Merlyn Chipman's artwork spans live improvisational audio/video, print and installation art but he identifies himself as a "video feedback artist." Video feedback is the phenomena that occurs when a video signal is passed from a video camera to a monitor while the camera and monitor are pointed at each other.
Soon after stumbling upon video feedback in 1998, Merlyn started collecting old television sets. These television sets were instruments he used to visually interpret the music of improvisational musicians and DJs in collaborative projects. Within 5 years, he had collected over 100 working television sets. Merlyn's live video feedback performance is an exercise in maintaining attention, i.e. an open-eyed meditation.
In 1998 Merlyn was invited to join Mediacore, an electronic art collective, becoming their only visual artist. In 2002 Merlyn co-founded the electronic art collective, Tryptonmedia, which focused exclusively on the promotion and application of video feedback as an art form.
In 2003, Merlyn began using his computer to take a closer look at individual frames of video feedback. Through this method he started creating a body of graphic art. Merlyn's abstract print-work allows viewers to explore their own mental library of definitions and categories in much the same way one sees fantastic imagery in cloud formations.
In 2005 Merlyn began exploring ways to make sounds with video feedback. This exploration in sound led to solo audio/video performances culminating in a tour of 13 shows in four countries across eastern Europe in the spring of 2010.
In 2011, Merlyn joined Vancouver New Musicʼs Vancouver Electrical Ensemble. Taking his place and collaborating with many other talented experimental musicians in his native city.
In 2012, Merlyn jointed the collective Loco Moto Art. As a member of Loco Moto Art he brought his interactive audio video installations to the outdoors. Via the groupsʼ independent electrical power systems, his work engaged audiences, encouraging them to explore their relationships between nature and technology.
We're grateful to collaborate and produce on the shared, stolen, unceded, ancestral and traditional territories of Penelakut, Lamalcha, Hwitslum and other Hul’qumi’num speaking peoples, as well as the ceded territories of Tsawwassen First Nation, on what is now known as Galiano Island, British Columbia. We recognize the complex impacts that hosting settlers and non-settlers has on the Indigenous land and peoples of this area, and we aim to be responsible and accountable for these impacts and our footprint—whether cultural, environmental or social.
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