The Design of the Grip

THE DESIGN OF THE GRIP
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The Design of the Grip part 10
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The Design of the Grip part 9
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The Design of the Grip part 8
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The Design of the Grip part 7
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The Design of the Grip part 5
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The Design of the Grip part 4
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The Design of the Grip
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The Design of the Grip
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The Design of the Grip
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The Design of the Grip part 11
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The next period in Seaman's oeuvre employed video as a poetic technological vehicle, exploring sound, image and text relations within a slow pulsing hypnotic video space. Both linear tapes and video installations were produced. The tapes S.He (1983), Telling Motions (1986), The Water Catalogue (1984) (commissioned by the Contemporary Art Television Fund), Shear (1986), Boxer's Puzzle (1986) with Ellen Sebring were produced in this period. Central in all of these works was the artist's voice, delivering the text in either spoken or sung form. Two significant installations were produced - Water Wheel (1985), a seven channel installation presented through a circle of monitors, incorporating material from The Water Catalogue, and The Design of the Grip (1989), a nine channel video/sound installation with written related text. Significant in this installation was the concept of the "sound pun" - where one sound was used as "folie" for 9 different simultaneous images. In these early works film was shot and transferred to video exploring particular qualities of light, as well as choreographed landscape and architecture. Often texts in the work explored puns, word plays and poly-valent language. The material qualities of both film and video were manipulated for these works exploring both slow motion and pulsing stop motion techniques.