ty burdenskiinformation contact
 ^

featured projects

Studies for American Idle public art 
Summer 2026
Studies for American Idle is a collaborative work made with Maia Chao featuring individual pediastrians alongside identically-dressed doppelgangers. The performers carry out choreography drawn from two sources: the everyday movements of tourists in Times Square and the looping gestures of 3D figures animated in crowd-simulation software, a tool used to predict and regulate how people move through public space. 

Showing simultaneously on a majority of the screens in Times Square everynight from 11:57pm – 12am during the month of August 2026.

> RUNTIME: 3 mins.
> FORMAT: 92 Absurd Digital Screens
> WEBSITE: Times Square Arts

Taking in the Tailors
short film 
Summer 2026
Taking in the Tailors is a 16mm film capturing the sounds, textures and stories of a disappearing generation of skilled tailors surrounding Baldwin Fine Leather and Fabric on 4th Street in Philadephia.


> RUNTIME: 10 mins.
> FORMAT: 16mm Film
> WEBSITE: Taking in the Tailors


Paper Moon Palace
short film 
Summer 2026
Paper Moon Palace

As European settlers in America revolt against the British Empire, three aristocrats maintain a sense of normalcy at their estate.

> RUNTIME: 10 mins.
> FORMAT: 4K Digital


BTS from filming on location, summer of 2025

Those Who Wait
experimental feature film
Spring 2024
Those Who Wait is a poetic retelling of the Millerite doomsday movement that swept across America in the 1840s. The film follows the town of Portland, Maine as its residents navigate waves of apocalyptic prophecy and disappointment. Mixing the genres of historic re-enactment with fantastic parable, this queer gaze into the colonial past explores the powers and perils of "believing it's over." 

> RUNTIME: 73 mins.
> FORMAT: 4K Digital
> WEBSITE: Those Who Wait Film
>PRESS: Philadelphia Inquirer, Portland Herald, Portland Museum of Art, Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art
 
Chani Bockwinkel & Ty Burdenski present Those Who Wait at the Portland Museum of Art Jan. 19, 2024




Drift (Tributary)video installationSummer 2023
Drift (Tributary) is a video installation made in collaboration with artist Karyn Olivier as part of her solo show at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York entitled How a Home is Made in the Summer 2023 and was selected to be independently featured at the 2024 Malta Biennale.

Filmed over the course of a month at a waste management facility in Philadelphia which sorts the byproducts of new and old construction in the city into recyclable and landfill-bound materials. 

> RUNTIME: 28 mins.
> FORMAT: 4K Digital
> WEBSITES: Karyn Olivier, Tanya Bonakdar



Legend of Isais
short film
Fall 2023
A demigoddess called Isais unknowingly sparks jealousy between a Templar Knight and his squire after appearing to them in an apparition. 

> RUNTIME: 14 mins.
> FORMAT: 4K Digital

Thanks to Rockland Woods Artist residency program and the Fall 2022 cohort for helping produce this experiment in melodramatics. 
 



a Phonebookpublication and video seriesFall 2019-Summer 2022
A weave of conversations about historic, systemic and everyday challenges to staying put in Philadelphia. a Phonebook conversations with owners and workers of small businesses and community spaces across Philly about staying power and the logistics of holding space in the city.

RUNTIME: Various (2-4 minutes / pages per subject)
FORMAT: Miniseries / Print
WEBSITE: a Phonebook Digital Series




signs of an edictexperimental shortSpring 2016
"Signs of an Edict" is a film experiment playing in and around dance cinema traditions. Towing the line between internal and external notions of justice, a familiar figure seems subject to unfamiliar forms of trial. As the body moves through landscapes and characters, can these notions of justice be taken seriously?

> RUNTIME: 18 mins.
> FORMAT: HD Digital
> LINK: signs of an edict

muddled media, 2025philadelphia, pa