statement of plans for GUGGENHEIM fellowship and other stuff.
KAL SPELLETICH
STATEMENT OF PLANS
I build machines and robots that audiences are allowed to operate. All of the pieces are kinetic. Most are extremely dangerous and incorporate fire.
The main collaborators are the audience.
I re-appropriate technology, improvising with what I can obtain, for there is enough "stuff" in the world. This re-appropriation of materials and technology for application-less engineering attaches a political comment to the process, rejecting traditional economic systems and aesthetic values. In addition, the work gains symbolic and metaphoric depth by drawing on the previous histories of the materials.
American culture and society is becoming increasingly passive and risk free (partly because of technology). I use technology to put people back in touch with intense real life experiences. There is nothing virtual here. Fear of death brings about social change. As man conquers Everest and disease, he searches for other things, extreme sports, extreme lifestyles (i.e.: sex, drugs), extreme scholarship and extreme entertainment to challenge his mortality, to make him feel alive. This is euphoric, addictive, cathartic, therapeutic, fun and quite sexual. In the performances, volunteers are willingly strapped onto moving beds gripped by flaming steel jaws, they volunteer to interact with some machines naked and that require submission. I have been repeatedly told the machines gave them an experience like an intense sexual encounter.
I am not trying to humble volunteers with technology, rather empower them by putting the machines in their hands. I am able to make the volunteers a "star" in the spotlight (rock-star, diva, hero). I never operate the machines. I have already tested and experienced what the machines can do and am only interested in giving the audience (especially women) a real life experience, 'not a passive one, nothing virtual here. The volunteers are given the opportunity to operate and interact with the machines. They get the experience and THEY become the hero/star of the show, like an instant superhero/daredevil/Yogi. For they are the ones who conquer there fear and perform acts of superhuman endurance and fearlessness in front of a live audience. This approach shatters the barrier between passive audience and art (ist). This is my own form of telepresence. But there is a thin line between scaring off the audience and winning them over. By utilizing this technology and provoking their fear, a realization of something more important than this fear can occur. Thus the event validates and affirms their very existence enabling them to get in touch with their own mythic reality.
Participation in a piece becomes a rite of passage and theatrical much like a walkabout, Homer's Odessy, Confirmation, Bar Mitzvahs, hazing, drinking and sex as a teenager, play in a public arena, the journey into the long dark valley (as Johnny Cash calls it), when children are sent into the jungle alone unarmed and return adults. This ritualized experience siphons off aggressive energies, combating the collective response of fear, hatred and intolerance expressed in war, bigotry and other forms of mass psychosis thus becoming a form of therapy.
KAL SPELLETICH
STATEMENT OF PLANS
pg.2
I use Fear as a medium.
I have conducted over a thousand such experiments. Ninety-nine percent of the time the audience is clamoring to volunteer. People are quite ecstatic to operate the machines, sometimes running to be first; it is always a celebratory experience. The pieces become a form of interpersonal communication through touch and " force-feedback" technology, a project to explore intimacy and social interaction. In a fun, conceptual way the work attempts to generate the kind of enlightenment gained by some after near death experiences.
I have a live web-cam so people may log on and point and click to operate the machines and robots to interact with my machines and robots as well as 4 different pieces hooked up to different computers and programs. The Artificial Intelligence would store all interactive responses, remembering each participant and continually learning from each contact. This artificial intelligence will continually grow and change as it records more data.
In the future I hope to create machines that lure you to a spot, then send you off on a journey i.e.: Withdrawal and startle response. Example: Build a machine (installation) with an infinite learning curve (adaptive user-response model), and to keep building experimental systems to test out these ideas.
My hope is to participate in and help shape the inevitable goal of building machines with emotions that feedback from their volunteers (audience), engineer systems that exhibit intelligence, problem-solving skills, cunning, empathy, soul, and a genuine interest in one's human condition. They will listen and watch, converse and interact in other complex ways. I will install this in my 3300 sq. ft. warehouse in San Francisco and take it all across the US and Europe.
§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§
i was asked by the NATIONAL GOEGRAPHIC TV CHANNEL to submit something, 2004 being the year of the MONKEY and all I came up for a proposal for my MONKEY ON YER BACK ROBOT
i proposed to send it to AFRICA, Daniel Mckiney helped me write this:
MONKEY Kal Spelletich is an artist on a mission. Having created hundreds of fire-spewing sculptures for exhibit across the US and Europe, the acclaimed industrial artist has found a new calling -- bringing his hands-on, high-tech art to the birthplace of humanity -- Africa. The project, called "Monkey on Yer Back" is a robot worn as a backpack that interacts with it's wearer through biofeedback sensors to simulate the real experience of carrying around a small primate. Kal will take the interactive art piece with him to Kenya and trek to a remote valley, the historic home of some of the first human encampments, and demonstrate his robotic artwork to the locals. Residents of the near-by jungle, these are folks with plenty of real-life monkey experience. High-tech metaphor meets emerging culture in Africa. This off-beat, unusual story follows the charismatic San Francisco-based artist on a quest to create a "cross-cultural technological and cultural exchange" (Spelletich is the fire art guy we featured for National Geographic Today. I could use some of that great material as backstory in this piece to save some money and time.
Synopsis proposal for"THE VANISHING AUTHOR" My art consists of a performance where i allow the audience to operate machines and robots. The theme is addressed by allowing the audience to operate the art, the author takes a back seat. The performance is all about the volunteers, they shape how a piece evolves and can be interpreted depending on how they react, respond or interact. They are the heroes, conquering their fears being non-passive and interactive, truly experienceing something. Nothing virtual here, they become the author and more a part of the work than the artist. Participation in ritual puts you into a direct experience of mythic reality. Kalman Spelletich, 12/24/00 Performance Contract andTech Requirements for Seemen/Kalman Spelletich The performance is done in the round or from a stage, i walk to each machine, tell a short story description or anecdote and then ask for a volunteer. 1. 6-10 20 amp 120 volt electric circuits. 2. 16' of ceiling height clearance or more. 3. Double doors for load in and freight elavator if there are stairs. 4. Standard stage lighting, one follow spot and light person. 5. Standard house P.A. with 1-4 D.I. boxes and sound person. 6. 4'-6' of floor space in front of stage for mobile machines. 7. Load in time of 10-12 A.M. day of show or previous day if possible. 8. Tech helpers, 4-6 for load in, set up, tear down, clean up and load out. 9. Place outdoors for generator to run? 10. I am entitled to duplicates and copies of any film, video, photographs or audio tapes made of their set-up and performance. 11. Potential for access to regional "materials" or "supplies" 12. Adequate Publicity beforehand 13. overhead support beams or crane ? stage? We are flexible with everything In the contract depending on the circumstances. This is for my full show with lots of pyro and 12 machines.The best venues are warehouses that artists have where shows are sporadicaly or regularly held. Cement floors, tall ceilings, some nightclubs work, outdoors is great, rain alternatives needs to be factored in though, a PA is best at all venues. I say forget special insureance, if you or the venue are especially worried than we can draw up a release form and have people sign it before they enter. It can be viewed as a positive thing, even used as hype in a PT Barnum sort of way. We bring around 8 fire extinguishers. The fire is flexible according to each venue. Thanx so much for considering us, Kal Spelletich
Proposal from Kal Spelletich for an Artist-in-Residence. I propose to build "SMART" environment or rooms that read and interpret audience vital statistics with the room feeding back with appropriate outputs. These will be interactive biofeedback installation that a volunteers respiration/breathing triggers the floor and walls of a room the volunteer stands inside, the walls and ceiling move as volunteer breathes. There will be direct feedback between the room and the volunteer. It will be a synthetic system that exhibits behaviors characteristic of natural living systems. This output will be fun, physically, emotionally, psychologically and intellectually moving as well as life affirming, empowering and transcendent. I have built a piece somewhat like this proposal, I plan on fine tuning the respiration/breathing input as well as redesigning the output as a room. Other potential input experiments are ekg/eeg/voice/temperature). I am trying to develop a piece that will be able to interact with the world with the mechanical equivalents of sensory organs (eyes, ears) and limbs (arms and legs).
proposal for sf moma
Dear Janet, Catherine and Margaret. Enclosed please find a videotape in place of slides. I feel video is the only way to capture my interactive sculptures. Yes I sent a video. Yes I know you do not accept videos. Well times they are a changin. Nothing against photography. But it doesn't capture the essence of my pieces since they move and my audience interacts with them. So here I am on the fringe trying to convince you to consider my humble work through the technology of a VHS tape. I hope you will pop it in and give my work a chance. OR! Take a look at my website: http://www.seemen.org/ Yours sincerely, Kal Spelletich
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I propose to present a live interactive performance with 12 machines and robots emphasizing bio-morphic interfaces between the machines and volunteers. SEEMEN create situations where audiences are encouraged to interact and operate their machines and robots. Anyone who attends one of the performances has the opportunity to operate a machine. The work is always interactive, requiring a participant to enter or operate a machine, often against their instincts of self-preservation. We make the audience the star, super-heros, empowered not humbled, transformation through crisis, enduring and persevering while dealing with an intense machine. We attempt to help you encounter and deal directly with fear, play, rite of passage and transcendence. TO BREAK THE BARRIER BETWEEN THE ROLE OF A TRADITRIONAL PASSIVE AUDIENCE MEMBER AND THE ART AND ARTIST. TO build machines that test you faith, your strength and fears. Much like a snake handler/poison drinker. This pain and suffering gives you an awareness much like a Yogi. To become immortal. The latest pieces are using biomorphic interfaces between the machines and the volunteer. Attempting to bridge the gap between man and a machine we use voice activation, ekg(heartbeat), respiration(breathing, touch, lie detector(voice stress analyzer and movement to turn on and off the machines and robots. We allow the audience to have a real life experience, nothing virtual here. No two performances are ever the same. The actions of the robots poetically symbolize man's struggles and triumphs. Life/death, endurance, you look death in the eye, it is cathartic to operate military grade technology.... You get to run a machine that can help you witness your mortality. IT'S FUN! SEEMEN have toured European and America, always on a shoestring do it yourself budget. They have done massive scale performances for 7 years at The Burning Man Festival, and are the most active and innovative group from the San Francisco industrial scene. They have been featured in Playboy, Spin, Real Edge Magazine, New York Magazine, LEONARDO, assorted books, and a zillion websites. SEEMEN has been voted one of the top artists in the San Francisco Bay Area, and has been showcased on The Learning Channel, DISCOVERY CHANNEL, COMEDY CHANNEL, LOTS OF LOCAL SAN FRANCISCO SHOWS, PBS and on and on. LIST OF MACHINES: HANDS-finger activated mechanical hands KUNG FU ARM-human arm activated robotic arm fire shower SERBERUS-computer controlled roboic 3-headed dog PANTOGRAPHIC ARM-computer controlled robotic arm RINGOFFIRE-computer controlled cannons volunteer stands in the middle of. LEVITATOR- Deep breathe in and volunteer raises up 4 feet and halo flames up. EKG RING- Heartbeat activated pulsing ring of fire. ChewyHelmutt-jaw chewing activated helmet.
STATEMENT OF PLANS
I build machines and robots that audiences are allowed to operate. All of the pieces are kinetic. Most are extremely dangerous and incorporate fire.
The main collaborators are the audience.
I re-appropriate technology, improvising with what I can obtain, for there is enough "stuff" in the world. This re-appropriation of materials and technology for application-less engineering attaches a political comment to the process, rejecting traditional economic systems and aesthetic values. In addition, the work gains symbolic and metaphoric depth by drawing on the previous histories of the materials.
American culture and society is becoming increasingly passive and risk free (partly because of technology). I use technology to put people back in touch with intense real life experiences. There is nothing virtual here. Fear of death brings about social change. As man conquers Everest and disease, he searches for other things, extreme sports, extreme lifestyles (i.e.: sex, drugs), extreme scholarship and extreme entertainment to challenge his mortality, to make him feel alive. This is euphoric, addictive, cathartic, therapeutic, fun and quite sexual. In the performances, volunteers are willingly strapped onto moving beds gripped by flaming steel jaws, they volunteer to interact with some machines naked and that require submission. I have been repeatedly told the machines gave them an experience like an intense sexual encounter.
I am not trying to humble volunteers with technology, rather empower them by putting the machines in their hands. I am able to make the volunteers a "star" in the spotlight (rock-star, diva, hero). I never operate the machines. I have already tested and experienced what the machines can do and am only interested in giving the audience (especially women) a real life experience, 'not a passive one, nothing virtual here. The volunteers are given the opportunity to operate and interact with the machines. They get the experience and THEY become the hero/star of the show, like an instant superhero/daredevil/Yogi. For they are the ones who conquer there fear and perform acts of superhuman endurance and fearlessness in front of a live audience. This approach shatters the barrier between passive audience and art (ist). This is my own form of telepresence. But there is a thin line between scaring off the audience and winning them over. By utilizing this technology and provoking their fear, a realization of something more important than this fear can occur. Thus the event validates and affirms their very existence enabling them to get in touch with their own mythic reality.
Participation in a piece becomes a rite of passage and theatrical much like a walkabout, Homer's Odessy, Confirmation, Bar Mitzvahs, hazing, drinking and sex as a teenager, play in a public arena, the journey into the long dark valley (as Johnny Cash calls it), when children are sent into the jungle alone unarmed and return adults. This ritualized experience siphons off aggressive energies, combating the collective response of fear, hatred and intolerance expressed in war, bigotry and other forms of mass psychosis thus becoming a form of therapy.
KAL SPELLETICH
STATEMENT OF PLANS
pg.2
I use Fear as a medium.
I have conducted over a thousand such experiments. Ninety-nine percent of the time the audience is clamoring to volunteer. People are quite ecstatic to operate the machines, sometimes running to be first; it is always a celebratory experience. The pieces become a form of interpersonal communication through touch and " force-feedback" technology, a project to explore intimacy and social interaction. In a fun, conceptual way the work attempts to generate the kind of enlightenment gained by some after near death experiences.
I have a live web-cam so people may log on and point and click to operate the machines and robots to interact with my machines and robots as well as 4 different pieces hooked up to different computers and programs. The Artificial Intelligence would store all interactive responses, remembering each participant and continually learning from each contact. This artificial intelligence will continually grow and change as it records more data.
In the future I hope to create machines that lure you to a spot, then send you off on a journey i.e.: Withdrawal and startle response. Example: Build a machine (installation) with an infinite learning curve (adaptive user-response model), and to keep building experimental systems to test out these ideas.
My hope is to participate in and help shape the inevitable goal of building machines with emotions that feedback from their volunteers (audience), engineer systems that exhibit intelligence, problem-solving skills, cunning, empathy, soul, and a genuine interest in one's human condition. They will listen and watch, converse and interact in other complex ways. I will install this in my 3300 sq. ft. warehouse in San Francisco and take it all across the US and Europe.
§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§§
i was asked by the NATIONAL GOEGRAPHIC TV CHANNEL to submit something, 2004 being the year of the MONKEY and all I came up for a proposal for my MONKEY ON YER BACK ROBOT
i proposed to send it to AFRICA, Daniel Mckiney helped me write this:
MONKEY Kal Spelletich is an artist on a mission. Having created hundreds of fire-spewing sculptures for exhibit across the US and Europe, the acclaimed industrial artist has found a new calling -- bringing his hands-on, high-tech art to the birthplace of humanity -- Africa. The project, called "Monkey on Yer Back" is a robot worn as a backpack that interacts with it's wearer through biofeedback sensors to simulate the real experience of carrying around a small primate. Kal will take the interactive art piece with him to Kenya and trek to a remote valley, the historic home of some of the first human encampments, and demonstrate his robotic artwork to the locals. Residents of the near-by jungle, these are folks with plenty of real-life monkey experience. High-tech metaphor meets emerging culture in Africa. This off-beat, unusual story follows the charismatic San Francisco-based artist on a quest to create a "cross-cultural technological and cultural exchange" (Spelletich is the fire art guy we featured for National Geographic Today. I could use some of that great material as backstory in this piece to save some money and time.
Synopsis proposal for"THE VANISHING AUTHOR" My art consists of a performance where i allow the audience to operate machines and robots. The theme is addressed by allowing the audience to operate the art, the author takes a back seat. The performance is all about the volunteers, they shape how a piece evolves and can be interpreted depending on how they react, respond or interact. They are the heroes, conquering their fears being non-passive and interactive, truly experienceing something. Nothing virtual here, they become the author and more a part of the work than the artist. Participation in ritual puts you into a direct experience of mythic reality. Kalman Spelletich, 12/24/00 Performance Contract andTech Requirements for Seemen/Kalman Spelletich The performance is done in the round or from a stage, i walk to each machine, tell a short story description or anecdote and then ask for a volunteer. 1. 6-10 20 amp 120 volt electric circuits. 2. 16' of ceiling height clearance or more. 3. Double doors for load in and freight elavator if there are stairs. 4. Standard stage lighting, one follow spot and light person. 5. Standard house P.A. with 1-4 D.I. boxes and sound person. 6. 4'-6' of floor space in front of stage for mobile machines. 7. Load in time of 10-12 A.M. day of show or previous day if possible. 8. Tech helpers, 4-6 for load in, set up, tear down, clean up and load out. 9. Place outdoors for generator to run? 10. I am entitled to duplicates and copies of any film, video, photographs or audio tapes made of their set-up and performance. 11. Potential for access to regional "materials" or "supplies" 12. Adequate Publicity beforehand 13. overhead support beams or crane ? stage? We are flexible with everything In the contract depending on the circumstances. This is for my full show with lots of pyro and 12 machines.The best venues are warehouses that artists have where shows are sporadicaly or regularly held. Cement floors, tall ceilings, some nightclubs work, outdoors is great, rain alternatives needs to be factored in though, a PA is best at all venues. I say forget special insureance, if you or the venue are especially worried than we can draw up a release form and have people sign it before they enter. It can be viewed as a positive thing, even used as hype in a PT Barnum sort of way. We bring around 8 fire extinguishers. The fire is flexible according to each venue. Thanx so much for considering us, Kal Spelletich
Proposal from Kal Spelletich for an Artist-in-Residence. I propose to build "SMART" environment or rooms that read and interpret audience vital statistics with the room feeding back with appropriate outputs. These will be interactive biofeedback installation that a volunteers respiration/breathing triggers the floor and walls of a room the volunteer stands inside, the walls and ceiling move as volunteer breathes. There will be direct feedback between the room and the volunteer. It will be a synthetic system that exhibits behaviors characteristic of natural living systems. This output will be fun, physically, emotionally, psychologically and intellectually moving as well as life affirming, empowering and transcendent. I have built a piece somewhat like this proposal, I plan on fine tuning the respiration/breathing input as well as redesigning the output as a room. Other potential input experiments are ekg/eeg/voice/temperature). I am trying to develop a piece that will be able to interact with the world with the mechanical equivalents of sensory organs (eyes, ears) and limbs (arms and legs).
proposal for sf moma
Dear Janet, Catherine and Margaret. Enclosed please find a videotape in place of slides. I feel video is the only way to capture my interactive sculptures. Yes I sent a video. Yes I know you do not accept videos. Well times they are a changin. Nothing against photography. But it doesn't capture the essence of my pieces since they move and my audience interacts with them. So here I am on the fringe trying to convince you to consider my humble work through the technology of a VHS tape. I hope you will pop it in and give my work a chance. OR! Take a look at my website: http://www.seemen.org/ Yours sincerely, Kal Spelletich
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I propose to present a live interactive performance with 12 machines and robots emphasizing bio-morphic interfaces between the machines and volunteers. SEEMEN create situations where audiences are encouraged to interact and operate their machines and robots. Anyone who attends one of the performances has the opportunity to operate a machine. The work is always interactive, requiring a participant to enter or operate a machine, often against their instincts of self-preservation. We make the audience the star, super-heros, empowered not humbled, transformation through crisis, enduring and persevering while dealing with an intense machine. We attempt to help you encounter and deal directly with fear, play, rite of passage and transcendence. TO BREAK THE BARRIER BETWEEN THE ROLE OF A TRADITRIONAL PASSIVE AUDIENCE MEMBER AND THE ART AND ARTIST. TO build machines that test you faith, your strength and fears. Much like a snake handler/poison drinker. This pain and suffering gives you an awareness much like a Yogi. To become immortal. The latest pieces are using biomorphic interfaces between the machines and the volunteer. Attempting to bridge the gap between man and a machine we use voice activation, ekg(heartbeat), respiration(breathing, touch, lie detector(voice stress analyzer and movement to turn on and off the machines and robots. We allow the audience to have a real life experience, nothing virtual here. No two performances are ever the same. The actions of the robots poetically symbolize man's struggles and triumphs. Life/death, endurance, you look death in the eye, it is cathartic to operate military grade technology.... You get to run a machine that can help you witness your mortality. IT'S FUN! SEEMEN have toured European and America, always on a shoestring do it yourself budget. They have done massive scale performances for 7 years at The Burning Man Festival, and are the most active and innovative group from the San Francisco industrial scene. They have been featured in Playboy, Spin, Real Edge Magazine, New York Magazine, LEONARDO, assorted books, and a zillion websites. SEEMEN has been voted one of the top artists in the San Francisco Bay Area, and has been showcased on The Learning Channel, DISCOVERY CHANNEL, COMEDY CHANNEL, LOTS OF LOCAL SAN FRANCISCO SHOWS, PBS and on and on. LIST OF MACHINES: HANDS-finger activated mechanical hands KUNG FU ARM-human arm activated robotic arm fire shower SERBERUS-computer controlled roboic 3-headed dog PANTOGRAPHIC ARM-computer controlled robotic arm RINGOFFIRE-computer controlled cannons volunteer stands in the middle of. LEVITATOR- Deep breathe in and volunteer raises up 4 feet and halo flames up. EKG RING- Heartbeat activated pulsing ring of fire. ChewyHelmutt-jaw chewing activated helmet.