--> Wednesday, JANUARY 8th, 2014 @ 7:00 PM
Two Films: Stack and Rajikon
Stack
Collaboration with Gavin Smith with Paul O’Neill as respondent
Corgarff, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Slow Prototypes collaboration series, Scottish Sculpture Workshop, Lumsden Scotland, 2012-13
10 min.
How can a collaboration between an incoming contemporary artist and a local artist-artisan happen beyond the default position of the first asking the latter to objectify an idea? How can the traditional hierarchical relationship turn into a collaborative one, with mutual input and affectation? In a curatorial arrangement, Daniel Seiple is invited to work with a reclusive woodcarver, Gavin Smith. The result is a cumulative process of semi-public co-operation, whereby ideas of publicness and hospitality provide imaginative and tangible potential. At the woodcarver’s house, the two men clear his barnyard of weeds and stack his untidy piles of wood in the form of a house. It is constructed around an inner-architecture, a tunnel and staircase, that reflects the psychological exchange between the two, and offers the practical benefit of being able to access the roof and observe the hills beyond.
A second installment of their collaboration will begin in February 2014.
Rajikon (Radio Control)
Moriya City, Ibaraki, Japan, 2009
30 min.
Just up from where the Tone River meets the Kinu River one-hour north of Tokyo, Daniel Seiple persuades a radio-controlled airplane club to reenact a WWII kamikaze attack. After two months of conversing with the plane operators, filming their dialogues and eventual crash, a video reveals the pervasive hold nationalism has on the individuals’ subjective consciousnesses. Seiple interacts with two distinct clubs. A hobby club flies scale models including WWII aircrafts such as the Japanese Zero and US B29. The oldest of their members witnessed a plane-to-plane Kamikaze attack as a young boy. The other group is competitive and shows more interest in making history, than discussing it. One club declines and the other takes up the challenge. The reenactment takes place on December 5th, 2009 in the Tone River.
Trailer: http://vimeo.com/25622173
