Play and Repeat2014

play and repeat is a technological rendering of a cityscape and the experience therein. A sequence of altered still images shot in New York is repeated, each time manipulated and layered over the artifacts of the previous sequence. Images of concrete and pavement are digitally smeared, transmogrifying the architectural structure of the street. Billboards and graffiti become the passage of color and texture through the 2-dimensional space of the screen. play and repeat takes both the city and digital video itself as subject and explores the effect of the addition and removal of the representational image on perception and memory.

The five-part structure is loosely based on the five-part Dog Star Man, in which Stan Brakhage manually manipulated layers of film to create effects like scratching and tinting in a way unique to film. The digital images inplay and repeat, shot on the way to a screening of The Art of Vision (the expanded form ofDog Star Man), are layered and manipulated using software-generated effects unique to video. Composition, color and movement give way to accumulation and eventual disintegration into its own ephemerality.