Chris Basmajian / /
Video Game/Widget, 2008
Wallow in your own wasted time.
False Binaries (Black & White) (Series)
Interactive Video, 2008
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)
Interactive Video, 2008
This series uses words from some familiar phrases and expressions to define the borders between moving images of the viewer.
Mathemes (Series)
Interactive Video, 2008
This series uses Lacan's notational symbols to define the borders between moving images of the viewer.
Graphemes (Series)
Interactive Video, 2007
This series uses letters, punctuation marks, mathematical operators and musical symbols to define the borders between moving images of the viewer.
Unspooled (Series)
Interactive Video, 2007
This series temporally reinterprets iconic moments in popular cinema.
Looking Back (Series)
Interactive Video, 2006
This series explores the films of Alfred Hitchcock and the writings of Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Zizek.
Interactive Video, 2006
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.
Interactive Video, 2006
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.
Interactive Video, 2006
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.
Interactive Video, 2005
This piece explores the actions of the viewer as positive and negative means of maintaining the self-image. When the viewer moves, sections of the video image are flipped to create an in-place mirror image. As the viewer continues to move, the sections decrease in size. Because the mirror view exists in such a tenuous state, dependant upon the constant motion of the viewer, its relationship to reality feels uncertain.
Interactive Video, 2005
This piece explores the actions of the viewer as positive and negative means of maintaining the self-image. When the viewer moves, the resolution of the image increases, creating a mirror image of the viewer. When the viewer stops moving, the resolution degrades to 1 pixel.
Interactive Video, 2005
This piece uses the motion of viewer to progress through a series of 55 photographs exploring a house I lived in, 2000 Fountain Street. The photographs are always presented in pairs: the outgoing image of the past forms the background, while the incoming image of the future is layered on top. The boundaries of this relationship are often blurred by the figurative and compositional elements of the photographs. For example, disappearing foreground figures seem to be overtaken by emerging background scenes.
Interactive Video, 2004
This piece plays on the ego and narcissism of the viewer. We like to believe that the universe is not indifferent to us—that our existence is written in the stars, like so many constellations. Yet constellations are artificial constructs of the imagination, based on individual perspective.