Weekend of Oct 3rd, 2015
Kung Fu Montañez is a multiscreen interactive video installation that allows participants to explore time and repetition in film. Inspired by famed video/destructivist artist Raphael Montanez Ortiz’s video installation work, Dewberry applies techniques from The Kiss (1984), to extend, loop, and deconstruct perception of time through manipulation of existing films. The installation invites participants to manually control a sequence of frames, changing the speed and direction of film clips chosen from a variety of sources. The effect is like watching a filmstrip magnified as it goes into a reel-to-reel projector. The interactivity of the installation and the slow dissection of clips frame-by-frame can have surprising effects—rendering slapstick comedy insufferably tragic and rendering gruesome violence false and even comic. The viewer becomes both a voyeur to the minutest detail and a participant in controlling the progression of each magnified scene.
A software engineer, visual artist, and technology consultant, Michael Dewberry creates interactive installation art, sculpture, lighting, and video and has received and worked on grants and commissions from the City of Boston, Burning Man, and Arlington Public Art. His work has been shown at at FIGMENT Boston, First Night Boston, Somerville Open Studios, the Boston Underground Film Festival, and the Firefly Arts Festival (Bethel, VT). Dewberry currently lives in Somerville, MA.