Repetitions
a look at repetitive motion

This project was born out of my fascination with the hypnotic properties of repetitive motion and sound. I decided to started documenting and presenting this work after watching an escalator that was rather noisy in Prague in 2001. I try and capture motion that appears at first to be a video loop until other elements come in to view. In some instances the audio seems detached or less rhythmic than the visual motion, this was also of interest to me. As I began this project i worked to film each piece from an abstract perspective. Doing so some of the works seem synthetic or effected, but all of the video is completely unaltered.

Live; As a live performance the work is projected as large as possible and the audio is processed and sculpted into a dynamic soundtrack in real-time. The video work its self is left unaltered; only the sound is processed using effects. Each live performance lasts for 20 minutes or less and has been presented through out Europe and the Western United States since 2002.

Installation; Any of the work can be presented as an installation. Repetitions #2 "evidence" was presented as a video installation in 2002 in Los Angeles as part of the "Day of Attention" festival. The video was projected with the audio from the footage playing on the right and left sides of the room. The source binaural source recordings were played through speakers located at the front and back of the room. creating a dynamic semi-surround sound environment.

utopian mills
repetitions #1
May 2002

location:
Palm Springs, CA

Palm Springs is home to one of the worlds largest windmill farms. totalling 4000 windmills on the montians and plans, its an amazing site. I shot an abstract angle of one of the windmills, you can see other blades come into view then fall out again during the 20 minutes of video that i shot for this piece.

performed live:
Los Angeles, CA - 2002
San Francisco, CA - 2002

evidence
repetitions #2
August 2002

location:
Los Angeles, CA

This is footage of two LAPD search helcopters circling a location. I filmed about half an hour of footage, and when i stopped they were still circling. One of the helicopers would pass right above my house ever couple of passes, which made for some amazing recordings. I really like the abstract nature of this footage.

as installation:
Los Angeles, CA - 2002

convey
repetitions #3
June 2004

location:
Los Angeles, CA

convey is based on an abstract shot of a conveyor belt. The movement of the mess mixed with the silver cylinder the belt rides creates a mesmerizing experience. The sound made by the Conveyor belt is a combination on the motor that is running it and oscillating tones created by the belt and the machine housing.

performed live:
Amsterdam, NL - 2004
Cologne, Germany - 2004
Los Angeles, CA - 2004
Santa Monica, CA - 2004

firewerks
repetitions #4
July 2004

location:
Los Angeles, CA

The view from the deck at my home in Los Angeles, the city appears as a warzone from the fireworks being set off in celebration of the 4th of July. It is not uncommon for Los Angeles to sound like a warzone from the sounds of gunfire on a day to day basis, but this footage looks more like war than festivities.

tunnel vision
repetitions #5
September 2002

location:
Los Angeles, CA

A tunnel in downtown Los Angeles, made of white tile and runs about the length of two city blocks. The reflections in this tunnel have always amazed me, so i was so inclined to include it in this series. This i think is my favorite piece, live it is the strongest of the series due to the long stretches of silence in the tunnel during filming.

performed live:
Berlin, Germany - 2004
Vienna, Austria - 2004
Los Angeles, CA - 2009

current
repetitions #6
September 2004

location:
Los Angeles, CA

There are two obvious things that come to mind when the the Los Angeles River is mentioned, Pollution being the first and foremost, as it snakes through one of the largest cities in the world, taking our refuse with it to the sea. The other is the fact that it’s a natural river that is now made primarily of cement. Bringing to mind the environmental impact of casting of a natural river in cement, not to mention the impact it has on the communities perception of  it as a river. current is an abstract shot of this river.

performed live:
Munster, Germany - 2004

forestry
repetitions #7
October 2004

location:
Melhiem, Germany

During the 2004 av.european tour we were driving from munich on our way to zurich and had a couple of hours to spare. David Brady mentioned how dense the forrest groves were that we were driving through, so we decided to stop and check one out. We found a nice grove of trees several kilometers from the road and town and stop. It was really beautiful, covered in moss, we were joking about how we expected a unicorn to run through. Brady noticed the intense movement in the canopy and filmed a bit on his digital camera. after seeing the clip i decided to get my DV camera and shoot footage for this series.

performed live:
Zurich, Switzerland - 2004
Santa Monica, CA - 2004

hourglass
repetitions #8
July 2008

location:
Long Beach, Ca

For hourglass i performed a live version of my Repetitions series, i used a hour glass as my sound source, (half-hour glass to be precise), and the falling sands were projected behind me. i processed the sound live via contact microphones and mixing two pitched down recordings into the live composition.

in the past the Repetitions live performances have consisted of projected video of repetitive motion, which the sound from the video, as well as binural recordings from the location of the film where processed live. Hourglass will take the opposite approach, using realtime repetitive motion that is projected and processed live.

performed live:
Long Beach, CA - 2008