UbuWeb Film UbuWebPeter Campus (b. 1937)
Back to Peter Campus in UbuWeb Film
Three Transitions1973. Video (color, sound), 5 min.
In Three Transitions, Campus presents three introspective self-portraits that incorporate his dry humor. He begins with an image created by two cameras facing opposite sides of a paper wall and filming simultaneously. His back to one camera, Campus cuts through the paper. In the double image, it appears as if he is cutting through his back, which is both disconcerting and tongue-in-cheek. Campus then uses the "chroma-key effect" of superimposing one video image onto a similarly colored area of another image. He applies blue paint to his face, and during this process another image of himself is revealed; he then superimposes his image on a piece of blue paper, which he sets afire. As Three Transitions moves between deadpan humor and seeming self-destruction, Campus explores the limits of visual perception as a measure of reality.
Faces and masks have long been subjects in art, but, with the advent of television, these analytical discursive figures intimately entered our daily lives. Campus's video art is concerned with exploring the subtle balance between remote but penetrating and formal, but unsettling, elements.
RESOURCES:
This UbuWeb resource is presented in partnership with GreyLodge
UbuWeb Film | UbuWeb
PennSound | GreyLodge | Artmob | EPC | WFMU