Ira Schneider

“In an effort to put different video artworks into separate categories, authors have come up with various solutions. Already in 1976 Ira Schneider and Beryl Korot observed three basic approaches to the video image: video in which the artist/performer is subject; video in which the environment is subject; and video in which the abstract synthesized image is subject.”

“Ira Schneider was a pioneer of video in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In his work with video installation and single-channel tapes, he explored the manipulation of time, interactivity and simultaneity as formal and conceptual devices. A participant in the landmark exhibition TV as a Creative Medium at the Howard Wise Gallery in 1969, he created several important early multi-channel video installations, including Manhattan is an Island and, with Frank Gillette...”

“Ira Schneider's 1974/2006 Manhattan is an Island was one example (of the surprises)... On 23 monitors mounted on unusually tall pedestals of varying heights, suggesting skyscrapers and evoking Manhattan, Schneider presented black-and-white video footage of people moving about he city, capturing the ceaseless intensity of life on the sidewalks and streets.”

“Eventually, I'd like one monitor at the North Pole, one at the South, and two at the equator, big monitors switching images back and forth.”

“The most important thing was the notion of information presentation and the notion of the integration of the audience into the information. One sees oneself exiting form the elevator. If one stands there for 8 seconds, one sees oneself entering the gallery from the elevator again. Now at the same time one is apt to be seeing oneself standing there watching Wipe Cycle. You can watch yourself live watching yourself 8 seconds ago, watching yourself 16 seconds ago, eventually feeling free enough to interact with this matrix realizing one's own potential as an actor.”