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TURNS OUT THAT the members of SEEMEN are relatively normal guys and gals--well, normal insofar as that word applies to guys and gals who have just startled three city blocks with a mock riot/conflagration/ blitzkrieg. A self-described "collaborative of art dropouts and machinists," the troupe has performed more than 150 times in the United States and Canada. Guided by an affable thirty- something machinist named Kal Spelletich, and Michael --------, SEEMEN began in Austin, Texas about a decade ago, as a kind of antidote to the predictable club scene. (Spelletich appeared in fellow Austinite Richard Linklatter's cult film, Slackers.) After moving to San Francisco, Spelletich and ---- cut their teeth in robotic chaos under the auspices of the semi-legendary Mark Pauline, whose Survival Research Laboratories (SRL) pioneered the art-spectacle of rampaging, haywire machines.
I have one simple question for them: Why? "Fear and danger is an art form," says Spelletich, munching on an ear of corn roasted along with veggie burgers over one of the many coal-fired pits on the lot. He isn't being San Francisco-pretentious; there is in fact something that people find appealing about the adrenaline-rush of synthetic danger and violence--whether it's a horror movie or a roller coaster ride. Or maybe it just brings out the ant-burning eight-year old in my gender. "Funhouse danger," Spelletich adds, and the threat of chaos, are something people seek out to balance the routine in their lives.
Yeah, but why rampaging robots? People are ambivalent about technology, he says. Machines can be benevolent labor savers, but they can also be destructive, unpredictable. SEEMEN apparently get off on tapping into that elemental fear of technology--Frankenstein unbound. "People are scared to death of machines when they don't do what they're supposed to do," says Spelletich.
Of course, there's no getting around the universal law of Beavis and Butthead: for males of the species, at least, the desire to see stuff blow up may be a genetic mandate. As Spelletich puts it, "To see a robot destroy something is incredible." This is true: Arnold Swarzenegger built an entire career around this concept. But there are also women SEEMEN, like Sirena, who bring a slightly different perspective to the flaming table. There's a sense of community in the anarchy, she says. "It's great to be part of the spectacle," she says. When they perform, the group becomes a kind of social machine, cooperating in unison amid the chaos.
Whatever the final analysis, a SEEMEN show will never bore you. And no one has ever been killed or seriously maimed at a SEEMEN performance. Yet.
For the lowdown on the next performance, visit the SEEMEN web page.
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