Three Channel Video Installation [play simultaneously]
10' rearwall projection w/ dual flatscreen side panels

"Tracking" is a collaborative video installation by DM, Denise Marika and Dana Moser and was largely influenced by the city of Berlin. "Tracking" reflects on the international condition at the borders separating people from places and events, the threshold where layers of impediments and barriers multiply.

Four Channel Video Installation
20'' projections

Video and braille Installation

Video Projections and set design

This multimedia opera, a retelling of the Dedalus and Icarus myth, is set on an imaginary Caribbean island. Five singers perform in counterpoint with layers of computer-manipulated 5.0 channel surround sound and multiple video projections. Music by Eric Chasalow ; libretto by F.D. Reeve; video and set design by Denise Marika.

Single Channel Video
Size Variable

A leg is stretched along the length of exposed tree root. The downed tree trunk and leg are both coated in grey clay, matched in shape, color and form. Slowly the leg moves along the trunk caressing its length.

A face buried in dry dirt eats its way to the surface as a gritty crunching sound draws you in .

Video Installation,Aluminum frame floor mirror and video
72" x 92" x 12"

A projected nude figure crouches amidst the turbulence of demolition. U-shaped steel channels frame the deteriorating urban landscape. The jaws of a crane grab at the body stirring up clouds of dust and debris. Unaffected by the surrounding danger, the woman persists as rubble rains down upon her.

An ankle-deep landscape of ash is contained by massive steel beams laid in a rectangle on the floor.  Projected on the undulating terrain, a woman anoints herself with ash.  The sound of ash rubbing against her bare skin is abrasive. Over time her skin darkens, merging her body with the ashen-grey landscape.

Single channel wall or window projection
Variable size

Enshrined in the façade of a building, a private gesture of prayer is made public.  Hands clasped together, the disembodied arms remain still for a long time then smash repeatedly against the window/wall. Uncertain of the identity of the supplicant we insert ourselves, the gesture of the arms echoing our own memories of prayer and longing. The image shifts from static icon to violent action.

Video projection,Steel, fur and video
47" x 63 "x 3" (I)
47" x 53 1/2" x3" (II)
47 x 54 1/4" x3" (III)

Two sheets of steel are mounted on each of the three fur-covered panels. A woman seen from the top of her head is bisected by a reveal of fur between the steel plates. The body position is different in each piece; face down, face up, she lifts and lowers her head repeatedly, laboring against its weight. As exhaustion sets in, the gesture becomes a personal struggle.  On one panel, she holds her head up by the hair and upon release her head strikes the surface beneath.

A woman, crouched on her haunches, throws hunks of red clay on the wall. She pushes and pounds at the wet clay with her hands and fingers, working to cover as much of the wall as she can reach.  Just as the clay surface nears completion, she frantically begins to rip it down. As the wall is uncovered, remnants of the red clay mark the re-exposed areas of the wall and mark her body. For almost an hour, she builds and destroys her work, the sound of pounding hands and falling clay punctuated by her labored breathing.

Two 48” x 42” slate blackboards face each other across the space, drawn on each is a faint chalk torso. The projected image of a woman crouched in a tidal pool of seaweed matches the drawing until the figure shifts orientation, coming full circle in 20-degree increments. With each shift of position, we hear the painful sound of fingernails on a blackboard and the continuous soft sound of seaweed in water.  Extending between the two blackboards is a 24' x 1' projected band of seaweed.  Charcoal lines drawn directly onto the wall fleetingly match the projection and lock into the shifting video image.

The center window of the building is transformed into a crystal blue surface of water disturbed only by the slow shifting movement of seaweed. The enlarged close-up of the water appears as liquid glass locked into the window frame. From the exterior speakers we hear the sound of the water as it rolls the seaweed back and forth with the rhythm of the tide.

A four-foot diameter metal disc contains the projected image of a woman, crouching with her hands over her head. She tries to protect herself as objects are pelted at her, hitting her body and shattering on impact. The objects are small figures, exact 3D output portraits of her body in that moment and stance. As the fragmented figures fill the metal disc, her breathing quiets and she remains crouched, her back marked and red.

Packed layers of felt are held tightly by two metal frames, which rise beyond the crushed material. Absorbed into the depths of the fabric, a woman carries a man in her arms. The classical folds of pink felt disfigure the bodies. She walks, loaded down by his dead weight, her breathing labored as she struggles to hold him in her arms.

A brushed aluminum beam spans from wall to wall, blocking full entry to the red room. At chest height, the beam captures the image of a woman’s neck, shoulders and chest. A man hugs her from behind, holding her tightly and restricting her movements. She alternately struggles with and accepts his physically controlling embrace.

Seen on adjacent marble columns, a woman crawls back and forth on her knees, trapped and prowling.

The raw structural power of an industrial steel I-beam extends from floor to ceiling. Projected on the inner web of the beam, as seen through the slit of a barely open door, a man and a woman engage in a silent physical struggle.  Locked in combat, they battle back and forth across the narrow aperture.

Metal bars are suspended from the ceiling at various heights. From one of the bars hangs a raw animal hide on which is projected the stretched upper torso and arms of a figure jumping up and staining to hold on. Losing grip of the bar, the figure falls down and out of sight. With each attempt and fall we hear her feet hit the ground hard.

Two tall swings face each other twelve feet apart. Latex stretched taut between the rigid aluminum poles of each swing define a narrow 22inch area within which a projected figure, Cycladic in shape, slowly crouches and rises. Each pendulum-like structure hangs from the ceiling to within six inches of the floor. The viewer, sitting in either swing, can layer their motion on that of the rising and falling figure, making physical contact between object, body and image.

An 8’x 8’ x 20’ long plywood box with 2”x 4” rib framing, lies on the floor, open at one end.  Entering, you approach a 64”x 13”x 40” deep copper drawer set into the far wall. At the back of the open-faced drawer a life size nude figure is laid out across three monitors, separated by bands of copper. Handles allow you to pull the drawer into the room or push it back into the wall. The figure lies on her side, compressed and reflected within the confines of the drawer. She fleetingly meets the viewer’s eyes then turns away. Performed in the drawer, the rapid rotation of her body has etched footprints in the copper.

A woman paces back and forth between two mirrored medicine cabinets set at waist height, 5’ apart on the wall. Alcoves of beeswax diffuse her image and the sound of her footsteps punctuates and defines the movement and tension of the sustained 3 hour performance. When closed, the one-way mirror reflects the viewer’s own image superimposed on that of the pacing figure.

A 6’ white steel box on casters is topped with a slab of white marble. Three oval basins cut into the marble are sealed by translucent amber wax diffusing the monitor images beneath. Through the wax we observe a woman bathing. Lying fully immersed in the water she washes herself, her body reaching across and shifting from basin to basin.