mo ramblins.........
SEEMEN build machines and robots that a live audience can operate. This is an art that is a mix of robots, machines, sculpture, computers, science, inventions, audience interaction and storytelling. We are only interested in giving audiences a real life experience, not a passive virtual one.
We believe that vision, robotics, language, fear, bodily functions (Breathing, eating/chewing, heartbeat, talking, touching, sexual arousal, lie detectors, breathalyzers) are some of the keys to understanding something deeper than just technology. So we are using the organic human body and its bodily functions to operate robots (to trigger/turn them on and off). Hence to make the volunteers cyborgs. Humans themselves become part of "the Machine". To attempt to meld machines and humans to become one organism. We are margenalized people in technologically-enhanced cultural "systems", that there is a "system" which dominates the lives of most "ordinary" people, true artists are those who live on its margins, on "the Edge": criminals, outcasts, visionaries or those who simply want freedom for its own sake. Art as a form of subversion.
We aspire to make machines that are therapeutic, that are interfaces between man and robots, that use as a medium, fear, sexuality and submission. Experimenting with triggering the classic "fight or flight" response producing an adrenaline induced euphoria as you face and escape death. The same part of the brain lights up for both pleasure and pain (super hot foods, the "burn" from a hellacious workout, Giving birth, eating, gambling, recreational drugs, bungee jumping, skydiving, thrill sports).
We let our audiences;
Fire walk
Drive a jet fighter
White water raft
Skydive
Bungee jump into a volcano!
To attempt transformation-through-crisis. Some people choose pain and thrills. I am interested in what the value of this pain and these thrills are. Why do we choose it? Why does a Yogi? Where can this knowledge lead us? How can the mind transcend the limits of the body? Our brains are wired for all sorts of pleasure, even spiritual pleasure.
It is healthy to vent your aggressive behaviors, we allow you to do it in a poetic, conceptual way. As you fear death less your survival instinct grows stronger...you love life more. Like becoming enlightened after near death experiences, only we hopefully make these near death experiences conceptual and fun. A decent sexual performance is one of the most heroic acts that someone in this day in age, that is not prone to REAL adventure, can achieve in this life. We attempt to give all peoples ADVENTURE.
We are not trying to humble volunteers with technology, rather empower them by letting them operate custom made machines that can literally spin, shake, engulf in fire and sound, lift and throw you. We are able to make the volunteers a "star" by putting them in the spotlight. The work attempts to challenge both the applications of technology and the boundaries between the audience and performers.
In the end we are encountering our demons which are our own limitations. The machines and their interactions with the audience reinvent technology as its own antithesis—it is no longer the use of machines to replace people or do things they can’t, instead the machines facilitate the thing that only humans can do: feel.
I have always wondered what is important art right now at this moment of time. I think about 5-10% of the people are interested in non-mainstream entertainment, thrill seekers, gearheads, arty types, punk rockers/music scene people, outcasts and just people engaged with life. People whose existence is never threatened but they want it to be. People who are interested in the thin line between pleasure and pain. My work is always interactive, requiring a participant to enter or operate the piece, often against their instincts of self-preservation. How can the mind transcend the limits of the body besides hard labor or drinking and drugging all day ?
The humbling part I found was easy, too easy to just make the people go WOW! COOL! Or OOOOHH SCARY!! Stuff getting smashed and burned, that is ok but it is pretty basic and a fairly simple one-liner. To be in awe of technology is OK, but to be in awe of technology AND good concepts, now we are getting somewhere.
To have your animal self die off and you have been born again into a more sophisticated being.
I attempt both, to give people a cathartic release and to challenge their preconceptions of what art and art content can be. The key is to keep the aesthetic image connected to a narrative or concept. Feasting, celebrating, bingeing, drug abuse, alcoholism, violence, sex, the human condition breaking down and pulling itself back up, are all real life things that can shape and change lives. Like Carnival.
I think the real question is what needs to be done, what has to be done, that is how I decide what I am going to work on next.
To show rebirth, that point where I started my journey, then death & resurrection.
We are attempting to merge conceptual practices with more visual means. And it helps us grasp that artists aren't scientists, politicians, priests, or professionals. They're something else. And that something else is what it's all about.
, sacred pain
We believe that vision, robotics, language, fear, bodily functions (Breathing, eating/chewing, heartbeat, talking, touching, sexual arousal, lie detectors, breathalyzers) are some of the keys to understanding something deeper than just technology. So we are using the organic human body and its bodily functions to operate robots (to trigger/turn them on and off). Hence to make the volunteers cyborgs. Humans themselves become part of "the Machine". To attempt to meld machines and humans to become one organism. We are margenalized people in technologically-enhanced cultural "systems", that there is a "system" which dominates the lives of most "ordinary" people, true artists are those who live on its margins, on "the Edge": criminals, outcasts, visionaries or those who simply want freedom for its own sake. Art as a form of subversion.
We aspire to make machines that are therapeutic, that are interfaces between man and robots, that use as a medium, fear, sexuality and submission. Experimenting with triggering the classic "fight or flight" response producing an adrenaline induced euphoria as you face and escape death. The same part of the brain lights up for both pleasure and pain (super hot foods, the "burn" from a hellacious workout, Giving birth, eating, gambling, recreational drugs, bungee jumping, skydiving, thrill sports).
We let our audiences;
Fire walk
Drive a jet fighter
White water raft
Skydive
Bungee jump into a volcano!
To attempt transformation-through-crisis. Some people choose pain and thrills. I am interested in what the value of this pain and these thrills are. Why do we choose it? Why does a Yogi? Where can this knowledge lead us? How can the mind transcend the limits of the body? Our brains are wired for all sorts of pleasure, even spiritual pleasure.
It is healthy to vent your aggressive behaviors, we allow you to do it in a poetic, conceptual way. As you fear death less your survival instinct grows stronger...you love life more. Like becoming enlightened after near death experiences, only we hopefully make these near death experiences conceptual and fun. A decent sexual performance is one of the most heroic acts that someone in this day in age, that is not prone to REAL adventure, can achieve in this life. We attempt to give all peoples ADVENTURE.
We are not trying to humble volunteers with technology, rather empower them by letting them operate custom made machines that can literally spin, shake, engulf in fire and sound, lift and throw you. We are able to make the volunteers a "star" by putting them in the spotlight. The work attempts to challenge both the applications of technology and the boundaries between the audience and performers.
In the end we are encountering our demons which are our own limitations. The machines and their interactions with the audience reinvent technology as its own antithesis—it is no longer the use of machines to replace people or do things they can’t, instead the machines facilitate the thing that only humans can do: feel.
I have always wondered what is important art right now at this moment of time. I think about 5-10% of the people are interested in non-mainstream entertainment, thrill seekers, gearheads, arty types, punk rockers/music scene people, outcasts and just people engaged with life. People whose existence is never threatened but they want it to be. People who are interested in the thin line between pleasure and pain. My work is always interactive, requiring a participant to enter or operate the piece, often against their instincts of self-preservation. How can the mind transcend the limits of the body besides hard labor or drinking and drugging all day ?
The humbling part I found was easy, too easy to just make the people go WOW! COOL! Or OOOOHH SCARY!! Stuff getting smashed and burned, that is ok but it is pretty basic and a fairly simple one-liner. To be in awe of technology is OK, but to be in awe of technology AND good concepts, now we are getting somewhere.
To have your animal self die off and you have been born again into a more sophisticated being.
I attempt both, to give people a cathartic release and to challenge their preconceptions of what art and art content can be. The key is to keep the aesthetic image connected to a narrative or concept. Feasting, celebrating, bingeing, drug abuse, alcoholism, violence, sex, the human condition breaking down and pulling itself back up, are all real life things that can shape and change lives. Like Carnival.
I think the real question is what needs to be done, what has to be done, that is how I decide what I am going to work on next.
To show rebirth, that point where I started my journey, then death & resurrection.
We are attempting to merge conceptual practices with more visual means. And it helps us grasp that artists aren't scientists, politicians, priests, or professionals. They're something else. And that something else is what it's all about.
, sacred pain