Max kazemzadeh, mfa, phd (Work & Research)

Visit Video Documentation: https://vimeo.com/34270736

Target Audience is a piece that converts the virtual first person shooter computer gaming interface into a real active live interaction between the person holding the gun and the rest of the gallery goers. Target Audience welcomes the viewer to pick up, point, and shoot an actual (de-milled) antique Third Reich “Irma” Machine Pistola.

The gun has been wired with trigger sensors and a video camera that feeds directly into a custom computer interface that responds by projecting real-time video taken from wherever the gun is pointed. When the person pointing the gun shoots, the crosshairs align and whatever is projected on screen is then covered in a animated red wash, and sound of war and the actual machine gun play through the speakers.

In some installations the projection is displayed on a two way screen so that spectators on either side can see where the gun is being pointed and who is being shot. At Studio 107, the real-time video was projected on the front window so that passers by outside the gallery could watch what was going on inside the gallery from the scope of a gun.

Materials: variable dimensions, computer, 1940’s 3rd reich machine gun (Irma), subwoofer, speakers, touch sensor, digital video spy camera

Press: http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2004-06-25/arts_feature4.html (to read article)