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Bill 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, through technological installation,
virtual reality, linear video, computer controlled laserdisc and
other computer-based media, photography, and studio based audio
compositions. He is self-taught as a composer and musician. Seaman
is Chair of the Graduate Digital+Media Department at Rhode Island
School of Design where he is exploring issues related to the continuum
between physical and virtual/media space. Major new works include
the Hybrid Invention Generator, exploring a machinic
genetics. The work was a collaboration with Gideon May. This research
was funded by a gift from the Intel corporation. He produced two
site specific works, Epiphany/Zjavenie, an installation
with video, audio, text and street signs in Trnava, Slovakia,
funded through an Arts Link grant. He also contributed a physical
/ sonic / architectural / textual installation to the p0es1s show
in Berlin, Germany – the subtitle of the show was Aesthetics
of Digital Poetry.
Seaman'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
last year – 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.
Seaman 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.
He 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.
Seaman is currently working on a plan for a commission for the
The University of Oslo, Department of Computing. He is also developing
new digital works with David Durand – a Multi-modal relational
database for the Thoughtbody Environment, and is involved in another
collaboration with Daniel Howe – The Bisociation Engine.
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