Active Listening 1

2024

Interactive Video Installation

Materials: Three CRT monitors, microphone, audio interface, feedback loop

Originally exhibited at Area 405 gallery in Baltimore City as part of the Animation Adjacent exhibition, running in conjunction with the Sweaty Eyeballs Animation Festival 2024.

This dynamic, living installation comprises three stacked CRT monitors that listen and respond to the surrounding environment. Utilizing a microphone and an audio interface, the installation transforms ambient noise, spoken words, or song into a generative video animation that unfolds in real time. The visuals on the monitors shift and evolve, directly influenced by the sounds they receive, creating a continuous feedback loop between the audience and the work.

When activated, Active Listening 1 captures even the faintest sounds, responding to an empty room or human interaction with equal sensitivity. This intimate relationship with its environment allows the piece to hold a profound presence in any space it inhabits.

2024

Improvisational Video and Music, Collaborative Project and Concert for 5 musicians and 1 video artist

This semester-long collaboration culminated in an hour-long improvisation concert, where musicians actively responded to the visuals displayed on CRT monitors as I improvised alongside them. Throughout the semester, we explored the dynamic connection between live audio and video, fostering a process of mutual listening, watching, and creative collaboration. This exchange emphasized the interplay between sound and image, showcasing the responsive and performative nature of our work together.

During the course of this collaboration, it was truly inspiring to see the musicians grow attached to the CRTs they were improvising with. Each of us, including myself, had our own Cathode Ray Tube Television—a total of seven CRTs, one for each member. I fed the video to these monitors, which the musicians helped care for throughout the semester. This act of caring for the monitors, the performance, and the visuals during our improvisations highlighted the empathetic nature of our collaboration. It also reflected the importance of tending to old technology—objects often considered obsolete, yet containing hazardous materials that are rarely recycled responsibly and are frequently sent overseas to underdeveloped nations.

By practicing care for these objects through performance, we created a dynamic and unique audiovisual experience that promoted care not only for the monitors themselves but also for the improvisations and visuals. The imagery reflected themes of nature, environmental disaster, consumeristic failures of the twentieth century, and the resilience of wildlife. These themes culminated in our hour-long concert, which encapsulated the responsive relationship between sound and image and the conceptual frameworks underlying our work.

Every Monday, we gathered for one-hour improvisation sessions, forming a weekly ritual that blurred the boundaries between my background as a musician and my identity as a visual artist. Each session was entirely improvised—none of us knew in advance what we or the others would bring. The musicians improvised musically in response to the visuals I presented, while I simultaneously responded visually, creating a fluid and evolving relationship between sound and image.

This collaborative effort, initiated by the musicians’ desire to experiment with video, was an incredible opportunity to merge our disciplines and explore new creative possibilities. Working closely with the director and the musicians—Patrick Crossland, Ida Dierker, Brandon Gouin, Jeremy Keaton, and Josh Webb—highlighted another facet of my practice: the collaborative, responsive nature of my work and its alignment with my environment and conceptual frameworks.

Electric Body

2023

Interactive Installation

Materials: Restored CRT monitors, active videoscope, auxiliary chord, found and repurposed materials

Electric Body is an interactive installation that transforms discarded technology into a vibrant exploration of the human relationship with electricity and the body’s connection to technology. Originally constructed using restored CRT monitors and materials salvaged from Baltimore City, the work critiques the pervasive culture of planned obsolescence and champions the repair and renewal of e-waste.

The installation features an active videoscope that remains dormant until activated by the viewer’s physical touch. A 20-foot auxiliary chord extends from the monitors, creating a circuit only when it comes into contact with the body or any conductive surface in the surrounding environment. This tactile interaction generates live, dynamic visuals on the screens, making the audience an integral part of the circuit and the artwork.

Electric Body is both a reflection on and a renewal of the technology left behind in our urban environments. By salvaging and repairing materials found on the streets of Baltimore, this piece reduces e-waste and breathes new life into discarded objects, demonstrating their potential for reinvention. The work underscores the urgent need to rethink how we manage and value technology in a society driven by fleeting trends and disposable consumer goods.

Continuing to grow, Electric Body now includes more than 10 additional restored televisions as of 2024, each contributing to a larger conversation about sustainability, repair, and our evolving relationship with technology.

"Electric Body" is a reflection and renewal of the old technology lying in and around Baltimore city that I have given new life too.  

Feedback for Nature

2023

3:30

Short Film and CRT Installation

Materials: Restored analog televisions, video mixers, prosumer analog devices, CRT monitors, generative video feedback loops, and original soundtrack

Feedback for Nature is a visually compelling short film and sound composition by McCoy Chance that merges analog feedback loops, generative textures, and imagery inspired by the natural world. Premiered with New Works in Baltimore, MD, the piece will also be featured as a CRT installation at the Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture (CADVC) in 2025.

The film employs restored prosumer analog devices from the 1980s, homemade video mixers, and CRT televisions to create dynamic visuals that explore the connections between technology and nature. Imagery from the natural world serves as a recurring motif, with the cheetah symbolizing resilience amidst a rapidly changing technological landscape. The cheetah reflects the struggles and adaptability required to navigate an environment increasingly shaped by human innovation, mirroring the enduring potential of analog technology to thrive in a digital age.

The accompanying soundtrack, composed by Chance in three distinct movements, enhances the immersive experience, creating a powerful interplay between sound and image. Abstract planets, spheres, and vibrant colors generate a surreal and evocative visual narrative, inviting audiences to consider the evolving relationship between the organic and the technological.

Feedback for Nature critiques the culture of obsolescence while celebrating the sustainability and creative potential of analog technology. It invites reflection on how both the natural world and older technologies exhibit resilience and value, offering a contemplative journey into the coexistence of humanity, nature, and innovation.

Transmission Override

2023

Short Film

Materials: Video camera, analog feedback loops, abandoned CRT televisions, hybrid digital technologies, analog sound synthesis

At its core, Transmission Override is a visually and sonically captivating film that examines the intricate relationship between nature and technology. This experimental work explores the impact of constant technological flow and transmission on the natural world, envisioning a space where the industrious activity of bees and the beauty of flowers intertwine with the persistent hum of data and messages.

Using found footage collected over the past three years, I created a visual narrative that merges organic elements with analog feedback loops crafted on abandoned CRT televisions found throughout the city. The imagery is manipulated with hybrid digital and analog technologies, resulting in a dynamic interplay of natural forms and technological interference. Complementing the visuals is an original analog sound composition, designed specifically for the film to heighten its immersive, meditative quality.

Transmission Override premiered internationally, showcasing at festivals and venues including Venezuela, Spain, Canada, and Baltimore’s Spark 6: Projections at the Peale. It was also featured at The Americas Film Festival in New York, the Liviv Art Palace in Ukraine, and earned a nomination for Best Experimental Film at the Couch Film Festival in Toronto, Canada.

Through this imaginative journey, the film encourages viewers to reflect on their role in the unceasing ballet of data transmission, reconsidering how their digital choices shape and impact the world around them. Transmission Override is a poignant exploration of the evolving relationship between humanity, technology, and nature in an increasingly interconnected world.

Roll for Punishment

2023

Percussion Ensemble Performance for 4–6 Players

Roll for Punishment is a game-like percussion ensemble performance piece that delves into the dynamics of chance, societal norms, and cultural commentary. Designed for 4–6 players, the piece unfolds through a playful yet conceptual framework, exploring themes of masculinity, repetition, and the unpredictable nature of human behavior.

During the Spring of 2023 I met with the Director Tom Goldstein and his percussion Ensemble semi weekly to make this composition possible as well as coach all the players on the score, performance, and dynamics of the piece.  

The composition is divided into two phases. In phase one, performers adhere to specific composer instructions for their chosen percussion instruments, creating layered and evolving rudimentary rhythms. In phase two, any player who rolls a one must "Roll for Punishment," which involves performing mundane yet absurd tasks such as brushing teeth with an instrument or engaging in a mock debate about baseball rule changes. Players remain "in the game" when rolling blue dice, but rolling red signals a transition to punishment tasks, introducing a theatrical element to the performance.

The punishments and gestures are inspired by societal perceptions of masculinity and repetitive cultural trends, as highlighted in NPR discussions in Spring 2023. These tasks, alongside "masculine statements" embedded in the score, critique the monotony of cultural expectations while inviting humor and reflection. Influenced by the chance-based compositions of John Cage and the narrative tension of the anime Kakegurui – Compulsive Gambler, Roll for Punishment transforms risk and decision-making into a dynamic performance.

Under the direction of Tom Goldstein, Roll for Punishment was performed in collaboration with the UMBC Percussion Ensemble as the finale of the sold-out Spring Concert, Time and Punishment. The work’s conceptual depth and engaging framework challenge performers and audiences alike to reflect on the arbitrary systems of power, competition, and cultural narratives. With its blend of rhythmic complexity, theatrical tasks, and unpredictable outcomes, Roll for Punishment is as much a thought experiment as it is a performance.