study room studies

study room studies
2025. Variable(1-2) channel digital video. 7 minutes.

study room studies is a split-screen moving image work emanating from my participation in an online study site in which Woodring paints digital still lifes from temporarily unoccupied video feeds while a real time object detection algorithm called YOLO (You Only Look Once) erratically classifies objects from both the video feed as well as my painting. Each painting ends the moment a user returns to the feed, as does the artist’s proxy presence as human studier in their networked study room. This work sits with the divergent rhythms of human and machine learning at a relatively nascent time in artificial intelligence, as YOLO and artist demonstrate a convergent training in visual representation. The act of ingesting and performing knowledge with a body in space becomes increasingly dramatic in the face of waxing AI infrastructures. Owing their verisimilitude to moments of rupture and rest, study rooms studies brings the interconnected landscapes that hold these magnificently imperfect acts into focus.

Wide-angle documentation of a synced two-channel video installation in one corner of a white-wall, concrete floor gallery. Two floor-resting forty inch monitors lean on their respective catty-corner walls, connected by a Mac mini, video splitter and HDMI cables stationed between them. One screen (left) displays a video feed from an online study site of unoccupied bedroom and offices. The other screen displays in-progress digital paintings of those scenes.Medium distance install photo of a two-channel video installation in one corner of a white-wall, concrete floor gallery involving two resting forty inch monitors connected by a Mac mini and video splitter stationed between them. Each monitor leans on the wall behind it at a slight angle. The left screen displays a video feed of a bedroom with wood cabinets and bed in the foreground. The right screen displays an in-progress digital painting of the same scene.portrait-oriented film poster with the title "STUDY ROOM STUDIES" spelled out across two vertically stacked video/painting feeds reminiscent of virtual conference call software.

Screenings + Exhibitions

  • (forthcoming 2026) Drawing. Curated by Michael Caudo. Drew University. Madison, NJ
  • Face in Clouds, invisible ink. Curated by Zoe Cinel. Rochester Art Center. Rochester, MN
  • Nature Morte. Curated by Anna Kell and Joe Meiser. Bucknell University. Lewisberg, PA

Trailer: study room studies. 2025.

Description: One minute trailer for the single channel version of study room studies cycling through several scenes from the split-screen live action film. Screen-left documents the artist’s time searching for empty camera feeds on an online study site where participants willingly film themselves studying. Screen right documents the artist painting corresponding digital still lifes in Photoshop. Both sides of the screen are subject to a scouring object detection program that mis/labels and draws red and yellow boxes around various items from both the camera feeds and Photoshop document.