Press Release:
"Friedrich Petzel gallery is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of Seth Price. In Seth Price’s third show with Friedrich Petzel Gallery he screens music videos made to accompany two upcoming vinyl records, one of which debuts this January (Honesty, from Audiovisual Arts (AVA).
The music was recorded by the artist, and includes ghost stories just recently written and narrated by Mr. Price, tracks originally included in videos by the artist from as far back as 2000, and pop songs from many years between. The music videos were originally posted to Youtube this past fall.
One of the earliest ways to watch movies was individually, by stepping up to peer into devices like Edison’s Kinetoscope. Acknowledging this history as well as the fact that, a century’s worth of cinema later, computers have returned much of our viewing to a solitary pursuit, Mr. Price has installed his videos in individual viewing booths so that a person may enter, press play, and watch a piece in its entirety.
Mr. Price has worked with music and music video before, most prominently with his ongoing Title Variable project of mix-tapes and essays (2001—), and in the 2001 video lecture New York Woman, which considered the role of producers and production technology in electronic pop music.
Edison has also been a preoccupation; the inventor’s patents on electric, telephone, and movie equipment (all necessary ingredients for a web-distributed video) have appeared on Mr. Price’s sculptures, and in his video Redistribution (2007—). A metal plaque in the current exhibition, mounted by the light switch, features Edison’s patent on the electric bulb: don’t forget who copyrighted the power!"
In 2002 a friend gave me a US military reel, which I raided for footage and re-edited here.
The track was made in the fall of 2010, using recordings from a 2003 voice experiment that I never figured out what to do with.
I videotaped this footage off a film I saw in 1999. I wrote and recorded the story this winter.
I shot the video in March, 2001. I made the song shortly after 9/11.
I captured the footage in 2002 and never knew what to do with it until this past fall.
The song was another one that I made soon after 9/11, I think I finished it early in 2002.
I got this online, soon after the Tsunami, but again it didn't seem like anything I could possibly use, until recently.
I recorded the song in 2000 or 2001.
I first told this story in 2002, during a story-telling performance at Ocularis.
The video is more Jihadi footage gathered in the months after 9/11, once again stowed away for some future use.
This track dates from 2002 or so. The footage is left over from material intended for my video Redistribution (2007—).
I shot this on Super-8 film in 2002. The track is from 2000, recorded in one take using the arpeggiator on a Sequential Circuits synthesizer.
