Dub Chain: Part 1-4, 2009
16 mm projectors and film/sound loop
82 x 24 x 15 inches
Edition of 3

Description: Sound/film installation with five 16mm projectors and sound/film loops. Film loop runs through 16mm film projectors at different intervals creating a soundscape. The soundtrack, as well as the image, is echoed by each projector in the chain, therefore producing a Markov’s Chain, one characterized by simultaneous projection of the past, present, and the future.

Artist’s Concept: The principle notion of the work is that given any chain, the future is a random process where all information about the future is contained in the present state, i.e. one does not need to examine the past to determine the future. In other words, the description of the present state fully captures all the information that could influence the future evolution of the process. “Being a stochastic process means that all state transitions are probabilistic determined by random chance and thus unpredictable in detail, though likely predictable in its statistical properties… Formally in a finite space, Pij = Pr(Xn+1=j)(Xn=i).” It is from this process that the re-territorialization of the space happens and the language of dub is formed.

Variations: Installation / Single-Channel Video / Archival Inkjet Prints / / Mixed Media film on wood

Part One: Fourth Articulation / Sonic Chain
African drums, Horowitz on piano, and radio telescope sounds create a rhythmic soundscape.

Part Two: First Articulation / Tower of Babel
A conversation that leads to more conversation, always changing, never ending.

Part Three: Second Articulation / What would I fight for?
Based on a poem by D.H. Lawrence, the artist uses his own blood in an attempt to answer that question for himself.

Part Four: Fifth Articulation / Markov's Reversible Fountain
A cascading river that flows in the opposite direction is one possibility in a Markov reversible chain.