Molto is directly informed by the playful curiosity of my toddler. As the video unfolds the playful curiosity builds into a crescendo of distraction and parental exasperation.
As part of a new series of video works, each vignette includes footage of my child, one of us playing music and an insect interacting with a plant — unintentional reoccurring subjects that revealed themselves when I reviewed my raw video footage. The various clips, culled from daily walks, activities and playing together are woven into a layered space that merges fractured moments of time and reflects on play and parenting -- the joys and frustrations. This project is my attempt to see the world through the wonderment of my child's eyes and embrace discovering the world side by side.
The titles borrow from musical direction terminology, using the words instead to describe the tempo or emotional resonance of each piece.
Cadenza is a play between the sporadic staccato of my child's piano playing and the insistent collection of the bee.
As part of a new series of video works, each vignette includes footage of my child, one of us playing music and an insect interacting with a plant — unintentional reoccurring subjects that revealed themselves when I reviewed my raw video footage. The various clips, culled from daily walks, activities and playing together are woven into a layered space that merges fractured moments of time and reflects on play and parenting -- the joys and frustrations. This project is my attempt to see the world through the wonderment of my child's eyes and embrace discovering the world side by side.
The titles borrow from musical direction terminology, using the words instead to describe the tempo or emotional resonance of each piece.
Mezzo is a near lullabye -- tranquil, disrupted then cosmic, dark and dreamy.
As part of a new series of video works, each vignette includes footage of my child, one of us playing music and an insect interacting with a plant — unintentional reoccurring subjects that revealed themselves when I reviewed my raw video footage. The various clips, culled from daily walks, activities and playing together are woven into a layered space that merges fractured moments of time and reflects on play and parenting -- the joys and frustrations. This project is my attempt to see the world through the wonderment of my child's eyes and embrace discovering the world side by side.
The titles borrow from musical direction terminology, using the words instead to describe the tempo or emotional resonance of each piece.
Confluence (All the Nations of the Earth)
2017
Single channel HD Video
5 min clip (full duration: 40 mins)
The video is a paced compositing of the flags of 241 nations and territories on Earth creating one polychromatic, amalgamated flag, simultaneously representing all nations. In an age of increased isolationism, fanaticism and reactive nationalism, the abstracted design, as well as shared and opposing graphic elements of the flags, confuse and distort any simplistic national ensign and understanding. This project blurs the boundaries of nationalism to expose the complexities of immigration, globalism and proposes an emblem of our shared, planetary existence.
The soundtrack is a recording from the voyager spacecraft as it listened in on the sounds created by and around the Earth as it traveled though our solar system and into deep space. The flags are inserted in alphabetical order using the ISO basic Latin alphabet.* The entire video runs on a loop for 40 mins.
*The ISO basic Latin alphabet is a Latin-script alphabet and consists of two sets of 26 letters, codified in various national and international standards and used widely in international communication.
Backbeat
2017
Single-channel HD Video
5:05min
Backbeat* consists of abstracted compositions of imagery generated from archival footage from between 1990 to 1991. Spliced together are news and metal concert footage from the era. What started as a personal investigation into the anger and confusion I felt as a teenager towards a mediated and aestheticized televised war became a study in confluence. Imagery from the first Gulf War increasingly had echoes in today’s military conflicts. From the first images of “smart missiles” to the M.O.A.B. to John Holliman’s description of the bombing of Baghdad as “beautiful” pared with Brian William’s use of the same word to describe the recent US airstrike on Syria. The cyclical nature of the war machine became even more present. The video is scored by a sonic assemblage that integrates the syncopation and precision of the Marine Drum Corps with the discordance of metal and grunge drum solos culled from concerts I attended or was listening to in 1990-91.
*A backbeat is the rhythmic crux in popular music that creates a regular cadenced pace that generates a driving sonic pulse. The syncopation of the beat has evolved over time to rely on a normalized 2/4 beat. Some argue that it has been responsible for a loss of rhythmic subtlety and experimentation for an expected, more predictable rhythm that is easier to follow.
Five Constant Factors
Five Constant Factors 2006 Video Running time: 7:48 Five Constant Factors is a lyrical exploration of images taken from footage of the Normandy invasion in 1944. Its title is derived from the Art of War by Sun Tsu. These factors are: 1) The Moral Law; (2) Heaven; (3) Earth; (4) The Commander; (5) Method and Discipline.
Reclamation, 2009
Presented here is the a clip of the video component from the installation at the Headlands Center for the Arts in June 2009. The video was viewed from a bunker structure built into the project space giving the viewer a visceral vantage point to view the slow dissolution of the bunkers into the coastal landscape.
While in residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts, I became fascinated with the bunkers dotting the landscape of the Marin Headlands. The coastal defense bunkers remain in a dilapidated form today – resting military monoliths in the now public lands of the National Park Service. Facing the persistent Pacific Ocean, the bunkers are slowly giving way to erosion.
The video, “Reclamation” came out of an impulse to see that process through. As the video progresses, the bunkers slowly fade away and continue the bunker’s further dissolution into the landscape; highlighting their isolated and largely forgotten past.
A clip from an ongoing video documentation of my personal collection of photographic negatives. As of 5/2012 the video has reached around 2 hours in length.