Allen Riley Media Arts Portfolio
Synchronization Station, 2022-2023
Description: Synchronization Station is a participatory performance about mediated intimacy that uses analog video mixing as a counterpoint to everyday communications technologies. It operates in a fictional moment in which computers are being invented, or reinvented, for the intentionally humorous purpose of establishing contact between humans.
Videofreak, 2016
Description: A video arcade game integrated with a circuit-bent video mixer provides an experience of play based on analog video feedback. The cabinet is presented in an installation with additional video mixers and CRT monitors patched into the game’s signal flow.
Description: A video arcade game integrated with a circuit-bent video mixer provides an experience of play based on analog video feedback. The cabinet is presented in an installation with additional video mixers and CRT monitors patched into the game’s signal flow.
Photo: Videofreak on display at the Smithsonian American Arcade Museum, August 2019
Video: 2 minutes, 4 seconds
Credits:
Concept, Game Design, Interface, Electronics: Allen Riley
Cabinet: Mark Kleback and Nick Santaniello
Cabinet Illustrations: Tim Fite
Concept, Game Design, Interface, Electronics: Allen Riley
Cabinet: Mark Kleback and Nick Santaniello
Cabinet Illustrations: Tim Fite
Electronic Pastoral, 2018-present
Description: Landscapes composed of video feedback loops presented in a series of environments.
Description: Landscapes composed of video feedback loops presented in a series of environments.
Photo: Immersive Gallery, Institute for Electronic Arts, September 2018
Video: 5 minutes, 50 seconds.Single-channel edit that integrates excerpts with documentation of two presentations of the work. Chapter title text from “Cybernetics” by Norbert Wiener; audio excerpt from “Summer School at SRI” by Douglas Engelbart Institute.
Cloud in a Cave, 2015
Description: A playful model of the internet as a video feedback campfire. Participants hold cameras in their hands to shape a mass of video energy in an interconnected electronic signal flow.
Description: A playful model of the internet as a video feedback campfire. Participants hold cameras in their hands to shape a mass of video energy in an interconnected electronic signal flow.
Photo: Installation view, PHAON Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, April 2015
Photo: Participatory performance, PHAON Gallery, Brooklyn NY, April 2015
Video: 18 second video loop showing participant’s view of video feedback.
Oversight, 2017
Description: Video installation for experiencing asymmetries of information. Participants crawl inside a canopied table surrounded by movable cameras to find a video monitor and camera showing their face. Setting a timer activates multiple live video images of the exposed part of their body.
Description: Video installation for experiencing asymmetries of information. Participants crawl inside a canopied table surrounded by movable cameras to find a video monitor and camera showing their face. Setting a timer activates multiple live video images of the exposed part of their body.
Photo: Installation view, Coconino Center for the Arts, Flagstaff AZ, April 2017
Video: 8 second loop showing the participant’s view from inside the canopy.
Evidence Timeline, 2012
Description: Shale tiles engraved with a fragments of a conspiracy theory website presented in a custom-built cabin in the woods.
Photo: Tile detail
Photo: View of cabin exterior with a tile visible through a window, Alfred Station NY, 2012
Photo: Cabin interior with a close-up view of a tile, Alfred Station NY, 2012
In the Beginning, 2013
Description: I design hands-on learning programs for youth at Beam Center. In this live cinema project, youth collaborated to write and film scenes and edit video in real-time while performing an improvised narration.
Video: 2 minute, 6 second (excerpt)