For me, the approach to working with video as a medium is to look at the project inter-dimensionally so to speak. The beauty the video, as an artistic medium, has is in its multiplicity: It is a painting – a moving painting, with picture compositional aspects and all the rational picture design elements. It is narrative, both linear and non-linear. It is light and dark interaction. An extra dimensional layer is the sound. The sound can be sculptural in its form audible or not. But a very vital part of the video as an art medium in my works is the installation of the piece. The video it self is for me serves just like the paint for the canvas; it is merely an ingredient for the whole. The piece is the installation; how, where and on what it is projected. I work with the space, the surrounding, the moment. The sound is a crucial element in my work. My video-installations are meant to be taken in as a “wholeness” interacting with the space and the audience.
A pivotal point of the Seyður–SNART piece was the mirror. I went to the local garbage recycling facilities in Seyðisfjörður where I worked on the project and found a mirror. The foundation of a SNART concept and approach is the reflection or mirroring. I scraped out the word negatively so only the letters maintained the mirror reflection. Then I placed the mirror hanging from a nylon thread in front of a projector that projected the Seyður video in the middle of the gallery space. Part of the video was reflected on the opposite wall and part was projected through the mirror-glass so that on one wall read SNART and the other TRANS. Part of the piece was the reflection of the mirror-glass that emitted the video lighting into the space in the middle of the room. Part was the video. Part was the readings on the opposite walls. Part was the mirror-glass hanging from the ceiling. Part was the pedestal, the projector and the speakers, located in the middle of the space and an important element was the sound that re-created the Nature-Zen meditative moments I experienced while filming the video and working on the piece in this quiet place in the East fjords of Iceland.
The Name Seyður is derived from the name of the town and means a broth – often in an Occult context.
