Mediated Confines

Mediated Confines is an Interactive, Multi-channel Installation by artist Stacey Stormes.  The artist utilizes the compositional construct of open framing to explore the formal qualities of video and the conceptual confines we interact with daily.  Openness can become a constraint, and closures may impel us to push beyond.  How do our organic bodies react to mediation by electronic synthesis?       


monitors and bounced projection on main wall

projection through window and monitor reflections

 
     In Mediated Confines the simple concept of “open frame,” in video composition is explored conceptually and formally.  The frame as a narrowing focus and confine is simultaneously perpetuated and deconstructed.  The character at times both chooses to be confined by an open frame and breaks through the frame.   The viewing space itself becomes another frame the image both escapes and confines itself within.  The viewer is invited to be an active participant in choosing how to frame their gaze looking within or without. 

 

projection through window (onto wall across alley) and monitor reflections

 

 

simulation of monitors and bounced projection on main wall

 

    Through media we break barriers and create more at the same moment.  Through our attempts to convey meaning and bring accord, our use of language as a framing structure, our interactions mediated by electronic thoroughfares do we enclose ourselves in more or do we simply exist in an open frame and choose when to walk out of it?

 

main wall

windows

 
From Merriam Webster:
"mediate:
Inflected Form(s):
    me·di·at·ed; me·di·at·ing
Etymology: Medieval Latin mediatus, past participle of mediare, from Late Latin, to be in the middle, from Latin medius middle  Date: 1568
transitive verb  1 a: to bring accord out of by action as an intermediary  b: to effect by action as an intermediary  2 a: to act as intermediary agent in bringing, effecting, or communicating : convey   b: to transmit as intermediate mechanism or agency    intransitive verb  1: to interpose between parties in order to reconcile them  2: to reconcile differences"

 

360 degree view

 
"Confine:
Etymology:
    Middle English, from Anglo-French or Latin; Anglo-French confines, plural, from Latin confine border, from neuter of confinis adjacent, from com- + finis end   Date: 15th century
1 plural a: something (as borders or walls) that encloses <outside the confines of the office or hospital — W. A. Nolen>; also : something that restrains <escape from the confines of soot and clutter — E. S. Muskie> b: scope 3 <work within the confines of a small group — Frank Newman>   2 aarchaic : restriction bobsolete : prison"