Research Catalogue

This research is rooted in nihilism, exploring how the contrast between materiality and spirituality leads to a radical way of perceiving existence. What does it mean to be unable to believe in "what's beyond"? What role does the body play in such an issue? Starting from philosophy, this debate finds expression through art and different iterations, attempts to face the consequences of nihilism.

Design for interactive art installation with urban regeneration proposal, as well as video about environmentalism and our technologically mediated private and public lives; installation catalogue design with photography and textual collage, 2021-2023. "There is a massive abundance of goods that end up in landfills. With such abundance of goods, no one should be deprived." Visitors will have to leave an unwanted item of theirs and take another to collect the installation catalogue. The installation will be monitored for this purpose. Designed with Wi-Fi light technology for agility training, the interactive floor in the entrance will be controlled by the visitors through a tablet computer that will allow them to select the difficulty level. The exposition offers a critical viewpoint to the contemporary gallery-mediated commercial environment by making reference to the non-monetary economies of artistic and cultural production. Art "is an instrument of war for attack and defense against the enemy". The enemy is whoever exploits their fellows out of egoism or personal interest (Pablo Picasso). With summary and questions about David Murakami Wood's article "The Global Turn to Authoritarianism", 'Surveillance and Society', (15), 3/4, 2017: 357-370.

In this exposition I invite you to reflect on a part of my artistic research: the screen capture. The aim is to reconsider this little-explored practice by artistically transforming original images through a double variations in post-production. In this artistic research I also use experimental software and unconventional methods to carry out images from videogames. At the same time these methods engage with the European regulations about copyright and American fair use policies. While the extraction of images from three-dimensional, copyright-protected spaces is often restricted, it can sometimes be permitted when used creatively.

Kunstens grenser. Prosjektet er både er performativt og diskursivt: Kunstliturgien er en undersøkelse av kirkerommets potensial som kunstarena og en utprøving av kunstens grenser og stedsforandrende kraft i kirkerommet som offentlig rom. Man kan si at kirken befinner seg i et estetisk vakuum. Dette eventuelle tomrom kan tenkes som et mulighetsrom. Kirkemusikerens performative potensial. Prosjektet er samtidig en undersøklese av kirkemusikerens performative potensial. Prosjektet innbefatter en ambisjon om å utvikle og utvide organistens rolle og utvikle en performativ estetikk for musikere, basert på egne erfaringer og kunstnerisk utvikling av rituelt musikkteater og liturgisk orgelspill. Utvikling av liturgisk musikk. Som del av det kunstneriske utviklingsarbeidet inngår samarbeid med et utvalg komponister- der vi i fellesskap vil utvikle musikalske material og konsepter, spesialskrevet for prosjektet og meg som utøver. Kunst og religion. Kirken var, en gang i tiden, stedet for kunst. Er det fortsatt slik? I lys av Reformasjonsjubileet i 2017, innehar prosjektet, på et overordnet plan, en refleksjon over spennet mellom samtidskunsten og kirkekunsten siden reformasjonen, i norsk kontekst. Parallelt er Kunstliturgien en undersøkelse og refleksjon over forholdet mellom tro og kunst, estetikk og religion. Prosjektet har også en spirituell og eksistensiell ambisjon: Kunstliturgien er en undersøkelse av kunstens transformerende dimensjon.

---

The Boundaries of Art The project is both performative and discursive: The Art Liturgy is an exploration of the church space’s potential as an arena for art, and an examination of the boundaries of art and its transformative power within the church as a public space. One might say that the church exists in an aesthetic vacuum. This possible emptiness can be understood as a space of possibility. The Performative Potential of the Church Musician At the same time, the project investigates the performative potential of the church musician. It includes an ambition to develop and expand the role of the organist and to cultivate a performative aesthetic for musicians, based on personal experience and artistic development within ritual music theatre and liturgical organ performance. Development of Liturgical Music As part of the artistic development work, the project involves collaboration with selected composers — together we will develop musical materials and concepts, written specifically for the project and for me as a performer. Art and Religion The church was, once upon a time, the place for art. Is that still the case? In light of the Reformation Jubilee in 2017, the project carries, on an overarching level, a reflection on the tension between contemporary art and church art since the Reformation, in a Norwegian context. In parallel, The Art Liturgy serves as an inquiry and reflection on the relationship between faith and art, aesthetics and religion. The project also holds a spiritual and existential ambition: The Art Liturgy is an exploration of art’s transformative dimension.

Having departed from the idea of exploring the subject of “childhood politics” and memory (topics that both Anja Suša and Dejan Kaludjerović have been interested in and invested in through their own artistic practices in theatre and visual arts, as well as in this collaboration), they soon found themselves caught up in the discussion about artistic mandates and the potential artistic format as the output of the research project. The discussion became so intense that it entirely changed the focus of the collaboration—from the content of the project to collaborative protocols—and finally landed in what is best described by Claire Bishop as the “Grey Zone,” which can also be understood as a liminal space between contemporary artistic practices in the fields of performing and visual arts. Coming from the ideologies of the Black Box and the White Cube, which have been further reinforced by many years of institutional practice that still revolves around the idea of formal artistic education and artistic mandates, the artists soon realized that they wanted to embark on the journey of reinventing themselves in the artistic field of the “other,” despite the lack of formal training or any previous experience. They tried to explore the possibility of entering each other’s art fields based solely on artistic experience, and not on any particular art training.

How can embodied listening be performed, from my ears (body) to yours? How are we (dis)oriented? ‘Braced under the heating sun’ is centred around listening to and documenting my childhood home and its aural particularities through processes of embodied listening. The project is based on my recordings and experiences there between February and March 2020 (bookended by the waning Australian black summer bush fires and the burgeoning COVID-19 pandemic). The house is made from wood and so bends with the weather. The wooden structure amplifies the sounds of our habitation. The house is located on the edge of a small town and next to a sugarcane farm in North Queensland. Although in a tropical climate it has no flyscreens, and air-conditioning in only one room. The windows are open all of the time to let a breeze through. Most evenings you can find green tree frogs, geckos and insects amongst other animals in or around the house. In this way nature (a wild exterior) pushes against and blurs into the home (an organised interior). It is never silent there, the sounds are a mix of all forces; human/animal, natural/industrial. For me, it resonates as a site that is connected to the world despite its rural location. In this house the “rhythms and cycles of the living and the immediate needs of every living being are highlighted and played out. It is where intensities proliferate themselves, where forces are expressed for their own sake, where sensation lives and experiments, where the future is affectively and perceptually anticipated” (Elizabeth Grosz 2008). In this audio paper, I discuss this installation work and my continued research on embodied listening.