"Herakles and Torn Silk" (2021) by Hogan Seidel
“Using hand-made 16mm black & white film, direct animation, and analog and
digital layering, I have an exchange between my body, the natural world, and the myth of the
trans body. In this collage of image and chemistry, I reach out to the divine..”
Hogan Seidel is an interdisciplinary media artist working in the traditions of experimental film, photochemical abstraction, and collage. They examine queer, southern, religious identity through the plastic medium of celluloid. Torn from the swamps of Florida, Hogan now resides in Boston, where they live with their husband and dog, Meatloaf. Hogan’s 16mm films and expanded cinema works have screened at festivals such as London Experimental, Indie Grits, ULTRA Cinema, Revolutions Per Minute, Artifact, Saigon Experimental, FLEX, Fracto Experimental, and PRISME.
Trans Experimental, a group exhibition of experimental film and animation by trans artists in the greater Boston area, launches at The Sidewalk Video Gallery on February 14, 2021. The show, organized by Boston LGBTQIA+ Artist Alliance (BLAA), introduces a new artist each week. Experimental film deals with perception and abstraction and uses non-commercial techniques including photochemical abstraction, hand-painted animation, digital glitch work, and found footage collage. In this show, trans artists explore and find solace in practices of experimental film that are based on the re-collage, the tactical, the degradation, and the reclamation. Each work lends itself to reflection on the trans body and identity.