Benjamin Lotan

A two month undercover performance and research mission in Jerusalem.

What began as an honest inquiry quickly became a more performative investigation into the recruiting practices of the United States Army. Assuming the role of the ideal candidate I documented the relationship I formed with my recruiter, The Sarge.

Sprawling suburban landscapes are mirrored, combined, and stretched, extending upon the archetypical images of cul-de-sacs and stucco and creating something frightening and new. If our building patterns continue, could these be the landscapes of the future?

Landscapes from the road.

A walking path around the studio is sped up, traced, and layered to create a swarming human mass.

LightWall utilizes of a simple video feedback loop to create a fun and evocative art piece.

During a three month period of exploration in the Eastern United States, I produced an series of intaglio prints. Each print was made by fixing a glazed cardboard plate to my left foot and taking a walk in a new location.

Produced as a dance video, Dive is a loosely choreographed dumpster diving session in which performers rummage for good food deemed unfit for sale, and thrown away.

A small image processor made for design inspiration and joy, Pixel-Width Portraits exists as an ongoing photo series as well as a web application that allows anyone to upload and process an image.

Mini-performance gestures activate fringe urban spaces, imagining new activity protocols.

By back-projecting onto a white sheet covering my front apartment window, I created a large screen that was clearly visible from the street. Each night for a week, My roommate and I set up a live video feed from inside the apartment and shared our nightly activities with the outside world.

Text Message is an animated video short. A fragmented visual poem embracing the age of SMS and status updates.

A series of twelve photo collages. Each is composed of shots taken from beneath one of the 360° bubble cameras perched atop the 'Emergency' towers spread throughout the campus of the University of California, San Diego.

A pseudoscientific genetic exploration.

After first being installed in a San Diego cafe as a wall piece, this yarn and wire installation was then brought onto a university campus and repurposed as a public kinetic sculpture. In it's second form it made use of an air duct as a passive energy source.

The simple image of reverse consumerism, returns is a looping video piece shot outside of a Costco wholesale store in San Diego CA.

An expanding collection of abnormally large smiles.

Purely for fun and nonsense, and loosely based off the farfetched idea of rapid personal transport systems, these images depict a future world in which cars may drive themselves. In such a world, many basic rules of automotive design no longer apply.

For this four year performance, I enrolled myself in an ordinary high school and assumed the identity of a bright and entusiastic young student. Partaking in many of the classic high school activities, I spent four years attending classes and making friends.

I decided to arrange all of the cameras found in my apartment for a sort of 'family portrait'. The result became an interactive photo gallery in which each camera's 'perspective' contributes to the final portrait.

20 minute micro-performance with Shani Pak.

Massage Me is a 2-channel video installation with sound. Looping videos depict a pair of lips demanding--and enjoying--a massage.

Suicide is a durational performance in which I portrayed a suicidal individual. For one week I wore a special t-shirt and handed out postcards inviting people to join me for a public suicide event. I also recorded a suicide video, in which I explain the reasons why I decided to end my life.

AutoCombine consists of a small PHP script that searches through a folder of images and selects two at random to crop and combine into a single photo. The result is a simple tool to assist in unusual conceptualization and creative thought.

For this performance, I used a water pipe to smoke a concentrated form of the psychoactive herb known as salvia. Although salvia can have significantly more powerful effects than cannabis or LSD, it remains legal and unregulated in most countries. I produced a video of the resulting 15 minute trip, and the footage was emailed to the white house, as well as several members of congress.

A space used strictly for formal observation and research is re-appropriated as a site for nonsensical play and intimacy. The hour-long performance was looped and streamed "live" on the internet for a 24 hour period, allowing the performers to exist simultaneously live in person and online.

As a Calit2 research scholar, I developed several techniques for creating ultra-hi resolution 4K digital video using consumer technology.

Alice's yellow hair is isolated in each frame of the Disney classic.