Welcome to the 2010 Baker Artist Awards.

About this Project

"Barcelona Mosaics" represents an attempt to arrive at a series of rules that guided both the image gathering as well as the editing strategies employed. I start by using all the raw, ambient audio that originally accompanied the video footage shot in the field – in this case, the existing sound from various locations I visited in Barcelona in 2008. In addition, for this work I decided to compose each and every camera shot to include a diagonal edge running between opposite corners of the frame. This strategy of reduction allowed me to interpret every scene in a consistent, though minimal manner. Certainly the result is not one that adequately provides a “representation” of any given location. Instead, I was more interested in arriving at some visual rules that would allow me to simplify and codify each shot made with the camera down to an elemental gesture. While the identity of the original sound and image characteristics of the various locations in which I shot is mostly disguised, my goal in this video was to create a series of “sound mosaics” that would represent the vibrancy of both the visual and aural landscapes of Barcelona.

In this project sequence, the complete 4:00 minute video is in slot 2, a short production demonstration is in slot 10, and 8 stills from the video take up the remaining slots.

About this Project

"8 Short Processes" is a series of short video works I made in the early 1980's that focused on specific editing techniques that were available at the time. Of course, each of these sketches was produced using analog video editing equipment, and though somewhat limiting at the time, I still thrived on the great flexibility of the medium. At this time, I became fascinated by the possibilities of chroma keying ("Joy Ride"), and I began experimenting with rapid editing techniques to achieve various kinds of rhythmic phrasing. I also began taking advantage of accidental imagery that came about when shooting and editing ("Car Song"), including deteriorated video signal ("Energy", "1-2-3-4", and "Tunnel").
Most of all, what unifies these works is my interest in found sound. I adamantly hold onto all the ambient sound that accompanies the visual element when shooting my video, and, at this time, my interest was in creating collage-like visually musical compositions, which I like to refer to as painting in time. It's this early phase of my video making career that strongly influenced the approach I take in my most recent works: "Cicada Songs", "Mexico Painting", and "Barcelona Mosaics".

About this Project

I’ve been making video art works for more than 25 years, and during this period of time, I‘ve returned again and again to the notion that the video medium can provide me with the means to create a kind of “painting in time”. Over this period of time, I’ve become fascinated by the way various video editing techniques have allowed me to create musical compositions (in a rhythmic sense). In the 80’s, I utilized many types of analog editing facilities to create a body of work that I referred to as “visual music”. I’ve continued to work in this vein, now utilizing a range of digital editing techniques to achieve the results that interest me.

“Cicada Songs” demonstrates my ongoing interest in rhythmic collage. As in earlier such works, I adamantly maintain a few ground rules related to the gathering of audio and visual material utilized in the final work: 1) there is no overdubbing of audio material; that is, all sounds heard are those originally recorded during video shooting; 2) no manipulations to either audio or visual material occurs during editing; that is, although sequences of video material are often re-scaled and layered together, I haven’t altered the image or sound quality of any individual shot. In short, I am drawn to the idea of creating a kind of rhythmic collage by using all the raw, ambient audio that originally accompanied the visual footage I shot in the field. For this piece, I shot all source material the summer of 2004 during the cicada visitation to the Baltimore area. Their sound is present in all audio I recorded, and so I titled the piece accordingly.

About this Project

"Forest Dream Code" is a 9-minute single-channel video that's based on a two-screen video installation I created for the "Dada/Data" show held jointly at the UMBC Center for Art & Visual Culture and Maryland Art Place in 1991. In this work, I blend various scenes with quotations from Henry David Thoreau and Octavio Paz, along with music by Charles Ives, to evoke a sense of man's growing separation from nature.

About this Project

In “Mexico Painting”, I followed a similar approach to the one I employed when making "Barcelona Mosaics" (above entry). The visual and audio imagery derives from footage I shot while on a trip to Mexico in 2006. As in "Barcelona Mosaics", each camera shot contains an edge or boundary that diagonally bisects the frame. All sound is that which accompanied the original visual footage - other than some slow motion manipulation, the original sound is not altered in any way. Because most edits are very rapid, sound and visual material more closely resembles musical beats than representations of specific locations.
"Mexico Painting" was a Rosebud Film & Video Competition finalist in 2008 and was screened at the Maryland Film Festival in 2007.

About this Project

"Leaving The Ground" was completed in 1988 following a one year's residence in central Mexico. The video depicts the notion of human flight both as an element found in certain Mexican rituals and as a universal impulse. Sequences of air-borne humans are juxtaposed against the "grounded" context of driving in a car. The viewer perceives dream and memory excerpts traveling across the picture plane (front windshield), and these images occasionally overwhelm the driver's view, allowing possibilities of thought/flight and dream/memory to momentarily dominate. The source footage for this video derives mostly from super 8 sound film.
"Leaving The Ground" received The Stuart Rome Prize as the "Best Maryland Work" entered in the 20th Annual Baltimore Independent Film and Video Makers Competition in 1989. It's been screened in numerous other festivals nationally.
The "Leaving the Ground" video is accompanied here by documentation of a series of paintings I made before editing the video, a video installation I created after the video, and some video detailing a process I employed with the super 8 film footage used to shoot "Leaving The Ground".

About this Project

The first clip in this project array is a 4-minute excerpt of a 21-minute experimental video documentary I produced in collaboration with poet Elizabeth Goldring. Our intent was to portray some of the day-to-day experiences Elizabeth faces as she copes with deteriorating vision loss due to diabetic retinopathy. Elizabeth described to me the visual artifacts and effects she experienced in various settings, and I attempted to simulate these effects using various video techniques.
In this excerpt, we portray several everyday scenes in Elizabeth's life - walking through a building at M.I.T. (where Elizabeth works), crossing the street, experiencing a laser treatment session, walking again in bright sunlight, and reading with the help of a large print computer device. All scenes are accompanied by excerpts of Elizabeth's poems and journal entries, spoken by Elizabeth.
In addition, once the 21-minute video was produced, Elizabeth and I created an interactive video installation inspired by the video, "EYE/SIGHT", featuring a live camera and two-channel (one small screen set into a larger screen) video display. When a viewer sat in an "examination" chair, he/she was able to peer into a camera lens that was set to insert a close-up image of a his/her eye into the video mix. The inner video screen showed edited footage of Elizabeth's diagnostic eye exams, and the outer video screen showed video footage of retinal images until a viewer sat in the chair, at which point the outer screen switched to a live video image of the viewer's own eye. Audio from the diagnostic footage is projected into the space, but when a viewer puts on a set of available headphones, the ambient audio is muted, and the voice of Elizabeth speaking poems from her Eye Journals can be heard.
"EYE/SIGHT" was exhibited in the 1990 "Options" show at the Washington Project for the Arts (WPA), as well as in exhibitions in New York and Germany. "The Inner Eye: From The Inside Out" has been exhibited in numerous exhibitions in this country and Europe.

About this Project

I collaborated with dance choreographer Carol Hess on this 12-minute video in 1995. Neal Woodson provided a wide range of sound material which I edited and overlayed in various ways, depending on the sequence. Carol and I recorded dancers Emily Giza and Eric Jenkins in a variety of indoor and outdoor locations around Maryland.

About this Project

"The Edge", "Pondicherry Blues", and "A Reason of Numbers" are poems written by Baltimore poet Josephine Jacobsen, and they're interpreted here by D.C. performance artist Mary-Averett Seelye. Mary-Averett has presented poetry for many years by performing choreographed movements of her body while she speaks a particular poem.
In collaboration with Julie Simon, I produced a 30-minute program, "Poetry Moves", that presents performances by Mary-Averett Seelye of Jacobsen's poetry, along with interview sequences of Mary-Averett and Josephine. As Mary-Averett is interpreting Josephine's poetry, I am interpreting Mary-Averett's performances by utilizing the video medium in various ways. My goal with this project, as well as with other collaborative projects in which I've engaged with performing artists, is to present the performance in a way that would not be possible live on stage in front of an audience.
In 1998, "Poetry Moves" received a CINE Golden Eagle Award. I've continued to work with Mary-Averett since completing "Poetry Moves", and in 2008, I completed production of a 3-DVD set surveying 40 years of Mary-Averett's performance work.

About this Project

These five short works, produced in 2003 and 2004, represent my first attempts to alter the way I ordinarily go about shooting video. Rather than using a camera to document a "scene", I decided to instead limit my visual images to shots that include a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal edge. And as with the three later projects in this series ("Cicada Songs", "Mexico Painting", and "Barcelona Mosaics"), the sound that is recorded at the time the video is shot becomes raw material for the kind of musically-structured compositions I'm trying to create. There's no overdubbing of sound, rather, all ambient sound recorded at the time of shooting takes on the form of a rhythmic beat when subjected to the kind of rapid editing and layering I employ. The result is more of a sonic pattern, a conglomeration of sounds where the whole is definitely more significant than the parts.
Visually, I'm interested in creating brushstrokes – in simplifying and codifying each shot made with the camera down to an elemental gesture. Though repetitive in nature, however, each vertically, horizontally, or diagonally-constructed image contains much variation in texture, color, and other details derived from the way the camera was used to record each shot. There is some reference, of course, to the particulars of the locations serving as subject – certain moods and impressions that can be communicated through such fragments of sound, line, texture, and color - even though a description of a location’s identity has been for the most part disguised because of the restrictive mode of shooting I'm using.