The Medium
Public art for Murphy Hall, University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Commissioned by the Art on Campus Program, 2002.

7'X5'X16" mixed media
Video processing by Joshua Goldberg and Jasper Speicher

"All media work us over completely. They are so persuasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered. The medium is the massage."
-- Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage, 1967

This participatory installation consists of two facing seats, divided by two back-to-back flat screen LCD video monitors, with two small, video cameras attached. When two people sit facing each other in the niche, the screens act as the medium through which they perceive each other. The cameras, one pointing at each viewer, project a live feed image to each of them of each other. The two people converse through the medium of the video image, making real the mediated nature of communications technology. The image goes through a series of random transformations, e.g., black and white, negative, etc., and occasionally fades to the viewer's own image.

Public art coordinator: Shelly Willis