Crash
1997, video installation with carved plywood structure, collaboration with Taylor Davis
video clip coming soon

Crash is a sculpture consisting of a four-foot by eight-foot plywood frame carved in a series of intricate rectangular cuts, one of which holds a five inch video monitor, slightly recessed into the surrounding sculpture. As collaborators, Taylor Davis, who created the large wooden sculpture, and I worked independently, with the agreement that we would work entirely separately and come to a surprise conclusion, in the manner of “exquisite corpse” artwork.

The image on the monitor is a montage of found and original footage showing super-models, tiny kittens, car crashes, explosions, women with machine guns, a female nude, the ocean and beautiful flowers. The video is silent and provides a light source when viewed from a distance. When viewed close up, which is required in order to see the images on the small monitor, the audience is brought into the sculpture.

I'm Leaving Home Without You (You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real))
1994, video installation with tv monitor, small table and speakers
video clip coming soon

I'm Leaving Home Without You (You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)) presents a modest spectacle, as a small low table holds a 13" video monitor with small speakers on either side. The installation is portable and can be placed against a wall or on a chair, or in any part of the viewing space. The image consists of Fisher Price camcorder feedback, which was shot from the monitor used in the installation; the audio, which is We Gotta Get Out of This Place (1965) by Eric Burdon and the Animals, and You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) (1978) by Sylvester, is appropriated and was recorded in real time as background to the video feedback. Fractals, which are the math of video feedback, are a law of nature, according to Benoit Mandelbrot.

The music functions mnemonically. As I was shooting, it evoked memories of my sister, whose involvement with drugs and alternative culture eventually led to her accidental death in 1970. The song by The Animals was one of her favorites. As a younger sister, the song evoked the challenges of growing up in a society that was changing dramatically in many ways. In the installation, I was also thinking of San Francisco as it was in the mid- to late 1970s, a remarkable city that provided refuge and legitimacy to a generation of gay men and lesbians, but an era whose spirit was almost lost to the new epidemic of AIDS. Sylvester’s voice becomes celebration and lament.