CONCENTRATIONS
- Date: 2009–2014
- Medium: Digital Video (7 parts)
- Format: UHD digital video files, color, sound
- Total Duration: ~23 minutes
[catalog entry]
CONCENTRATIONS is a seven-part video cycle that charts the dissolution and reconstitution of the self through ritual, reflection, and transformation. At its core lies a single consciousness—expressed in three shifting forms: a young girl, a man in a white futuristic suit, and finally a figure dressed in black. These incarnations are not characters in a narrative but evolving states of being, connected through space, gesture, and recurrence.
Each part of the series—numbered entries and interludes alike—enacts a different mode of internal confrontation. The early works are meditative, procedural. The girl journeys into a bunker and dons a suit; the man enters machines, undergoes bloodletting, watches himself watching. Identity is examined through loops and mirrored structures, reflection used not as vanity but as a technology of becoming. The world is sterile, slow, saturated with tension—but never inert.
As the series progresses, control begins to slip. Temporal fractures emerge. Perception folds. The machinery of transformation—centrifuges, helmets, viewing devices—disorients as much as it clarifies. The self becomes recursive, unstable. It breaks open.
By the final installment, the white environments have given way to a stark twilight world. Here, the black-suited figure crawls into the dirt, recovers something elemental—a jagged golden blade—and enacts a ritual of release. He cuts down bound bodies, gathers them, burns them. And in the firelight, the many selves of the journey finally converge. The observer, the observed, the original, the echo—they are all present. The cycle completes not in transcendence, but in combustion.
CONCENTRATIONS is a study in psychological architecture—of how identity is built, tested, collapsed, and renewed. It asks what is left of the self after the processes of reflection and refinement are carried to their furthest limit. It is about transformation not as a cinematic trope, but as an existential consequence.
Series Contents:
- PROLOGUE
- CONCENTRATIONS 1: [SOL(A)](NT)[RI]UM(BRA)REFLE[X(CT)ION]
- INTERLUDE 1
- CONCENTRATIONS 2: DOPP[L(E)R](L)REFLE[X(CT)ION]
- CONCENTRATIONS 3: CENTRIF[I(U)G(U)AL]EREFLE[X(CT)ION]
- INTERLUDE 2
- CONCENTRATIONS 4: DE[(TR)A(IL)]TH CA[ER(KENNT]IMO[NI]A(S)
Stills from the video series CONCENTRATIONS.
The series was collaboratively developed by installation and performance artist Edward Setina and video artist Jay Sims. Initiated in 2009 and completed in stages through 2014, the project originated from a series of performance-based concepts proposed by Setina—actions centered on physical thresholds and endurance—which served as foundational inspirations.
From there, the project evolved into a deeper collaboration. The general concepts for each video were jointly developed by Sims and Setina, before each artist took on more focused roles. Setina concentrated on production design, creating the elaborate sets, props, and costumes that give the series its distinctive visual world, and performed in nearly all of the films. Sims directed the shoots, designed the visual structures, and shaped each work’s narrative arc through editing. After the visuals were finalized, Setina composed sound for most of the films.
While the seven core works presented here were developed collaboratively, Setina later produced an independently authored fifth installment that diverged significantly in tone and structure from the rest of the series. He also created an alternate version of CONCENTRATIONS as a single film, in which the Prologue was removed, the six remaining original pieces were re-edited, and his solo-produced installment was positioned as the conclusion. While the edits to the original works were largely superficial, this version reframed the series’ structure and authorship.
The version documented in this catalog represents the original and complete edit of the series, and reflects the collaborative structure as it existed during the development and production of the project.
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