The Golden Seed

Tamiko Thiel, 1991
Source: Tamiko Thiel, 1991

Tamiko Thiel

The Golden Seed , ongoing
Co-workers & Funding
Tamiko Thiel, 1991 (Shown for her Diploma in Applied Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich, 1991). Produced at Track-Five Studios Munich, with kind assistance from Marcus Busler, Hans Braun and Axel Weber. (Note: the video has also been shown under the names: The Golden I, The Golden Eye, Das Goldene Ei, The Golden Egg)
Documents
  • The Golden Seed
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  • The Golden Seed
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  • The Golden Seed
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  • The Golden Seed
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  • The Golden Seed - video
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Description
The Golden Seed is a single-channel video, a moving votive image that celebrates the cycles of fertility: birth, death, regeneration. In its installation form: A dark passage leads into the underworld. In a low cave, light streams from a votive image moving slowly within a golden frame.
Imagery:
Thiel is fascinated by the symbols that remain powerful even as the overlying belief system changes. In the Russian Orthodox church, gold is the symbol of light, immortality and divinity. The egg - and the damp, dark earth - are symbols of fertility and the cycle of birth and death. As the artist developed the work into an installation form, the visual and symbolic associations between the video and the pre-Christian Eleusian Mysteries - the Demeter and Persephone myth - became stronger. She began to see the video as a "seed" that could be planted into different settings, a video votive to enduring concepts of human cultures.
Keywords
  • aesthetics
    • intermedial
    • uncanny
  • subjects
    • Art and Science
      • psychology
    • Arts and Visual Culture
      • allegory
      • nude
      • symbolism
    • Body and Psychology
      • bodies (animal components)
      • death
      • sexuality
      • skin
    • History and Memory
      • Antiquity
    • Media and Communication
      • electronic media
    • Religion and Mythology
      • creation
      • mythologies
      • religions
      • spirituality
    • Society and Culture
      • interculturalism
  • technology
    • software
      • video (digital)
Technology & Material
Display
4x3 screen
Hardware
As video projection: projector with 4x3 proportions and good speakers. As installation: video player, monitor with 4x3 proportions, small loudspeakers with good dynamic range.
Installation Requirements / Space
Installation: black dome tent accessible through a low opening or a tunnel leading into the tent from a doorway, sand to cover the floor.