happy to hear about what you are doing, especially if you have thoughts
or works that run in these channels….
