About this exposition

In-between is an artistic research project and a course theme as follow-up of a paradigm shift in communication. How we can understand nature, local and global relationships and how it influences  own design process ? Within this research project we aim to criticize and reflect on how we can “build and experience” space and time today. We address concept in the space of all dimensions and in a playful and intuitive way. With temporal expression and an unlimited use of tools, we examine and experience how we can design the space and time around us and how it designs us. With our temporal experiments we want to encourage reconsidered and sustainable perception.

Our theme for this paper is how we use and experience water and moisture in design and art. We will discuss how water and moisture can be active participants in the project development, how we can design with non-human- and non-manmade tools for new human experiences. With Newton‘s colour theory (refraction and reflection theory including incidental angles) as one starting point and immersive experience and participatory design as another, we will argue for that our experiments with refraction of light in liquid matter and moisture can help us to better understand nature’s, and our own, power and complexity. We will present three sub-projects where we are using water as a working tool for this artistic research project. These sub-projects experiment with how water can bring new awareness to our own identity and artistic practice through immersive experimentation and light’s refraction in water and moisture.

“The ultimate experience of water must be to jump into the water, knowing that the water will envelope your whole body” said Per Erik Larsen, 2nd year BA student at KHiB. And further asked how nature itself is communicating its complexity and how can water be explored as an active participant in Artistic research? This was his research question for his first In-between project in 2015. The project is an interactive artistic installation that observes the energy in water with an experience of floating shadows and dancing lights.

The second  project is about refraction and reflection of light through the moisture in the atmosphere. "The colour gamut’s in general  for the world is 48 percent compared to the humidity. This moisture and reflection, the colour of different colour depending on where you are in the world," I ( Charles Michalsen ) thought ,working as associate professor of Form and Colour by the Academy in Bergen. In 2013, I worked as professor of sculpture at the Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute (China), and at the same time with my research project about light , colour and location. I experienced colour as global and local phenomena and compared the perception and reality of colour between Jingdezhen and Spitsbergen (Norway). My research shows how colour in various geographical locations affect my design. From how science and communication are today, we can see areas' atmospheric differences regarding humidity, light and colour. It is a challenge professionally, I can not find an online web that can show me how a colour looks - on the basis of location , humidity, light and angle of the sun rays.

Could it get to a presentation of papers at Cumulus conference , help to move it from the search to a new research project?

The third sub-project is Rainy Bergen. In Bergen and Norway we are lucky to have plenty water, but sometimes it can be too much. Visitors to Bergen, in this case the creator of the project a 2nd year BA foreign exchange student from Germany Insa Hollenberg, can be overwhelmed that on average it rains 231 days and 1958 mm per year. Although rain can be connoted as annoying and miserable, we hope that by showing you the daily uniqueness of “everyday” rain and by encouraging you to immerse yourself in our graphic rain generator, that you see and experience the beauty of Bergen rain as ornament .

In these sub-projects we have also asked if we can create interactive rituals that encourage disorientation, reorientation and sustainable appreciation? Where, during liminal periods, identity and knowledge is in transition. And, can this enable us to reconsider our perception of water, moisture and ourselves?

But, instead of just analysing and abstracting, we also want to heighten your senses by experiencing colour and light as energies and variations of the physical world, by showing through our experiments, that water and moisture are both communication tools and designers themselves in-between and in both perceptive precipitation and reflective refractions.