Shift, 2006

Shift an interactive generative video work by Lincoln Schatz, is a  commission for a private collection in Los Angeles, California.

Installed on an aluminum frame, Shift an interactive generative video work, is comprised of a television monitor, a camera and a computer. The monitor displays the interactive artwork by Schatz. 

From the moment that Shift, an interactive generative video work, is installed and powered on, video files are selectively recorded via a video camera mounted above the screen. A complex computer program analyzes a live video feed, deciding, through custom designed code, to record video files. Hundreds of thousands of video files are recording over the life of the artwork. Many will not remain for more than a day. But for some, they will continue to be used as the raw material needed for Shift, an interactive generative video, to exist.

To begin, a camera records the space the artwork is in. This signal passes to a computer which process both live and historical video files simultaneously. Creating a world of layered videos that challenge our understanding of time and memory. Generating relationships between different periods in time through the manipulation of these video files. Because of this, these works by Schatz, by compressing time, bring the immediate and the past together. The artwork challenges us to reconsider how our memory works. As a result, these generative video artworks complicate what we think we remember. Asking us to reconsider how we might live in and understand a given space and period of time. View other generative video artworks, like Cluster, on Lincoln Schatz’s Vimeo page.