Mark Amerika’s CODEWORK is one of the featured works at the Blink! show at the Denver Art Museum. Amerika’s CODEWORK (2003-2004) is exhibited in the main gallery on the first floor of the museum along with work from Nam June Paik, Bill Viola, Stacey Steers, Bruce Nauman, Bjorn Melhus, and Christian Marclay.
CODEWORK is a self-contained, multi-media installation that includes digital projection and 5.1 surround sound.
CODEWORK centers around two figures, an artificial intelligence known as the “Digital Thoughtographer,” and a disembodied woman whose scripted voice-over telepathically communicates with this alien shadow figure. Amerika’s painterly video style is synchronized with the 5.1 surround sounds which are made in collaboration with the sound artist Chad Mossholder and utilize the voice-over of Berlin actress Jutta Wolfert.
Amerika developed the abstract motion image sequences after having toured Japan and Europe as a VJ in museums, universities, festivals, and techno-clubs. The video source material comes from footage shot in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Hawaii and the Australian Outback. The soundtrack was developed in close consultation with Mossholder who uses Wolfert’s vocals, scripted by Amerika, as well as sounds captured on video and other manipulated sources, to further intensify the experience of watching the trancelike images being projected on the wall inside the black box the installation takes place in.
