Experiments in Immediacy

videoart, everydaylife






Format: Six-month process, mail event, and series of digital videos. Centered in Buffalo, NY and reaching across the US and Europe.
Year: 2005 - 2006


They gave me an MFA for this project!

Experiments in Immediacy was an exploration into the concept of “immediacy.”  I was interested in “immediate” experience - which I would now call being “present” or “aware.” The irony running through it all was that I was using media (video) to have more immediate experiences, to increase my awareness of the present moment. It did indeed work! I basically still do this with my Minute Movies daily video project, stopping once per day to use a camera to help me see, hear, and feel where I am at that moment.

Ths series of videos documents private immediate moments. In my search for immediacy, I broke various social norms, engaged in public antics, ordered meals in reverse, spent time with wild creatures at the zoo, and more. I grappled with expressive editing strategies and wrote the titles concurrent with video editing - I thought of the titles as the first sentence in a story that continued as you watched the video. I also used the titles to position viewers together, with me (“let’s do this or that”), or used the titles to give instructions (“you do this while I’ll do that”).

On a monthly basis, I then sent the videos as DVDs (with a specially designed cover and note!) through the mail to a group of dear friends who had subscribed to my underground video club. I loved the entire process. The videos have since screened as individual pieces and as a series.