peter campus' video work Interface is one of the most subtle, complex, and original video environments . It is entirely live, and the camera is not used as an extension of the eye but as an electronic information gathering mechanism. The work makes use of a sheet of glass held in a metal frame about six feet from a wall. Behind tire glass and to one side is a video camera connected to a video projector in front of the glass. The camera is aimed at the left side of the glass and the projector at the right side. When the viewer stands in front of the glass, under a light, his image is reflected in the glass at the same time that it appears, the same size, in the live, projected video image on the wall behind 'he camera. The viewer can move about in the space encompassed by the camera and carry on an information exchange with himself multiplied by three. The glass, on which the viewer's image is reflected, through which he is seen by the camera, and through which the video image is projected, is an intermediary between the viewer and himself. The environment is the space through which information is exchanged. The glass is a minor and a window; a surface, a plane, and an illusion : a kind of summarized contradiction of the dichotomy between the values of formalist painting and illusionism . It might be tempting to make formal parallels between Interface and Duchamp's Large Class, but the formal similarities of these two works are only incidental. They have a good deal more in common in that they both deal with metaphysical issues: one spectator said the Interface was like seeing the soul depart from the body.
