Walter Wright

Scapemates (1973) by Ed Emshwiller, video animation Rich Froman, Walter Wright

Cracksincity Parts 5-6 with Zipperspy (2003)

Alien 1 (2008)

ABC No Rio 1-3 (2009) with Joe Burgio, Shayna Duhlberger

Lowell: Canals, Sockhop, Appleton Mills (2012)

Six Short Pieces (2014)

Provincetown (2015)

Projektor:WITW with Christos Koulendros, Émilie Mouchous (June 2019)

Projektor:WITW with Al Margolis (July 2019)

About me -
Dad made me toys. Then he made me a workbench so that I could make my own toys.

In grade school I liked shops, making things. I liked art. My desk was up against the teacher’s desk and surrounded, on the three remaining sides, by empty desks. I realized that I wasn’t like other kids.

In 1965 I received my B.Arch.from U of Manitoba where I learned -
    2D and 3D design principles,
    that art is product, process and an experience, all these things, and
    that architecture is an interdisciplinary art form.

In 1967 I received my M.A.Sc. in Systems Design from U of Waterloo where I learned -
    computer programming and computer-aided design methods,
    that architecture is ‘choreography in reverse’, a score performed by the people moving
    through the space, and
    that art and architecture have social meaning and are an important part of creating
    and maintaining a healthy community.

I was hired by Environetics in NYC to write a computer-aided drafting program. My program was used to draw floor plans for the Sear’s Tower, Chicago. The 40th floor had 100 secretarial stations surrounded by managers' offices, and although every manager had a window, not one secretary could see outside. This was not why I became an architect, I quit!

I was hired by Computer Image Corporation as one of the first video animators. I became an Associate Director at The Kitchen and participated in The First Computer Arts Conference in 1971.

I decided to create art using new media and the computer.

I succeeded Nam June Paik as artist-in-residence at the Experimental Television Center in upstate NY. I took the Paik/Abe Video Synthesizer to schools, colleges, art galleries and museums. I built my own Serge Modular Music System and assisted David Jones and Rich Brewster in building the ETC's video synthesizer.

I taught film, new media arts and computer graphics at William James College, an alternative educational college in Western Michigan, and then at Virginia Commonwealth School of the Arts in Richmond VA.

I worked as a graphics programmer for Truevision in Indianapolis IN. Truevision was bought out. I moved to Boston to work as Creative Director at Looking Glass in Cambridge. My job was to co-ordinate the design, programming and art departments. Looking Glass was bought out. I moved on to GameFX where I worked as a Production Manager, Game Designer and Artist. GameFX was bought out.

From 1999 through 2013, I taught New Media arts and Computer Graphics as adjunct faculty at UMass Lowell MA.

Art is not just a product. It's also a process: the way we, as artists, go about making or creating something.

“Whatever goal is set for art eventually proves restrictive, matched against the widest goals of consciousness. Art, itself a form of mystification, endures a succession of crises of demystification; older artistic goals are assailed and, ostensibly, replaced; outworn maps of consciousness are redrawn.”
— Susan Sontag, The Aesthetics of Silence.

About video art -
Video is a communications medium for exchanging moving pictures and sound - Philo & Elma Farnsworth developed television, the technology, in the 1920’s - CBS introduced the first Ampex videotape recorder in 1956 - Sony introduced the handheld video recorder in 1967 - video as a means for artistic express is only 50+ years old.

Video is a multi-channel medium, channels include -
- as many as 256 (or more) image channels
- as many as     5 (or more) sound channels

The video artist is a visual artist, a sound artist, a movement artist and, often, a writer - video is inclusive, embracing painting, sculpture, writing, poetry, theater, and choreography.
HOWEVER
video is not the same thing as commercial film, movies, or television.

Television, and streaming media, are, more often than not, weapons of mass distraction, or, more succinctly, drug delivery systems

In order to understand how video works we must ‘speak’ the language - and what is the language of video? The most obvious, attention grabbing channels of the medium are the visual channels - therefore the language of video is primarily visual and secondarily sound (not music, sound)
SO
one could say that video art is a re-presentation of reality in a manner that seeks to change the viewer’s perception of the world - it begins with actively seeing and listening -

Psychology says that ‘we see what we think we see’ - light falls on the retina and the resulting stimulation is transmitted by the optic nerve to the brain - the brain forms an image, resolves 3D, compares it to the last image thus detecting movement, checks for imminent danger, and, finally compares it to images already stored in memory - the result can be recognition, a thought or feeling - this thought or feeling loops through the mind/body system resulting in an emotional reaction, and produces meaning
SO
either ‘nothing is real’ or reality is, in a sense, obscured by our own perceptions
AND
as video artists, it is up to us to dis-cover or un-cover reality then re-present or re-imagine reality in a manner that changes the viewers perception - to open up the doors (of perception) - to inform rather than affirm, to create rather than imitate.

Art is not just a process. It's also be a transformative experience for the artist as well as the viewer.


"In 1968 I ran into Steve Lacy on the street in Rome. I asked him to describe in 15 seconds the difference between composition and improvisation. He answered, 'In 15 seconds, the difference between composition and improvisation is that in composition you have all the time you want to decide what to say in 15 seconds, while in improvisation you have 15 seconds.' His answer lasted exactly 15 seconds and is still the best formulation of the question that I know."
~ Derek Bailey


About improvisation -
Traditionally composition precedes performance. The composer communicates his or her vision by means of a ‘score.’ The score is interpreted, rehearsed and, finally, performed for an audience.

Improvisation is composition in real time. Composition and performance come together ‘in the moment.’

What is the nature of this moment? Performers and audience lose track of time, an hour seems like a minute, a minute like an hour. The moment becomes time-less, existing outside normal time. We experience a state of heightened awareness. Instead of standing aside watching as time flows by, we plunge in and are carried along letting time unfold around us.

Time flows through the present, the future unseen, the past a memory. We look back from the present into the past; replaying the images collected by our culture and ourselves. We keep the good images, toss away the bad, and feel secure in the illusion that we can know the future. What if, instead of looking back into the past or forward into the future, we concentrated on the present – on being present to our-selves and to the world? Maybe, instead of ghosts and fantasies, we could see, in that moment, an opportunity to create something ‘real.’

Improvisation is a metaphor for reality and for positive social interaction. It can free us from the habitudes of perception, from the ghosts of the past, and from the fear and urge to retaliate that permeates our current socio-political system by making us aware of opportunities for cooperation. It can free us from the knee-jerk responses written into the script of ‘good versus evil’ and ‘us versus them’ by making us sensitive to the possibilities in the moment.

Focusing on possibility, on what could be, is a socio-political statement. It’s perceived as radical because our culture and its institutions are hide-bound by tradition and conservatism. The potential for a society based on a way of thinking and acting that is open, inclusive, and creative is something worth considering. A society willing to withhold judgment, to explore multiple outcomes, to reinvent itself continually, and to engage in collaborative dialogue with others: Wouldn’t it be nice?

I started improvising in the early ’70s as a video animator at Computer Image Corp in NYC - performing live on the Scanimate analog computer system - then as artist-in-residence at the Experimental Television Center, I ‘pioneered’ video performance with the Paik/Abe Video Synthesizer, taking it to schools, colleges, community media access centers, galleries, and art museums - I experimented with electronic sound - built my own Serge Modular Music System - Gary Hill, Sarah Cook and I formed Synergy, a multi-media trio, which featured real-time, improvised video, sound and movement.

In the 80’s I joined the faculty at William James College in Allendale MI, where I taught new media, film, and computer programming for the arts - William James closed and I moved on to Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts where I taught video art, sound art, film and computer graphics. 

In the early 90’s I went to work for Truevision in Indianapolis IN.  I was hired to program an intelligent paint system. The project was terminated and I moved on to join Looking Glass in Cambridge MA. I signed up for a improvisation workshop conducted by Eric Zinman and John Voigt. It was mostly musicians, however I joined as a video improviser. Katt Hernandez, Marc Bisson and I formed a new multi-media trio. We performed at the Zeitgeist Gallery, now Outpost 186 in Cambridge. Katt, Joe Burgio and I formed yet another multi-media trio. Joe invited me to several Contact Improvisation workshops. I studied Contact Improv with Partrick Crowley, Debra Bluth and Butoh with Jen Hicks. Joe and I still perform together, I’m a member of his company, ‘ensemble inédit?!’, which works with improvised sound and movement.

In 1995, Mary Ann Kearns and I founded 911 Media Arts Inc., and opened a gallery for digital art in Indianapolis. We reopened as 119 Gallery in Lowell MA in 2005. In 2009 I started XFest MA, an annual festival of improvised music, visuals, and movement. In 2016 I turned XFest MA over to other volunteers and moved on to produce XFest UK 2017 and XFest Cyprus 2019.

Conclusions -
In 2007 I received my M.F.A. in Interdisciplinary Art from Goddard College where I learned -     that art is the collective experience of the artist AND of the persons witnessing the work. Let's rework the rules so that instead of being imposed from above they are derived from the 'real' world with our eyes, ears and skin;
    that “the mere making of a work of art is itself a political act,” W H Auden; and
    that it is "the artist’s essential responsibility is to leap society forward by upsetting the system ...", Albert Camus.