Michael Chernoff

Video Artist


Videosphere: You Are Always On A Screen Somewhere...

(2023) Video Art Installation - MFA Thesis





Hours & Location



1270 Niagara Street Buffalo, NY 14213
2nd Floor Adjoined by Buffalo String Works



Opening Reception - Friday April 28th 6PM-9PM

Saturday April 29th 2PM-5PM

Sunday April 30th Closed

Friday May 5th 4PM-6PM

Saturday May 6th 6PM-9PM

Sunday May 7th 5PM-8M

*May 1st through 4th by Appointment Only macherno@buffalo.edu


Thesis Commitee Faculty Members

Associate Professor Mark Shepard (Chair)

Assitant Professor Jason Gesitweidt

Professor Dave Pape

Assitant Professor Sama Waham


Sponsers
Breeser Development Group LLC
Dept. of Media Study - University at Buffalo
UB Graduate Student Association



Artist Statement



My thesis installation broadly takes in many contexts of video as medium in order to publicly explore how video operates. Being a video artist for me means involves using many different kinds of electronics, machines, and programs. When I work with video as material, I notice just how much space is taken up around me in the form of media players, computers, wires, cables, power sources, cameras, and screens. Borrowed from Gene Youngblood, Videosphere is a term that describes how video occupies architectural and metal space. Video is not only TV or a camera but also an interface for other electronics whose presence in turn increases the signal output of video. As the territory of video devices expands physcially video signal becomes more live. What is video universally in all of its past and present technical iterations is that is a live signal which visualizations a space on screen which hosts other signals. Not just the communcation of machines and media but also the feedback of generated between interfaces and users. This idea of video occupying and being a form of space on a screen is an invisible networking of television, computers, internet, and mobile points of access whose simultaneous use, synchronizes the observation of individuals and environments. The presence of video as a Videoshpere is a space formed by signal and screens that are always occuring and whose spatial interactions of real and virtual collpase into indivisibility. 


But is the installation a point of surveillance or interactivity? By arranging cameras and screens people will always appear on a screen in which we see ourselves and others and the contents of one screen looked at becomes the content of another screen. However this installation is not about just human beings apearing on a screen. This Videosphere is about being seen with video. It is a system arranged to be a self-surveillance of videos presence. The live images beg to viewed, interacted, and recorded not by users, viewers, or operators. In this performative space everyone is an interactor.  And as for surveillance video, there is no point in which someone can privately view the exihibit without being seen themselves. Instead we should be aware that our dependence upon video as interface means that we are always appearing on screens without exact knowledge of when, where, and whom. Videosphere, is about video self-communicating through modulations. The only informaiton in the actual exhibit is whatever can be interacted with. 




Special Thanks:

Laura Maloney
Bill Breeser
Matthew Schery
Ellen Chernoff
Ian Hunter
Mitch
Carl Lee
Mike Bouqard
Alex Reid
Paige Sarlin
Elaine Schwartz


Mark Shepard
Jason Gesitweidt
Dave Pape
Sama Waham
Famous Clark
Cort Lippe

Olurotimi Akanbi
András Blazsek
Tim Georger
Jesse Rodkin
Lewuga Benson
Alex Casetti
Bello Bello
Walker Tufts
Kelsey Rupe
Rachel Galet
Ana Lavatelli
Bill Sack
Bernard Dolecki
Jon Bolt
Salem Browning
Matt Kenyon
Peer Bode