BILL SEAMAN

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BILL SEAMAN
Li-Ling Chen Eric Chau Peter Yao Gareth Cj.
Wee Paul Shih

• Recombinant Poetics
• Exploring Expanded Media

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Biography of Bill Seaman

• Born 1956 in Kennet, Missouri
• Education
• 1985
• MS Visual Studies
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
  Cambridge.
• 1999
• Ph.D. - Centre for Advanced Inquiry
• Interactive Arts at the University of Wales
• Where is he now?
• Chair of the Graduate Digital Media Department
  at Rhode Island School of Design

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Some of Seamans Major Works

• 1998Present The World Generator/
  The Engine of Desire
• Collaborated with Gideon May
• Virtual environment
• 2002 Hybrid Invention Generator
• Collaborated with Gideon May
• Generates a visualization of a hybrid invention
• 2004 Epiphany
• Installation with video, audio, text, street
  signs

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Continued

• 2000 Red Dice/Dés Chiffrés
• Installation/linear video
• 2001 Inversion
• Collaborated with Regina Van Berkel
  (dancer/choreographer)
• A dance/performance installation

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The World Generator/ The Engine
of Desire

• Published in 1996.
• Realm of virtual environments.
• Collaborated with programmer Gideon May.
• Users choices from a spinning virtual interface
  of container wheels, from a physical interface
  table.
• The wheels house a series of different
  media-elements processes

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The World Generator/ The Engine
of Desire

• Users can do World Processing
• Construct navigate virtual worlds.
• Edit alter virtual worlds.
• Attach behaviors to the media-elements.
• Apply still and movie texture maps.
• Make the media-elements transparent.
• A new sound mix (recombinant music) applies to
  different users.

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Importance Influences of Seamans Works

• Seaman refers his audience as vusers
• Vuser viewer/user
• Vusers are involved in the construction of
  meaning through interactive technology
• His works connect the old and newtechnologies
• A new form of poetry emerges from his works
• Digital media poetry called
  recombinant poetics
• Ex. an interactive installation of poetry called
  Red Dice

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• Seaman speaks in metaphor of eternal worlds and
  eternal words and of the life of variance,
  brightening the tunnel to endless possibilities
• - Adam Kaufman

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Reference

• absolutearts.com. (2000). Bill Seaman Red Dice.
  Retrieved Feb 8, 2008, from http//www.absoluteart
  s.com/artsnews/2000/08/10/27319.html
• Bill Seaman/Recombinant Poetics. (n.d.). Bill
  Seaman. Retrieved Feb 8, 2008, from
  http//digitalmedia.risd.edu/billseaman/
• J.P. (2001). Billy Seaman Red Dice / Dés
  chiffrés. Daniel Langlois Foundation. Retrieved
  Feb 8, 2008, from http//www.fondation-langlois.or
  g/html/e/page.php?NumPage150
• Kaufman A. (2001). Bill Seamans endless
  possibilities. The McGill Tribune. Retrieved Feb
  8, 2008, from http//media.www.mcgilltribune.com/m
  edia/storage/paper234/news/2001/03/27/AE/Bill-Seam
  ans.Endless.Possibilities-59057.shtml