INTERVIEW by Michael Mersereau | USA | 2025 

Duration: 00:04:28

“Interview”, utilizes a webcam side by side with my cloned voice and image as a performance in which one witnesses the displacement of the original into the superficial copy. This conversation between myself and my digital doppelgänger repeats variations of the sentence, “repeat after me. I am you, I am not you. I am your doppelgänger.” In response, my doppelgänger strains to recall my words, its performance failing through uncanny blinks and vocal stutters.

VIDEOGRAPHY, SOUND DESIGN, EDITING, PERFORMANCE : Michael Mersereau

CONTACTS / LINKS : https://www.michaelmersereau.net  @michaelmersereau 

Artist statement
As an experimental media artist, my work explores the intersection of sound, video, and film to create immersive experiences that challenge conventional storytelling techniques. I draw inspiration from the rich history of cinema, particularly the genre of horror film, to create works that provoke and unsettle the viewer. My use of sound is integral to my work, often incorporating experimental techniques such as field recordings and manipulated samples to create a disorienting and unsettling auditory experience. For instance, my work “Chorus” destabilizes broadcast media and collapses the boundary between the private display of emotion and public visibility through the FM radioband. Housed in a simple, battery-powered four-inch squared black box with an antenna and single blinking light during transmission, once the audio ends, the transmission cuts out, returning the listener to an empty band of static or regular programming. “Chorus” asserts that the voice exceeds containment. My video performance

“Interview” utilizes a webcam side by side with my cloned voice and image, in which one witnesses the displacement of the original into a superficial copy. This conversation between myself and my digital doppelgänger repeats variations of the sentence, “Repeat after me. I am you, I am not you. I am your doppelgänger.” In response, my doppelgänger strains to recall my words, its performance failing through uncanny blinks and vocal stutters. In both examples, I tap into absurdity, fears, and anxieties that have long been part of the human experience through the integration of sound, video, and film techniques.

Bio
Michael Mersereau (b. 1977) is an interdisciplinary artist from the San Francisco Bay Area based in Durham, North Carolina. He explores the boundaries of cinema and television genres, including horror, suspense, and soap operas, to create experimental sound, video, performance, and installations that elevate specific film production elements, resulting in absurd and uncanny worlds. Mersereau has exhibited internationally at museums and galleries such as Cordoba Lab, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca and Oaxaca Graphic Arts Institute in Oaxaca de Juarez, Mexico; The Diego Rivera Anahuacalli Museum in Mexico City; Eastern Bloc and Maison de la Culture Claude-Léveillée in Montréal, Canada; and Wassaic Projects in New York State. His videos have been screened at the Lausanne Underground Film Festival, The Torrance Art Museum in Los Angeles California, Traverse Video Festival,
and ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum in Denmark. He has performed at The Lab in San Francisco, Galerie B312 in Montréal, Sala Elia in Oaxaca de Juarez, Mexico, and Mills College Art Museum with choreographer and dancer Molissa Fenley. Mersereau plays guitar, electroacoustic music and Expanded cinema. He holds an MFA from Mills College and a BFA from California College of the Arts.He holds an MFA from the former Mills College and is an adjunct professor at the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of Art and Art History, where he teaches experimental video in the studio arts.

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