Artist Lincoln Schatz was interviewed by the National Portrait Gallery's Warren Perry on December 11, 2012.  His work "The Network" can be seen on the NPG's third floor, in the exhibition "Contemporary Americans."

 

The Network, a video group portrait created by artist, Lincoln Schatz, is a new acquisition for the Portrait Gallery. Called a "generative portrait," this piece is a single-screen video that constantly recombines 89 interviews with politicians, scientists, innovators and scholars. 

 

The portrait includes people such as former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Emmy Award-winning journalist Cokie Roberts, Republican strategist Karl Rove, political heavyweight Vernon Jordan, congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and congressman Eric Cantor. The process included filming each person with multiple cameras during his or her 45-minute conversation with Schatz. 

 

As the The Network plays, multiple images of the person appear simultaneously. The software then combines the interviews by topic to transition to the next person. An accompanying 223-page book titled The Network: Portrait Conversations will be released the same day. http://www.smithsonianbooks.com/usersection/BookDetails.aspx?bid=368

 

For more, see our blog: http://face2face.si.edu/my_weblog/2012/12/the-network-a-portrait.html