support:
CEC International Partners Artslink (www.cecip.org),
The Wexner Center Media Arts Program,
The Ohio State University,
US Embassy
Digital Media Department, the Graduate Division, Rhode Island School of Design (www.digitalmedia.risd.edu)
Ultraframe, s.r.g, Nitra

Project named „Epiphany“ (Zjavenie), is presented in two levels – as a video-installation in the interior of the Trnava Synagogue and as a conceptual, poetic text placed on enamel signs on various places outside the Trnava synagogue.

Project „Epiphany“, for which Bill Seaman assembled visual and acoustic material during his residency stay organised by Jan Koniarek Gallery in Trnava in August 2003 is a combination of image, text and sound, while the final work is an artist’s reaction to the particularities of the actual place.
Through the video Bill Seaman presents images – fragments consisting of the artistic treatment of the shots of various details of public space of Trnava – creating compositions, which refer to painting. Through his looking at the architecture, details of the building facades, industrial buildings, but also nature and human body we are able to see what we usually omit to see in our everyday life and that is a lyrical interpretation of the fragments of our surroundings.
Part and parcel of the 15 minutes video is also Seaman’s contemplative music, simultaneously flowing with the poetic texts in Slovak and English language. The Slovak version of the Seaman‘s text is a work by young poet and translator Martin Solotruk. Thus, the work gains the nature of a musical, visual and poetic composition. Dreamlike and elusive fade-over of these fragments in connection with a meditative aura of the synagogue evokes a metaphysical aesthetic experience.

Even a common passer-by who walks through the streets of Trnava (Halenarska Street, Zeleny Kricek, Stefanikova Street, etc) can see the enamel signs, similar to street-signs. The residents and visitors of Trnava can in this manner even outside the gallery rooms re-understand their own surroundings and re-find poetry in it, perhaps even to stop for a while and reflect upon the things between the „earth and sky“.

American artist Bill Seaman (1956) works in the field of digital media. He investigates the relations between the text, image and sound through technological installations, virtual reality and other media based on the computer technology. His works were presented at various international festivals, where he won eminent prizes (Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria; ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany; Videonale, Bonn, Germany; Film/Video Festival, Berlin, Germany). Currently, he is a head of the Digital Media Department at the Rhode Island School of Design (www.risd.edu), Providence, USA.

Exhibition duration: February 10, 2004 – March 31, 2004
Slovak version of the texts: Martin Solotruk

Special thanks to: Lora Berg, cultural attaché, Embassy of the United States of America in Bratislava Gregory J. Orr, (former) cultural attaché, Embassy of the United States of America in Bratislava Nancy Friese, (former) dean of Graduate Studies, Rhode Island School of Design Fritzie Brown, director, CEC International Partners Artslink and Jana Ruzickova, Marcela Lukacova, Dana Pekarikova, Martin Solotruk

For further information, please contact the gallery PR. Should you be interested in photographs, please specify their size and format preferred, as well as the address, you want them to be sent to.
PR: Barbara Bodorova, pr@gjk.sk.