Chris Basmajian / /
2009
Single-channel Video
Produced in collaboration with Christian L. Frock and Invisible Venue
This piece is a site-specific video projection created for the 20th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake in Oakland, California.
2009
Interactive Video
In this piece the viewer moves in front of a video camera and looks down into mirrors on the floor to read a story by Scott Hutchins about a fisherman hunting a nun-eating shark.
2009
Interactive Video
In this piece, viewers connect with a tale of international kidnapping by Adam Johnson, as they disturb text and image by moving in front of 2 cameras, or on the far side of a rear projection screen.
2008
Interactive Video
A festive reflective balloon is placed between a video camera and a projection which combines the video with a photograph of the Hindenburg disaster.
2008
Interactive Video
A hanging light bulb links the viewer to a scene from Godard's Alphaville.
2008
Interactive Video
This piece uses the proximity of the viewer to create evocative temporal distortions in a famous tracking shot from Hitchcock's Frenzy.
2008
Interactive Video
This piece captures video of the viewer, then temporally and spatially inverts the video in a cycling display.
2008
Video Game/Widget
Wallow in your own wasted time.
False Binaries (Black & White) (Series)
2008
Interactive Video
The works in this series capture live video of the viewer, and translate each grayscale pixel's binary representation (electronic data) into a black or white representation (visual) to create a binary (1-bit) image.
False Binaries (Rhetoric) (Series)
2008
Interactive Video
This series uses words from some familiar phrases and expressions to define the borders between moving images of the viewer.
Mathemes (Series)
2008
Interactive Video
This series uses Lacan's notational symbols to define the borders between moving images of the viewer.
Graphemes (Series)
2007
Interactive Video
This series uses letters, punctuation marks, mathematical operators and musical symbols to define the borders between moving images of the viewer.
Unspooled (Series)
2007
Interactive Video
This series temporally reinterprets iconic moments in popular cinema.
Looking Back (Series)
2006
Interactive Video
This series explores the films of Alfred Hitchcock and the writings of Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Zizek.
2006
Interactive Video
This piece combines the image of the viewer with the light bulb scene from the end of Hitchcock’s Psycho. This work intentionally misinterprets the images’ numerical representation to interfere with their reading. Both the film excerpt and the viewer’s image can be seen simultaneously. As neither can be seen completely in any one frame, both are reconstructed through afterimage and memory. The motions of the viewer shift the source of the interference to that of the viewer’s image, and the motion of the swinging light bulb symbolizes this vacillation.
2006
Interactive Video
Each of these panoramas displays three horizontally oriented views of the viewer’s motion, played forwards, backwards, and in combination. These works play on the misperception of temporality. For example, backward motion played backwards is perceived as forward motion. When these views are played together, temporal/spatial coincidence causes the eye to travel back and forth across the horizon of the image. This reading process is similar to that of a traditional panorama, but feels accelerated and somewhat involuntary.
2006
Interactive Video
As viewers approach this installation, they see a rear projection screen displaying images of captured motion in the space beyond. The projection cycles through a series of effects, imposing various algorithms on the temporal flow of the captured motion loops. The effects are comic, uneasy, and nervous, reflecting feelings of self-consciousness in public space. As viewers come around the screen, they become aware of the disparity between the projected image and the reality of the scene. As viewers walk into the space, their shadows create a negative space on the screen, soon replaced by their image as manipulated by the logic of the work.
