12/2/13

SPECTACULAR MNEMONICON

Have just become acquainted with a blog written by old friend Norman Douglas @ Individual Electric.
See here:

http://individualelectric.blogspot.com

10/5/13

Mira Schendel, Tate Modern

A treat when in London last week was seeing the work of Mira Schendel in the retrospective exhibition at Tate Modern. Schendel is an artist I was not previously aware of - a European emigrée to Brasil whose work encompassed painting, drawing, collage, sculpture and installation. In particular her text-based works were striking examples of an art that floated somewhere between concrete poetry, typographic experiments, the practices of the lettristes and a form of abstract visual art in which layers of words, syllables, letters, symbols and graphic marks combine on surfaces that are both observed and read simultaneously.  Another stand-out work was an installation of hanging (nylon?) threads that formed a kind of cloud in the space, so that audience members at the other side of the installation appeared to melt into the material of the artwork.




9/17/13

ep / 4 / so

Images from my latest work, installed in the Kunnskapsportal (Knowledge Portal) at St. Olavshospital, Trondheim.  The work is entitled ep / 4 / so  (electronic paintings for St. Olav's) and consists of a series of short, semi-abstract visual pieces displayed on a large LED screen in the foyer of the research center. The videos were all conformed to the format and resolution of the screen which is 5.3 meters high  and 4.9 meters wide, with a resolution of 1408 x 1536 pixels. The video material was all shot on HD, then composited in Final Cut pro using a custom screen size to match the LED display. The imagery will be shown at fixed times each day. At other times the screen is used as an interactive display channel for information about medical research. The screen goes live on 25 September, when the building opens.


















New work: Tracings, installation in This Must Be The Place (pick me up and turn me round) at Kino Kino, Sandnes
















Tracings - installation consisting of black and white HD video projection onto a suspended screen, a colour LED HD monitor reflecting coloured light onto the wall, a small digital photo frame showing a colour negative verskon of the video displayed on the LED monitor, and a 35 mm slide series projected on the rear of the hanging screen. In the same space is a 12 channel sound installation by Trond Lossius, Signe Lidén and Morten Eide Pedersen, which complements and completes the installation. All imagery recorded in the mould stores of the former Spode ceramics factory at Stoke on Trent, UK, during workshops arranged as part of the art research project Topographies of The Obsolete.

Tracings is shown as part of the exhibition This Must Be The Place at Kino Kino, Sandnes, which has been realized within the art research project Re:place.

8/4/13

Graffiti in Cluj-Napoca, Transylvania

Graffiti in the old town area of Cluj-Napoca, July 2013. 





Sunday Afternoon

In Preci, Umbria, and reading "The Fate of Place; A Philosophical History" by Edward S. Casey.





Italy images August 2013

Monte Sibillini National Park

Red  flag and landscape

6/24/13

Acts of Observation

Acts of Observation..... Watch this disappear, a small publication containing short texts and photographs, is available as an e-book, downloadable from the Apple iTunes store. The material collected in Acts of Observation was generated over the period 2009 - 2012 in connection with an ongoing series of projects based on photographic explorations of various urban environments and phenomena. The primary focus has been on the ephemeral, the transitory, the overlooked and undervalued in everyday life and in culture.

The ebook can be accessed here:

Acts of Observation.



4/9/13

Light and shadow

More images from the ongoing collection of light and shadows. Bergen, April 2013

A voyage to the orient

shadow glass table

From exhibition opening at Visningsrom USF

3/9/13

Eschatology

Performing with Langham Research Center and Peter Blegvad at Landmark, Bergen Kunsthall, as part of the Borealis Festival 2013. The video projection was based on material shot in 2008 around the Thames Estuary and the Isle of Grain for a project being developed in collaboration with Robert Worby. The initial project idea was shelved and the material lay dormant for several years until Robert suggested it could be used as part of Langham Research Centre's commissioned piece for Borealis. The layered electronic composition, based on analog sources, combined with Peter Blegvad's multi-faceted text and the almost photographic stillness of the video material complemented one another extremely well, and suggested new ways I could work with this kind of video material in the future.

Eschatology, video footage of the banks of the Thames

2/22/13

Paradoks


The exhibition "Paradoks", looking at the first thirty years of video art in Norway, opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art on February 14. I am represented in the show with I.O.D., from 1984, a work that keeps getting revived. Made at around the same time as Scratch Video was impacting on the video art scene in London, it is composed from fragments of media and advertising imagery, mixed in layers and manipulated to boost the colour and the synthetic qualities of the electronic image. The video was based on an earlier work entitled "That Elusive Quality of Romance" that took the form og collages, 35mm slides used in performances and installations in the early eighties, a series of colour xerox prints (the forerunner of digital photography) and finally a video installation that was exhibited in the storefront of a JVC video shop in Piccadilly, London. I.O.D. has also been broadcast in a series of tv programmes looking at the growth of video art in the mid-eighties.

Paradoks includes a bi-lingual catalogue in which I have written an essay on the relationship between television and video in the history of video art. The catalogue is available from the National Museum bookshop.

Installation shot below. Photo courtesy of Bull.Miletic.


I:O:D: (1984)  exhibited as intended on a CRT monitor
Another earlier work, "The Dark, The Light" (1999), is currently showing within the exhibition "In The Collection: Marielle Neudecker" at Trondheim Kunstmuseum. A selection of Neudecker's works are exhibited alongside pieces selected from the museum's collection.


The Dark, The Light, together with pieces by Marielle Neudecker, Trondheim Kunstuseum. Photo Patrik Entian

2/11/13

Moving, Ålesund, concluded


Moving was a successful project, both enjoyable and inspiring. To see over 100 people on a freezing February night joining an art walk through a city to watch artists' videos projected on buildings was a revelation and a pleasure. All credit to the artist group Aggregat for organizing this event. Here are a few images, and there are more on the re:place blog.  Some other photos from Ålesund, not connected with the Moving event, have been added to the photo gallery.


Gathering for the tour of the city and the artworks - artists Hanne Rivrud Nansen and Helene Sommer

Some of the audience approaching the public library, site of the first projection

Please Note After Image (remix) by Jeremy Welsh - a version of the work first shown at Bergen Art Museum in 2010 as part of the BGO1 exhibition

In front of Hanne Rivrud Nansen's installation, being introduced by artist/tour guide Trine Røssevold