Bill Seaman
Picture GalleriesBill Seaman received a PH.D.
from CAiiA, the Centre for Advanced Inquiry In
The Interactive Arts, University of Wales,
Newport, 1999. He holds a Master of Science in
Visual Studies degree from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, 1985. His work explores
an expanded media-oriented poetics he calls
Recombinant Poetics. He employs technological
installation, virtual reality, non-linear video,
and other computer-based media for this body of
work. He also explores photography, linear video
and studio based audio compositions. He is
self-taught as a composer and musician. Seaman
is currently a professor in visual studies at
Duke University where he is exploring Recombinant
Poetics and Neosentience Research. This includes
research into the development of a new
computational paradigm — Electrochemical
Computing. Major new art works include
Com<->Space with the Korean Graphic
Designer Yeong-woong Cheong, a major
architectural/generative video installation
presented at the SK Building (Seoul, Korea)
though the auspices of the Nabi Art Center, 2007.
In 2008 he premiered The Architecture of
Association in collaboration with Daniel Howe,
which was commissioned by the Museum of Image and
Sound [MIS] in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He is also
coauthoring a book with Otto Rössler on
Neosentience. Seaman was formerly the founding
Chair of the Graduate Digital+Media Department,
and Graduate Program Director at Rhode Island
School of Design.
Detail
of
Major WorksSeaman's works have been
in numerous international festivals and Museum
shows where he has been awarded prizes from Ars
Electronica in Interactive Art (1992 &1995,
Linz, Austria); International Video Art Prize,
ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany; Bonn Videonale prize;
First Prize, Berlin Film / Video Festival, for
Multimedia in 1995; and the Awards in the Visual
Arts Prize. Seaman was given the Leonardo Award
for Excellence in 2002 for his article —
OULIPO | vs | Recombinant Poetics. He has been
very active as a writer/ media theorist since
1999. Selected exhibitions include 1996,
Mediascape Guggenheim, New York; the premiere
exhibition in 1997 of the ZKM in Karlsruhe,
Germany; 1997, Barbican Centre (London); 1997, C3
- Center for Culture & Communication,
Budapest, Hungary ; in 1998, Portable Sacred
Grounds, NTT-ICC Tokyo; Body Mechanique, The
Wexner Center, Columbus, Ohio, 1999. He presented
a major solo show at the David Winton Bell
Gallery at Brown University – Exchange
Fields (working in conjunction with the
dancer/coreographer Regina Van Berkel) presenting
furniture/sculptures, video and sound. This work
was initially commissioned by Vision Ruhr
exhibition, Dortmund, Germany.
PublicationsSeaman
contributed a video set for the production of
SLEEPERS GUTS by William Forsythe and Ballet
Frankfurt. He was also commissioned by the
National Gallery of Canada for the interactive
work Red Dice / Dés Chiffrés which
was purchased by the National Gallery of Canada.
The work was featured in a show sponsored by the
Langlois Foundation in Montreal. A second
Dance/Installation work with Regina Van Berkel
is entitled Inversion. This work toured through
Europe visiting three locations – The
Holland Dance Festival, The Steps Festival in
Lausanne Switzerland, as well as a special
premier exhibition of the work in Cologne,
Germany. Seaman has ongoing research with Mark
Hansen (Statistical Computer Science) UCLA, and
Ingrid Verbauwhede, Electrical Engineering at
UCLA entitled The Poly-sensing Environment.
Seaman is currently working on a series of installations in conversation with the Scientist Otto Rössler — The Thoughtbody Environment. They are articulating a model for a neo-sentient situated robotic system. This suite of works explores issues of Neo-sentience, and in part the development of a model for an advanced electrochemical computing paradigm, observing the body on its deepest levels of functionality with the potential of developing a model for a sentient mechanism as one major goal. The work is taking didactic form through a series of research papers as well as poetic form through the creation of a series installations that include video works, music, poetic texts, drawings, working diagrams and large format photographs.
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