Gumbo Limbo, 2005

Gumbo Limbo is a mirror-like video work exploring perception. It interrogates how we interpret images of our lives. This interactive video-memory work takes its name from the gumbo limbo tree. The tree is constantly shedding its bark in thin, paper-like, layers. A keen observer of events, the artwork thrives on absorbing images from its environment over time, nourished by the possibilities of its surroundings. Similarly, to the tree, the work sheds its past over time.

To begin the artwork captures, process and unfolds and compresses time in layers of video. Because of this, it is, spontaneous, flexible and unblinking. As a result, this video installation, renders the process of constructing personal mythologies null: in every second of the viewer’s real-time interaction, history is being rewritten over itself. Time rearranging, shifting–shedding and revealing new meanings and relationships at each new turn. 

Gumbo Limbo is an early interactive video artwork from Schatz. Turning the format and layout of screens vertically, this artwork shifts previous explorations into interactivity in new directions. Finally, view more generative video installations from Lincoln Schatz Studio here, on Vimeo.