campus works with videotape and has proven himself one of the more ingenious handlers of that radically new and difficult medium. For one thing, campus uses color, a welcome relief from the banal black and white of other “video freaks.” For another, campus doesn’t hesitate to utilize trick photography and other boob-tube magic, avoiding the dowdy naturalism favored by video artists over the past few years. In campus’ tape piece 3 Transitions, a man with his back to the viewer stands against a wall and makes slits in it; he climbs in and out of the slits and literally appears to climb in and out of himself. A man also applies black cream to his face while revealing pieces of another similar face beneath. Finally, a man holds a mirror to his face and sets fire to it; the mirror goes up in smoke like old parchment. The existential content of campus’ work is more surreal than metaphysical, and it is campus’ recognition of video as a visual rather than a conceptual medium that sets his work apart.
