Sandusky

Sandusky is a short video loop on the subjects of family, crime, loss, and violence. Merging news reports with home videos, the work explores the phenomena of violence and terrible tragedy. News reports profiling a violent crime committed by members of Rachel's extended family is mixed with home video footage is of the family members in question. The artist specifically selected naturally age-decayed and damaged VHS content to explore the terrible event that would end their lives, and to explore the disintegration of their relationship. The musical audio elements were composed by stretching and sampling the subjects' voices and then programming a patch based on that audio in Max/MSP. Ultrasonic sensors in the space may trigger seeming video decay upon the approach of any viewer. The closer one gets to the subject, the more erratic and violent the decay.

View excerpt here: https://vimeo.com/58691175

SPECIFICS
Sandusky is meant to be displayed in a dimly-lit room, on large, old-fashioned receiver mounted on a TV-stand from the 1960s or 1970s. Audio is delivered through a hidden 5.1 surround-sound system installed in the space or via stereo headphones. Video and audio are run through a Mac-mini. Ultrasonic sensors are placed at four different points in the gallery space to trigger video change via Max/Jitter programming.