On Reflection & Interactive Video Art Grad Survey Fall 2012 Keith Lea Ever since the Sony Portapak became available in the mid-1960’s, artists have been using video to explore these new technological apparatuses, specifically their effect on our relationship with our selves. Through experimentation with cameras and video monitors, artists of the 1960’s and 1970’s such as Vito Acconci, Bruce Nauman, Pipilotti Rist, Peter Campus, and many others explored themselves, their bodies, and ways of representing themselves in the medium of video. While many, many issues have been addressed by video artists, since the 1970’s some artists have been using this medium to challenge the boundaries between artist and viewer. By using closed- circuit video, cameras, televisions, and projectors in installations themselves, Peter Campus includes the viewer in this exploration of self-image. My own artwork continues in this tradition, attempting to use modern image processing technology to further engage and challenge the viewer. In 1971, Peter Campus made his foray into interactive video art with Kiva, a sculptural closed-circuit video installation. The piece contains a video camera resting atop a television, pointing at two small mirrors which dangle from the ceiling and Kiva, Peter Campus, 1971 twist around gently, only inches from the camera itself. A hole has been drilled into the mirror closer to the camera, and as a result, the resulting image on the television screen is composed of the reflections of the two mirrors, one within the other. The piece is interactive, but not necessarily with the viewer herself – visitors to the gallery can show up on the television if one of the two mirrors happen to be reflecting their image to the camera. The piece is effective in addressing the growing omniscience of video and CCTV surveillance systems. This piece is drastically different than some of Campus’s later works in several respects. Firstly, random chance is involved in who gets to “interact” with the piece – that is, who shows up on the screen. Of course, one can walk around the room and hope to catch a glimpse of themselves – but this is clearly not the intended course of action. Campus’s later installations direct the viewer much more clearly, and address him more directly. Secondly, Kiva does not create an environment for his piece – there is no lighting element particular to the piece, and it is visible from anywhere in the gallery. Later works depend on specific lighting and must be viewed from certain locations and angles. Campus recently attempted to categorize his interactive works of the 1970’s.1 He chose four dimensions on which each piece could be measured – (1) Apparatus: the types of lighting and equipment involved; (2) Relations: the distances and angles between apparatuses and the viewer; (3) Visitor: the degrees of freedom, level of immersion, and presence/absence of a planned course of events; and (4) Video image: the background, the size of the image, and the relation to the camera. The intricacy of 1 Herzogenrath, Peter Campus (Bremen, 2003) p.93 each of these four spectra, along with the breadth across which Campus experimented with each one, speaks to Campus’s dedication to exploring this particular viewer interaction. Following Kiva, Campus developed two pieces which were similar to one another on all four fronts. Interface (1972) and Shadow Projection (1974) are both situated in a darkened room, and encourage the viewer to explore their own image. Visitors’ images are projected in real time, allowing one to move Interface, Peter Campus, along with the projection. In Interface, the viewer’s recorded image is projected onto a sheet of glass, literally on top of the her actual reflection. In Shadow Projection, one’s recorded image is projected directly onto a shadow cast by the viewer, thus illuminating one’s shadow with one’s glowing electronic image. These works attempt to bring together various methods of projection. In our everyday lives, light is “projected” all around us. Shadows and mirrors are two easily recognizable and accessible instances of this phenomenon, and Campus is clearly attempting to bridge the familiar and what was at the time new and possibly threatening. The works also deal with psychological issues of the self, the inner and outer world. “These mirroring systems may relate to Campus’s long fascination with self-loss, an experience he interprets as a psycho-physical dislocation manifested as the sense that one is one’s own double, inhabiting the sensate world but experience it without affect.”2 Artist Dan Graham, who also works with video feedback and mirrors, sees it differently: “The video feedback of ‘self’-image, by adding temporality to self-perception, connects ‘self’-perception to physiological brain processes; this removes self-perception from the viewing of a detached, static image; video feedback contradicts the mirror model of the perceived ‘self.’ Through the use of video-tape feedback, the performer and the audience, the perceiver and his process of perception, are linked, or co- identified.”3 In the late 1970’s, Campus continued developing these ideas. His next installation, mem (1974), used video not simply as a mirror but as what one might call an interactive painting. He also began experimenting with coercing the viewer. Projected at a sharp angle, the viewer finds her recorded image is distorted and blurred, yet she can see that it is clearly reacting to her movement. As she tries to position herself in the room, she finds there is a narrow range of ideal positions where she is affecting the projected image, but can also see it. This situation also turns other visitors in the space into voyeurs – they can see everything. His next project pursues this voyeuristic type of interaction. dor (1975) is unique in Campus’s canon; it stands alone as a piece whose viewer never sees himself. Rather simple in its construction, the installation consists of a dark room, one projector, and one camera outside the room. Upon entering the dark space, the viewer sees a live 2 Walker Art Center, Projected Images (1974) p.13 3 Moure, Dan Graham Works and Collected Writings (Barcelona, 2009), p.224 projection of the gallery itself. As she looks longer, she realizes she is looking at the entryway to the room in which she is standing. Next she realizes that whomever was in the room previously could see her – and that she will never see herself, only the next visitor to walk into the room. dor, Peter Campus, 1975 My interactive artwork is heavily informed by several of these works from Campus’s canon. In Mirror (2012), which was on display at Mount Royal: First Month, a television rests vertically on the wall, reminiscent of a mirror. A camera rests next to it, recording the viewer. It displays the viewer’s image, but interspersed somewhat randomly with images of previous viewers. Using computer vision software, the piece attempts to show you images of people who are a similar height and a similar distance from the television itself. As you walk closer to the piece, the people you see are also closer. As you walk further away, you see people who are more hesitant and are standing back. Campus’s installation dor, mentioned earlier, served as the starting point for my most recent work, After Peter Campus After Bruce Nauman (2012) on display at Mount Royal: Fall Show. In this work, an iPod is situated in the upstairs part of the gallery, enticing viewers to look at live video of themselves, but becoming invisible the closer they get to the piece. Downstairs, the viewer discovers that by interacting with the iPod, they were making their image a permanent part of the piece. A television, powered by an exposed homemade computer, displays images of visitors taken from the iPod, with facial tracking information overlaid on the image. A grid of eyes, compiled in real time using facial tracking software, flickers as the computer continues processing new imagery. In 2012, one’s image is being captured constantly, by friends posting to After Peter Campus After Bruce Facebook as well as by surveillance Nauman, Keith Lea, 2012 cameras. Interactive video art can challenge us to consider this particular relation with apparatus that we are coerced into on a daily basis..