This multi-channel video art installation was situated in a room that functioned as a passage between two other art exhibit spaces. Embracing the transient function of the room, I aligned a 6 monitor against one side of the room, which did not obstruct a direct the pathway between the two door entry ways. Although this room is not specifically designed to be a hall way the phsyical presence and screen content configured the space into being a hallway. Keeping the installation to one side and using a wide angle camera to frame the room, transformed the room into a hallway that displayed video hallways. 

Displayed were real-time video content using 5 Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) TVs, a 2011 iMac, and a GoPro Hero5.

The computer screen displayed the Jitter Window output from a MAX patch that randomly played archival clips of TV ads and news from the 1980’s-90’s, that have been digitized from VHS records.

Five TVs showed closed circuit video feeds. A single HD video signal from a wall mounted GoPro were split and coverted to four plinth supported monitors, left and right of the center stack. The FaceTime webcam of the iMac was converted and sent to a vintage Zenith TV.A White RCA TV was left on, with its white noise emitting glowing illumination and was a table top for a game controller. The controller buttons could change the cycling and speed of the archival television clips.

Placing the iMac was atop the Zenith was intended to anchor a central stopping point for the isntallation. Visitors would be drawn into knowing more about the archival video, see themselves on the Zenith TV, and notice the game controller.

I explicity did not want to force visitors to stay in the room with the video installation. Audience goers were meant to stay for as long or little as they wanted. But by passing through the room everyone is surveilled and seen in the installation. They could experience the screens while moving quickly, slowly, or stopping at any point. I was curious to know how incoming foot traffic would be affected by the presence of real-time transmission of the video space. 

Some individuals simply watched themselves passing through the room. Their image would travel across the screens as they physically crossed through the room. And while some kept moving briskly, others would keep moving but creep along, looking to verify the content of the screens.

Those attending TriMania who stayed and interacted with the screens  and cameras used the installation to record themselves. While the archival video content was interesting to some, the screens were largely functioned as a photo booth, with the screen being a portrait canvas for snapping photos and video clips with a smartphone. Visitors attended to both sides of the room in different ways by waving hands, posing, and dancing. 

The iMac webcam feed attracted invidividuals, couples, and group photos. The webcam embedded into the computer screen was mysterious to many since the placement of analog and digital video content had switched places between the iMac and Zenith TV. The webcam had a choppy frame rate and fluctuating RGB white balance which were percieved to be a filter effect that was novel and spooky.

On the other side of the room, audience members addressed the GoPro camera. They’d make their appearance more prominent in the space by getting close up to the lens to show their face and hands. Then a friend would take a picture on a CRT. 

In an open surveillance video environment where the screen is both a viewing object and subject, people document the installation in order to record themselves. The ephemera of an analog video monitor is a novel experience whose effects prompt us to record ourselves as we appear on a screen. But individuals do not only record themselves but also bystanders who are observing both the technology and visual content of the monitors. 

Video Hall Way(s) is an achievement that leverages the unfixed viewing style of video art through interior spatial qualities that compliment the changing speed of bodily movement of the audience and the refreshing of screen information. Like a window we choose if we want to look into it to see something. When it is old media or a self-image we like to say put rather than passing by.