StandardVision Spotlight: Emotional Abstraction from Experimental Multimedia Artist Robert Seidel
Berlin-based artist Robert Seidel works in the fields of experimental film, installation, public art, image making, performance, sound, and curation. His works seek to reconcile the gap between fine arts practices, early experimental filmmaking and modern new-media manifestations, including video projection and equally experimental aural backdrops. For his film vitreous—currently on display on the immersive 8K lobby screen inside the US Bank Tower in downtown Los Angeles—Seidel incorporates vivid color palettes and abstract patterns which engulf the viewer in a kaleidoscopic blend of visuals. StandardVision recently spoke to Seidel in more detail about his multidisciplinary background and process.
SV: Your work incorporates and explores a number of mediums including experimental film, installation, public art, performance, and sound. How would you describe your work to someone who is not familiar with it?
RS: First of all, my work is best described to be abstract: I am not telling a story, but rather the person who looks at my art makes up a story of their own. I think it’s a very open way of engaging with people. In the beginning, my films reached a specific audience interested in experimental films and video art. They could relate to my work because they had knowledge about the history of the moving image. But when I expanded my practice into installations—especially large-scale projections—I found that the broader audience could relate as well and see the beauty and the sublime in these abstract-organic forms that did not resemble anything they had seen before. This emotional, almost animalistic impact is my goal when working in all these different mediums.
Robert Seidel’s tempest, environmental projection
SV: You refer to some of your works as “moving paintings.” Can you expand upon the ideas behind this form process and how you came to work in this way?
RS: In my childhood I was drawing and painting all the time and I never really knew when to finish, when a picture was done. So at a certain point I was afraid to add another stroke. Luckily the computer came into my life early on thanks to my father. I had the possibility to replay or to undo and rework an image until I was fully happy with it, so my interest in the layering of shapes, in the transfusion of gestures, and the diffusion of colors grew, even before I was aware of these specific terms.
When studying at Bauhaus University I felt that my early films were close to non-objective art—especially paintings by Wassily Kandinsky, Helen Frankenthaler or Cy Twombly—and I was using the term “moving paintings” trying to explore the potentials between visual abstraction and technology to create two-or three-dimensional motion. In recent works like sfumato I have even created installations where the film itself is in slow motion. So the audience enters the room, looks at the seemingly static work and walks around—and in the moment of return the image has completely changed. In the current part of my research these “moving paintings” became a hybrid between the process of an artwork and its “final” result.
Robert Seidel’s vitreous on the 8K lobby screen at the US Bank Tower
SV: With regard to your films, are there any particular influences (particular films, directors, movements) which have impacted your work?
RS: In my early days I was really fascinated by fairy tales and surreal animations from Eastern Europe, so my interest in unusual imagery was very primal. When studying I discovered Maya Deren, Oskar Fischinger and László Moholy-Nagy with their movies that could be watched over and over again, always revealing new details. I liked the idea that each viewer and each viewing creates new storylines—a new focus—and I wanted to adapt these ideas into my own experimental films. One of my teachers was very interested in my non-linear drawing process, so he recommended I capture it. This recorded “passage of time” also influenced my ideas and projects, the first notable film being E3.
Robert Seidel’s sputter, scanning electron microscopy
SV: I’ve read that you first studied biology early in your career. Can you tell us a bit about how these studies informed your current process?
RS: I was always fascinated by the infinite world and its multi-faceted view through the natural sciences. I grew up in Jena, a university town in Germany with a botanical garden, a natural history museum (where I had the honor to project my work), and the oldest continuously operating Planetarium since 1926. My father is a physics professor so I had an insight into the way a scientist works and found it highly fascinating, that challenges are solved with a lot of experts from all over the world. I’m still very inspired by the diversity of scientific approaches and the spirit of research to visualize something that is true but yet unseen. In my artistic practice I adapt some of these processes to create unexpected, abstract worlds that are coherent and hold layers of different timelines and memories.
Robert Seidel’s vellum at Cinema City Beirut
SV: Do you feel there are any recurring elements, concepts, or symbols in your work? Why are they important to you?
RS: Everything I create is based on my previous experiences, and it is a continuous refinement. The abstract forms grow organically and flow from my first film to my latest large-scale work. I try to refine my artistic language to connect to a broad audience and create an emotional impact for them. When working on installations I’m always motivated by the question: “What if I could re-create my experimental films in reality and use the physical world to infuse elements of complete unpredictability, like the weather?” For example, in the environmental projection tempest, a thunderstorm mixes with the artwork at random but it feels like it totally belongs there. I like to create things that have no inherent function—that do not tell a story—but expand our perception on the world.
Robert Seidel’s allegretto, visual music for Beethoven’s 7th Symphony
SV: Do you have any thoughts on the developments within or the future of digital and installation art, particularly as it relates to a post-COVID19 world?
RS: I’m more than happy that my work has been shown on StandardVision’s large-scale digital facades in Los Angeles, New York and Beirut, especially because most other exhibition spaces besides the Internet are closed. Even most outdoor projections have been cancelled, so I feel that there will be a need for art and life in general to “normalize” after the pandemic. But since the mutations of COVID-19 will be around for a long time, I hope we all find modes in which to keep art and culture around, to emerge from this big despair of the last months. The recent main stream attention of NFTs could fill a small gap, but I think an experience, a place, and a crowd have become more important than ever. Despite all this uncertainty I’m lucky that many ideas float in my head and I really hope that festivals and institutions survive, so some of these concepts can be realized in the near future…
SV: Any upcoming projects for 2021?
RS:I have several projects in development, but since the last year was very unpredictable I’m not sure if they will happen this year, next year or at all. To avoid this constant cycle of excitement and cancellation, I’m drawing more than ever—also to step away from the computer and get my hands a bit dirty. I hope in late summer or autumn some exciting things will happen. Stay safe and healthy!
Robert Seidel’s vitreous on the 8K lobby screen at the US Bank Tower
An excerpt of Robert Seidel’s vitreous is currently playing on the 8K lobby screen at the US Bank Tower in downtown Los Angeles. You can learn more about Robert Seidel and his work on his website or his Instagram.
