Videos

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Hi Lisa, it's Dan

During the 1990’s, my answering machine recorded messages onto a cassette tape. After listening to a message, I would delete it and reset the machine, which always generated a tiny feeling of loss in me. To remedy this, I decided to create an archive. From 1992 - 1994 I transferred “special” messages to a series of specifically labeled cassette tapes using a dual cassette recorder. Some messages marked important life events, but others, equally significant to me, were more pedestrian, "just calling to check in" type stuff. Dan was one of my closest friends, and Hi Lisa, it’s Dan contains a year’s worth of his messages. The messages themselves do not yield significant content, rather they exist as an accumulation of interstitial moments culled from a very large archive of daily life. They track a series of poignant missed connections and function as placeholders for conversations or meetings yet to come. Simultaneously, they act as a time capsule, marking a now largely defunct mode of communication and generating questions about changing possibilities or conditions of exchange. The fuzzy audio track is paired with nighttime low-res video footage of ping-pong balls floating in a swimming pool. The poolside ping-pong game (a quintessential leisure sporting activity) is transformed into a mysterious universe where two “characters” float in and out of a liquid space - moving together, but never touching. There is no score – as any possible connection happens outside the frame (field of play).
Added on: December 13, 2023

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Three Types of Movement

2021
This video documents the sliding door component of Three Types of Movement, a 10 x 20 foot wall installation consisting of color copies, laser prints, Xeroxes, postcards, and Polaroids mounted on a wall with a sliding door, which moves to reveal two different image compositions. See more images at: https://www.lisa-young.com/Three-Types-of-Movement. Three Types of Movement mixes images of women, animals, and nature with pop-psychology texts and pages from a vintage girl’s book for camping as a way to examine themes of performance, external judgment, self-assessment, and human/animal relationships. Movement depicted within individual images is magnified by a sliding door, which connects fragmented images and in turn obscures or reveals different parts of the overall composition.
Added on: December 13, 2023

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Common Objects of Mystery

2015
This video documents the print portfolio Common Objects of Mystery. See more images at: https://www.lisa-young.com/Common-Objects-of-Mystery-Print-Portfolio. Some years ago, I inherited many of my mother’s personal items. I began taking snapshots of them. During this time, I also photographed ordinary objects I would touch as part of my daily routine. The objects I selected are by turns personal, symbolic, and generic – representing the commonly used, and the outdated. As the project progressed, I began thinking about their varying degrees of technological obsolescence, and consequently their relationship to contemporary and archaic photographic practices. I took my digital camera into the darkroom. I exposed photo paper directly to its LCD screen, and printed a series of ghostly paper negatives. Then I scanned each negative and made 50 small digital prints, housed in a portfolio box. Lastly, I created a wall installation of large format Xeroxes. My “common objects” have been captured from life and translated through multiple cycles of digital and analog technologies. The resulting images often suggest something other than what they are, push the limits of legibility, or suggest surveillance, x-rays, or newspaper photographs - turning the familiar into the beautiful and the strange.
Added on: December 13, 2023

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Loving Kindness

2019
Loving Kindness juxtaposes figure skater Adam Rippon’s Olympic team final long program from the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics with excerpts from a traditional Buddhist Mettā (also known as loving-kindness) meditation. For many, participating in a guided Metta meditation counters a negative mindset by generating benevolence toward all beings. The practice often consists of repetitions of phrases such as "may you be happy" or "may you be whole", directed at an individual who may or may not be visualized internally. Figure skating, with its sequined costumes, cheering audience, and emphasis on competition might seem antithetical to meditation practice. Adam Rippon’s Olympic performance is positioned within that skating culture, where he exists as a spangled, triumphant global sensation and media darling, dazzling us with his humorous quips and theatrical performances to pop culture musical selections. Simultaneously, we know Rippon as a long-suffering Olympic hopeful who endured years of hardship on his way to becoming the first openly gay U.S. male athlete to win a medal at a Winter Olympics. His subsequent outspoken and articulate media statements reveal his nuanced understanding of the cost of participating in a sport and culture oppressed by hegemonic structures. With a Mettā meditation as the audio track, Rippon becomes the external visual in a remix that intersects deep spiritual study, self-help, pop culture, rehabilitation, and forgiveness.
Added on: December 13, 2023

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Lyra Angelica

2004
Lyra Angelica uses a split screen format to juxtapose four performances of figure skater Michelle Kwan’s long program titled “Lyra Angelica” (U.S. National Championships, World Championships, Olympics, and Good Will Games). Although Kwan’s skating begins in synch, skating speed, small choreographic changes and mistakes generate a montage of performances that fall in and out of time with one another. The accompanying sound mix combines televised commentary taken from each of the four performances, creating a composite narrative that explores cultural definitions of beauty, perfection, success and failure.
Added on: December 13, 2023

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perfect/imperfect

2001
This video documents the flipbook perfect/imperfect, edition of 100. See more images at: https://www.lisa-young.com/perfect-imperfect. Using footage from the World Figure Skating Championships perfect/imperfect depicts a female figure skater attempting two difficult triple jumps during her long program. As the viewer flips through the pages on each side of the book, the outcome of each jumping pass is revealed.
Added on: December 13, 2023

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Drives

2008
Drives is a compilation of hundreds of 3-5 second shots edited from televised professional golf footage that capture the ball in mid-air. The movement of the perpetually falling/flying white ball against the blue sky is seemingly random, yet structured by a system (the order in which the drives were made).
Added on: December 13, 2023

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Practice

2006
The subject of practice is a golfer on the putting green. The golfer’s obvious skill keeps the viewer engaged (will he make or miss his shot?) This tension exists alongside the hypnotic rhythm of his repetitive actions, his solitary figure within the beauty of the landscape, and the touches of subjectivity that enter into the piece through his body language or utterances (sighs, “umms”). In this way, practice represents aspects of both mastery and vulnerability, and becomes a metaphor for the cycle of success and failure inherent in attempting anything difficult (sports, art). Viewing practice, like practicing itself, requires time, patience, and offers its own type of quiet reward (the antithesis of the highlight reel).
Added on: December 13, 2023

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Calendar

2000
The 365 individual photographs that constitute "Calendar" softly fade into one another, collapsing 12 months of time into a 12-minute video. (See also Calendar Installation).
Added on: December 13, 2023