My first multi channel works for synchronized video streams. The piece starts in Cape Cod and moves gradually across the North American continent, ending at the Pacific Ocean. There is no attempt to cover all this of ground in any compete way - the work is an assembly of the places I traveled to and landscapes I admired during the four-year period in which I collected the material. All the scenes were shot with a single camera, then staggered in editing to create the appearance of a continuous shot. During filming I would pan, pause, and then move again, resulting in a series of staggered movements in which the different screens appear to drift in and out of synchronization.
My first multi channel work for synchronized video streams. The piece starts in Cape Cod and moves gradually across the North American continent, ending at the Pacific Ocean. There is no attempt to cover all this of ground in any complete way - the work is an assembly of the places I traveled to and landscapes I admired during the four-year period in which I collected the material. All the scenes were shot with a single camera, then staggered in editing to create the appearance of a continuous shot. During filming I would pan, pause, and then move again, resulting in a series of staggered movements in which the different screens appear to drift in and out of synchronization.
My first multi channel work for synchronized video streams. The piece starts in Cape Cod and moves gradually across the North American continent, ending at the Pacific Ocean. There is no attempt to cover all this of ground in any compete way - the work is an assembly of the places I traveled to and landscapes I admired during the four-year period in which I collected the material. All the scenes were shot with a single camera, then staggered in editing to create the appearance of a continuous shot. During filming I would pan, pause, and then move again, resulting in a series of staggered movements in which the different screens appear to drift in and out of synchronization. Installed at El Camino Medical Center in Mountain View, California.
Commissioned by the Concert Nova chamber music group in Cincinnati. I created this image to accompany a performance of "Fratres" by Arvo Part. The recording used on this version is by Kronos Quartet.
One of many attempts on my part to capture the magic motion of Aspen leaves, a fascination deeply embedded in memories of my childhood in Colorado. This footage was shot near Caribou, Colorado. The tape includes three different “episodes” which use a series image treatments and tricks, which further complicate the already complex motion of the leaves. The slow rate of change is such that no causal viewer will ever grasp the true dimensions of the work, beyond the surface image. This is a video which truly needs to contemplated as if it were a painting, installed in a space where it can be subjected to repeated viewing over a long period of time.
Produced while I was living in Washington DC. This is a meditation on highway architecture and the view from moving cars, subjects that have long been dear to me. Shot on Hi8 with footage processed at ETC and in my studio using the Amiga computer.
Produced while I was living in Washington DC. This is a meditation on highway architecture and the view from moving cars, subjects that have long been dear to me. Shot on Hi8 with footage processed at ETC and in my studio using the Amiga computer.
A precursor to "Megurs Ehd Ffleweh Bq Nsolst." Shot in the backyard of my house on Riddle Rd in Cincinnati, and upstairs in my studio. The hibiscus flowers take about an hour to open starting just at daylight. The flowers were filmed in realtime and subsequently sped up.
These images were created to accompany the music track by Odd Nosdam, with whom I had done a few live shows that year in San Francisco and one a few years earlier at VOLK in Cincinnati. I admire the distorted and gritty feel of the track and developed an image treatment which worked well with that texture.
This animation is created by Charles Woodman & Kim Anno. Woodman made the images and voice recordings Anno adapted "Canto 1" from Dante’s Purgatorio, making the text secular, and she created the soundscape effects. Keisha Kemper and Michael Burham are the actor’s voices.
A meditation/celebration of the Spaghetti Western and the pornography of violence. An homage to Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone. Copies of scenes from the original films, rented on VHS, were edited into a compilation reel. That material was processed at ETC, where Scott Davenport also added the text layer. Several versions of that were edited at PPG in an additive process, A+B=1 C+D=2, then 1+2= X, to create a ‘’final” hour-long version. The shorter “ sit down version was then created from that material.
Compilation of various short treatments of material featuring dancers and set to music. Primarily choreography by Brooke Kidd, Washington DC, Yee Jen Bao, Norman, OK and Judith Mikita, Cincinnati OH, all processed at the Experimental Television Center.
A meditation on the pleasures of observation. Image music and text weave in a multi-layer dance. Images built around a pre-recorded soundtrack.
Text: Jack Kerouac
Music: Michael Fiday
Image: Charles Woodman
Performers: Carla Kihlsteadt, Graeme Jennings (violins)
Narration: Matthias Bassi
A mostly formal exercise in composition and image processing, using footage of water. Probably the first in a ongoing series of works dealing with landscape, investigating the idea of video as a contemplative viewing experience akin to painting. Filmed in California and Mexico, Developed over the course of two visits to ETC, Final editing at PPG onto 1” open reel tape.
A mostly formal exercise in composition and image processing, using footage of water. Probably the first in a ongoing series of works dealing with landscape, investigating the idea of video as a contemplative viewing experience akin to painting. Filmed in California and Mexico, and developed over the course of two visits to Experimental Television Center. Final editing at PPG onto 1” open reel tape.
Contribution to the "Exquisite Video Corpse" project. The first 8 seconds are the video I was given as a departure point, the remainder is my contribution to the chain. The final 10 seconds were given to the next contributor.
The images for "Heaven" were produced at the Experimental TV Center. Nicholas Economos and I shared part of the residency and he helped me develop this complex patch using both the Jones Frame Buffer and Jones Keyer with a slow oscillator varying the amount of “trails” we see at any one time.
I was fascinated by the photos on gravestones in the Cemetery at San Minato in Florence, Italy. I began to think about the way in which a single image came to represent the entire lived experience of the person. Cinema as a whole also seems to be about representations of actions. I wondered about trying to film an experience directly lived as opposed to being represented. "I Morti" presents four streams of diary footage, images of daily life and travel. Collected over a 4 or 5 year period, these function as a counterpoint to the images of the dead on the fifth screen.
I was fascinated by the photos on gravestones in the Cemetery at San Minato in Florence, Italy. I began to think about the way in which a single image came to represent the entire lived experience of the person. Cinema as a whole also seems to be about representations of actions. I wondered about trying to film an experience directly lived as opposed to being represented. "I Morti" presents four streams of diary footage, images of daily life and travel. Collected over a 4 or 5 year period, these function as a counterpoint to the images of the dead on the fifth screen.
An early experiment with time based correction and the ability to mix two tapes together, as well as one of the few projects in which I worked with an online editor who operated the controls at my direction. This tape features two versions of the same image (shot in Santa Fe) slightly staggered in time and then wiped over each other. Edited at Eve Muir studio by Trevor Long. I was paying for the studio time to edit a project for LANL and was able to squeeze extra time in to edit two videos, this one and San Mateo Drive.
An ecstatic chant to the rising of the sun. Sound and image are juxtaposed and find moments of synchronicity, while remaining parallel and separate. Time rushes forward slowly. Narrative is all and nothing. Left over material from "Blooms" was adjusted to accompany Chris Bailey’s music.
My reaction to the Gulf War and the continuing transformation of war coverage into media spectacle. Edited at PPG and an early exploration of the Ampex ADO-1000 Digital Video Effects unit.
The term "palimpsest" refers to a text which has been written upon two or three times, but whose lines have been imperfectly erased, so that different layers of all the texts are visible and mix together.
The image was filmed off a decorative plate with a live camera which was being processed dimming, and then coming to brightness then back again. It looks like the hue was off too, giving Jesus a green tint. Produced during a residency at the Experimental TV Center.
A few views of water and trees from my month long stay in Phoenecia, NY. This video utilizes an editing technique (a sort of continuous slow horizontal slide) that I conceptualized for more than a year. After several failed attempts I finally figured out how to make it work.
A collection of images and sounds from television cop shows is interwoven with texts (selected by Scott Davenport) taken from pulp detective stories, the literary predecessor of the same genre.
A meditation on pollution. Based on treatments of footage I produced and shot for the Los Alamos National Labs on the subject of Radioactive Waste Water Treatment.
""Pulse Generator Pastry" is my first collaboration with my mother, the ceramic artist Betty Woodman. Betty created the shapes which contain the patterns in the video, based on the forms she uses in her work. I used those shapes as stencils into which both the positive and negative spaces were filled with textures, created using a piece of electronic test equipment called a pulse generator. The video was show in the storefont window at Salon 94 Gallery, during Betty’s show there in spring 2016. on Somehow the rapper ASAP Ferg ended up shooting part of his video for "Let It Bang" standing in front of the work.
Performance by Carl Stewart. Carl wears a suit made of Camel packs, all of which he smoked. Filmed in the garden at his house in Rye, NY, wearing a pumpkin head which he grew. Inspired by Marlon Brando’s portrayal of the death of Vito Corleone. Dearly loved by me, this video exists somewhere outside of my other artworks and was never publicly exhibited.
Collaboration with Poet/Performer Enrique Aviles. This video has its origins as a part of the “video set” for a performance by Aviles, directed by Davis Chung. In the theatrical piece Aviles played the roles of two immigrants to the US (one Mexican and one Korean) who live on opposite sides of a rooming house in the Adams Morgan neighborhood in DC. Subsequently, Aviles and I decided to create a stand alone video using one of his poems. The original footage of the neighborhood was supplemented with images of graffiti he produced and a shot of him reciting the poem in the backyard of his house in Arlington, VA.