“Seismik” by Herman Kolgen

Title:

Seismik

Artist(s) and People Involved:

Creation Year:

2014

Medium:

Audiovisual performance

Artist Statement:

Seismik is a dazzling, tension charged performance that taps into seismic waves, frictional resistance and the Earth’s tremor related phenomena in real time. True to Kolgen’s temporal/ spatial conceptual preoccupations and radiographic approach, he again renders the invisible visible: he has developed sophisticated software that picks up on the Earth’s magnetic fields and seismic activity from São Paolo to Kyoto, in turn generating abstracted sound and dramatic visual motifs. Exploring the ambiguity of realism in post human landscapes, Kolgen creates three-dimensional simulations through the instability of dynamical systems and converts them into large scale cinematic visuals. A dramatic display of terrestrial activity, Seismik plays on notions of physical, cerebral and emotional tension, in this case using vibrational data and vertical through-lines to explore seismic strains and fractures of varying intensities, planting the audience squarely on terra (not so) firma.