Telling Motions (1985)

Overview

This dreamlike, hypnotic work is structured in four sections, each of which repeats, in various permutations, key visual and verbal systems. Part One introduces the main theme — a poetic text, music, and a set of images that relate to language play in the text. The sections Key/Code, Translations and Adagio systematically translate and abstract these elements, as in a theme and variations. Images and spoken text are subtly interwoven in an insistent rhythm of sonic and visual codes, a language of "telling motions" and gestures: A gyroscope turns in a shaft of light, hands twist in slow motion, a figure signals with flags on a train track. Seaman writes that he "explores repetition and change based on context and treatment, (and) the relative nature of time."

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