Robert Seidel
(*1977) is an experimental filmmaker and projection artist based in Germany. He started studying biology at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena; 2004 Diploma in Media Design from the Bauhaus University Weimar.
Robert Seidel began studying biology, but went on to gain a media-design diploma from the Bauhaus University Weimar. His films have been shown in art museums as well as at more than 250 festivals (Prix Ars Electronica, onedotzero, Dotmov, etc.), and honoured with prizes such as an Honorary Award at the KunstFilmBiennale and the prize for Best Experimental Film at the Ottawa International Animation Festival.
Source: IdN
Blurring the traditional lines between film-making and animation, his organic and ebullient work teems with an almost living energy as he studies the shapes and patterns created by an environment and then overlays that with his own graphic style. The resulting mix, an other-worldy visual evolution of nature and technology, is always beautiful and shockingly unique. They are so rooted in experience that they seem familiar, but at the same time we know we're looking at something we've never seen before. It's almost jarring, but incredibly so.
His latest work is no exception. Human Paint is a stunning new identity for England's Channel 5, while Dream Mountains was commissioned by Hong Kong’s IdN Magazine for part of its upcoming anniversary.
Deservedly so, Seidel is also part of the motion design dream team that have created pieces for Universal Everything's amazing Advanced Beauty HD-DVD project. Seidel's contribution, Appearing Disappearance, is crazy beautiful.
Continuing to push and innovate, this year Seidel took his work off the screen and into the real world. In Processes: Living Paintings he projeted a 15 x 36 metre projection onto the side of the Phyletics Museum in Jena, Germany. Transferring his swirling, elemntal style from animation into light, he created an installation of strobbing, rippling, shifting colour.
Source: shape+colour
Could you tell us about yourself including your background?
My name is Robert Seidel, I'm from Jena, a small university town in Germany, where I studied one year Biology before doing my diploma in media design at the time-honored Bauhaus Weimar. I'm an experimental filmmaker and projection artist torn between art, science, computers and nature's beauty resulting in the name of my website.
How did you start making films?
My dad introduced me to computers quite early, but he ensured that my brother and I don't play games only. So I began to paint digitally, wrote little fractals applications and later got into 3D. With these technical skills I started to do animation at Bauhaus, but there were no classical animators around, so I had the freedom to develop my style and express very personal stories.
Could you tell us about the concept of your works?
I'm doing organic, semi-abstract animations that have a certain complexity and connect with the viewer on an emotional level. It’s mostly transported by something that gets more beautiful with every viewing, only because you see different layers – like a person that gets more precious over time. But the films also need this time as well, they are no flashing video clips or screen savers like some people think.
I'm interested and fascinated by a lot of things, which I try to combine in my movies. First there is nature in all its form and beauty. Second, the possibilities the computer has to offer, especially the way to recombine and undo things are an important part of my working. The third source is fine arts (Marcel Duchamp, Dieter Roth, etc) and experimental filmmaking (Jan Svankmajer, Maya Deren, etc), which really got me thinking how to develop new spatial and temporal concepts to evoke a certain emotion in the viewer. In the end the beholder itself has become a very surprising part to me – how people react and what stories they unfold for themselves is really helping me to understand a lot of things. But I still have to learn a lot…
Source: SHIFT