strange loops

My practice over the past few years has been rooted in science. The work has taken many directions, driven sometimes by an exploration of the self-organization of pattern, morphology and morphological relationships to a more recent interest in processes of emergence or the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. For the past few years I have been working with the medium of video-feedback to create a series of works that explore processes of growth and evolution through a technological matrix.

Since the raw material for the video works was video-feedback I’d like to add a small note on the medium and the process by which it is generated. In principle very similar to the old kaleidoscopes, video feedback is created when any ordinary hand-held camera is plugged into a TV and then made to point at itself. The optical equivalent of acoustic feedback, a loop is created between the video camera and the television screen or monitor. Like two mirrors facing each other, the image is doubled and interferes with itself. With patience and certain amount of trial and error it becomes possible to explore a vast arena of spontaneous pattern generation by varying the available controls (brightness, contrast, hue, focus, camera angle etc).

                                                        still frames of the diverse behavior video feedback can exhibit

In principle very similar to the old kaleidoscopes, video feedback is created when any ordinary hand-held camera is plugged into a TV and then made to point at itself.The optical equivalent of acoustic feedback, a loop is created between the video camera and the television screen or monitor. Like two mirrors facing each other, the image is doubled and interferes with itself.

                                                     The basic set up for video feedback, a camera plugged into a TV. 

With patience and certain amount of trial and error it becomes possible to explore a vast arena of spontaneous pattern generation by varying the available controls (brightness, contrast, hue, focus, camera angle etc). The result is an amazing array of spatio-temporal patterns, mimicking those exhibited by physical, chemical, and biological systems, i.e. plant structures, cells, tree forms, bacteria, snowflakes… They are not imposed from the outside in any way and are entirely self generated within the loop.

Once this footage has been shot, I transfer it to my computer. The footage is then sorted and classified. The actual work that emerges from this is the result of manually stitching together layers of video in Adobe Premier. Much like a backwards jigsaw puzzle the work is gradually articulated and constructed with hundreds of layers of video.

In my practice I find that media and method are almost indivisible. Whether print, video or large site specific drawings, many hundreds of layers of video, image, paint, charcoal etc, are layered, stacked, sorted, merged, and rearranged to try and understand how complexity develops, both in terms of surface, content and form. In the way that fractals are a way of visualizing chaotic behaviour, the creatures/forms I create are an exploration of the nature of complexity, rooted in the iteration or repetition of simple rules and simple processes. With the videos the raw footage, i.e. video feedback as well as the pieces themselves investigate self-reflexivity, which, adds another dimension to the role of media and how in so many cases the conceptual is embedded in the material.

projects with videofeedback

DOPPELGANGER | double channel video | 2011

GHOSTS-IN-THE-MACHINE | single channel video projected onto frame | 2006

BONE TREE | archival pigment prints | 2014

BLOODLINES | video and print installation | 2009

CHRYSALIS | mixed media on archival pigment prints | 2011

PROTEUS | colour pencil, acrylic on archival pigment print|60 x 60 inches|2011

ARBOREAL | single channel video | 2011

FOSSUS | single channel video projected on sandstone relief | 2011