Capture

Inspired by the fictional totalitarian state depicted in Terry Gilliam’s movie “Brazil”, CAPTURE investigates the use of media, and in particular, broadcast news & its medium, digital video, as a political tool in modern day America.  Bush’s “War on Terrorism,” eerily forecast in the 1985 film, has created a society ready to forfeit its freedom in exchange for the promise of “safety”.  Prepared to give unlimited powers to its military, we live on the false promise of protection offered by fetterless secret police & pervasive surveillance.   This state of fear in its populace, manipulated as a means of political control by the threat of terrorism on a daily basis, is reflected in the propaganda that functions both as our news and our art. 

Created as a single channel video, CAPTURE is then mediated via its presentation both in the form of a large-scale projection viewed through a fresnel lens which turns everything upside down or as a fictional piece of functional high art where sculpture dresses up one’s necessary surveillance technology.  In both cases, video images of cinematic violence loop upon themselves like advertisements. 

In its simplest form, CAPTURE frames the creation of “representation” as a premeditated activity, not the “eye in sky” broadcast of live TV or reality television.  Each video “capture” is isolated as a dramatic moment in time- a solitary figure left as a fragment decomposing against itself, or tearing through the backdrop of the film. Acted upon with a digital effect, each film frame exists in an ever changing universe of visual manipulation-- the still image frozen in time, is allowed to overlay upon moving cinematic moments in an ever churning river of more images.