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The interactive installation Exchange Fields brings together
video projections, sound, dance, poetic text, and sculptural objects,
thereby producing a multi-sensory environment and, in the words of the
artist, "enabling fields of meaning to emerge." The work was
created in collaboration with Dutch dancer and chore-ographer Regina
van Berkel, and was commissioned by vision ruhr exhibition, Dortmund,
Germany, in 2000.
Viewers are invited to take an active role in Exchange Fields by
interacting with furniture-like objects designed in relationship to
particular parts of the bodythe head, leg, hand, arm, or fist.
The viewer's monements trigger sensors and activate a series of video
images of related dance movements, choreographed by van Berkel. In addition
to the central video projection, images to the right and left show scenes
of industrial sites and processes. Accompanied by a sountrack and chanting
of Seaman's lyrics, reflecting on human-machine relations, Exchange
Fields creates a space that heightens sensorial experience while
stimulating viewers' interaction with objects around them.
Bill Seaman received a Ph.D. from the Centre for Advanced Inquiry in
the Interactive Arts, University of Wales, Newport; a M.S. in Visual
Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and a B.F.A.
from the San Francisco Art Institute. He is a self-taught composer and
musician. Currently, Seaman is professor and head of the Digital Media
Department at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Seaman's works have been featured at numerous festivals and museum
exhibitions around the world, including the World WIde Video Festival,
The Hague, Netherlands; San Sebastian Film and Video Festival, Spain;
the Berlin Film Festival, Germany; the Guggenheim Museum, New York;
the Wexner Center, Columbus, Ohio; and the Barbican Centre, London.
Exchange Fields is lent by Museen der Stadt Dortmund. Coordination
and technical assistance is provided by 235 MEDIA, Cologne.
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