Bio

Video artist and composer John Zieman creates large-scale multi-channel video installations. In1980 he helmed a multi-monitor live event at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), featuring his custom-built video synthesizer, with seven cameras, live music and art performances. After moving to New York in the 1980s, Zieman began a long collaboration with South Korean artist Nam June Paik, editing and creating footage with his synthesizer. 

Their work together culminated in Paik sending him on a lecture tour to the Kunst Academie in Dusseldorf, and the American Center in Paris, where he talked about his work, and reflected on the explosion of video art at that time in New York, with the advent of the music video.  

After meeting video artist Dara Birnbaum in 1981, the two began a four-decades-plus collaboration and friendship, with Zieman credited on many of her works. In 1982, Zieman’s work, THREAT, 1978, which featured his electronic sound score, was shown at New York’s Anthology Film Archives. His 1986 solo work, PORTRAIT OF A STATE OF MIND, premiered at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In 1995, Diane Keaton commissioned Zieman to compose music for her feature film, HEAVEN.  

In 2003 Zieman created HYSTERICAL MUSIC for composer Nico Muhly, and OCEANA for composer Paola Prestini. The two video artworks were projected onstage above the live orchestra for Lincoln Center’s concert series, VIA, and toured nationally.

Zieman premiered TIME SUITE, 2008, a cinematic projection installation, as a guest of the DIVA Fair (an art fair dedicated to digital art) and Bridge Art Fair. This first work, of his three- part, TIME SUITE SERIES, was followed in 2009 by, FIRST DREAM, which premiered at New York’s former Chelsea Art Museum.

In 2010 his work, TS3D (Time Suite 3, in 3-D), was shown in Stereoscopic 3-D at London’s Cynthia Corbett Gallery, and in theaters at the BEFILM 3D film festival. 

These works all shared Zieman’s novel technique of projecting animated type designs — literal moving light — onto the human body, which are then captured cinematically as a layered portrait. Shown together in 2011, THE TIME SUITE SERIES would be Zieman’s first solo show at White Box NYC, a non-profit contemporary art gallery and performance space in New York. 

Zieman’s nstallation, WEAPONIZED BEAUTY, 2014, a triptych comprised of three HD video channels, intentionally overwhelms the viewer’s peripheral vision, and premiered at White Box NYC. The artist’s newest work, OTOH (ON THE ONE HAND), 2026, further explores perception overload, with two channels of 4K imagery, and the artist’s unique sound score.