This exposition accounts for the 'Sāk vitt ok vītt of verǫld hverja' artistic venture that pivots on the broader North Nordic landscape and, in particular, on a certain geographic region comprising Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and the Sør Trøndelag and Nordland counties in Norway. The map on the right illustrates this region: the inner dark polygon indicates a broad area within which field work has been carried out by the author in situ and the outer polygon a much wider territory where data and prose are drawn from. 'Sāk vitt ok vītt of verǫld hverja' ascribes to a much broader (and rather ambitious) long-term artistic research endeavour. That is, the ‘hyper-constructive’ project, broadly revolving around a hybrid, maximalist, materialist, and eclectic landscape exploration that employs a wide array of tactics and that aspires the eventual production of alternative ways to know and to creatively engage with a place. On this construal, this exposition has two interconnected aims:
- to detail Sāk vitt ok vītt of verǫld hverja, and
- to introduce the hyper-constructive method and to demonstrate how it is concretely advanced on this particular instance.
Sāk vitt ok vītt of verǫld hverja has been realised on the occasion of Stories of Flights, Feries, and Fish (also known as 'nustories') programme that loosely and broadly revolves around stories of commuting people and fish, the Nordic landscape, its island complexes and archipelagos, its climate, and the various geophysical phenomena that forge the former. Several other artists —most notably Jørgen Teller and Jakob Riis— have pursued original artistic work in the context of nustories that, to some varying extend, also concern in situ landscape exploration. In the same context, the author has presented live multimedia performances in: Copenhagen, DK (twice); Tórshavn, FO; Bodø, NO; Århus, DK; and Malmö, SE. Performances of sort vary significantly in both content and structure. They all pivot on audio (synthesised and recorded) and data sonifications, while most of them also concern video/image that has been captured on location, expositions of physical objects, and text printouts. On a few occasions freshly cooked fishfood is served as part of the performance —this is a theme that generally prevades nustories and that is also encountered in the work of other artists. Relevant video documentation from the artist's performances at Nordic Music Days 2019 festival in Bodø NO and at 'in-discourse AB' in Malmö SE (an audio-only performance for a 24-speaker acousmonium system) appears on the right. As to be detailed in this exposition, the author has built a DIY instrument to facilitate performances of a sort. Sāk vitt ok vītt of verǫld hverja has also resulted into a full featured 67 minutes long cinematic movie, numerous instances of landscape photography, and miscellaneous other digital and physical artefacts. Audio field recordings and micro-compositions by the author (as well as by other nustories artists) are featured in a music album.
Having reached the end of this page, the reader is adviced to proceed to either hljōþs biþk allar helgar kindir or sāk vitt ok vītt of verǫld hverja.
Having briefly introduced the project, this exposition proceeds following a four page layout, each of which comprising a mixture of blocks of text, images, audio, video, data, and other digital artefacts that aid detail the project. The reader is then provided with an immersive multimedia experience that is very appropriate to the hyper-constructive method advocated herein. Different pages expose different aspects of the project with respect to background context, tactics for performance or field exploration, multimedia outcomes, compositional affairs, theoretical implications, and conclusions. Inspired by the poetics at play in Sāk vitt ok vītt of verǫld hverja, the four pages are named with excerpts from Völuspá (the best known poem of the Poetic Edda and probably the most important resource of Norse mythology), as follows:
hvers fregniþ mik hvī freistiþ mīn? (what have you ask, why are you coming here?) —this page, an Introduction to this endeavour.
hljōþs biþk allar helgar kindir (hearing I ask from the holy races) —background and context.
sāk vitt ok vītt of verǫld hverja (widely I saw over all the worlds) —method and creative tactics at play.
sēkuppkoma ǫþru sinni (now do I see the earth anew) —notes on composition, discussion and conclusions.
A linear reading through the exposition would proceed from this introduction, to an outline of relevant theoretical and empirical underpinnings, to a series of subsections and multimedia proofs regarding the particular methods and tactics involved, to compositional affairs and theoretical ramifications, to concluding remarks and notes for future work. Some some parts, are much more elaborate than others and in ways that do not necessarily favour a linear reading, however, so that even if it does make perfect sense to explore the four pages in the order given above different orderings are also possible. The author's suggestions on how the reader could proceed having reached the end of a page are given with links; readers should, nevertheless, fear not use the content and navigation features in the menu above to immediately jump to a different page at their own convention.
Once inside a page, the integral subsections and digital media may be explored in arbitrary fashions allowing for individuated and immersive encounters. Readers are encouraged to navigate the exposition on their own pace/style, spending more time with the material that better resonates their particular interests and maybe skiping altogether certain parts; it is always possible to return to some text section and to watch, or listen to, multimedia material later on. When appropriate, substantial supplemental material is given so that the claims made herein are properly supported and so that a hybrid academic/poetic elaboration is achieved.