WARNING: CONTAINS VIOLENCE AND EXPLICIT LYRICS. NOT FOR CHILDREN OR THE FAINT OF HEART.
My contribution to Hvitsten Salong 2018. I had so much fun living in the forest for a couple of weeks and hanging out with all the groovy artists and musicians.
The summer of 2017 was very special. I lost ten kilos, worked out and swam in the sea several times a week, and hung out with a very nice group of people. We had so much fun and it was so special that we decided to make a big party at the end of the summer. 26 august. I took control and organised everything with a lot of help from my friends. Once again it was at 1857 and it was not a regular party, but like a little festival. The theme was physical strength and the central idea was the combination of techno and gymnastics on the pommel horse. This idea actualy originates from Rune Van Deurs, ten years ago at Moloch. It has stayed with me ever since. Imagine gymnasts moving to techno with strobe lights. Boom, boom, boom!
Once again we return to Hvitsten salong. As usual, the show was curated by Jon Lundell, and this time I collaborated again with my nephew, Kristian Castro. We went to Hvitsten one week in advance with camping equipment, food and a bunch of stuff to make art with. But without a single idea of what we were going to make.
Once we had gotten our bearings, we sought inspiration from the forest, trying to connect to the forest spirit. Our friend Dr. Christian Bull helped us by hanging out and dropping a bunch of inspiring mythological anecdotes. We went for a great trip in the forest, meditated in the garden of Edvard munch and ended up swimming naked in the sea. At the end of the evening inspiration came to us suddenly.
I participated on a group exhibition in february 2017 at Bergen Kjøtt called Papay Gyro Nights. It was curated by Serge Ivanov.
Not my photograph
I was asked to make visuals for Dirty Nun Techno Crew‘s concert at the danish Define festival. It is situated in Alison Koncerthall, which is a big concert hall in Sønderborg. This was quite an adventure, as I have never received a commission from another country before. Also this is not your average techno-act. These ladies don nuns robes and at their concerts there are always a big gang of followers dressed like nuns. I got very good vibe from them. They are not christians, but play with christian imagery. For me they represent the power of the Holy Ghost. An musical energy lifting the audience up to a level of collective ecstasy. With this as my source of inspiration I made a videoshow, a laser cross over the entire length of the hall and a special halo for them to wear.
Unfortunately I have no photos of this gig! I still wanted to post it here. A memory.
Check out Dirty Nun Techno Crew’s video on youtube!
Detail: Cocktail in a tube circling a litography by Asger Jorn and running along a tree branch
Once again Tony Christian Norum invited me to participate in a group exhibition. This time at the actual Munch Museum! The reason I got invited, is that he got invited to have a Late Night exhibition within the Jorn + Munch exhibition. He called it Chanting, all clamoring, chirping (Chiroptera), blaring elevator stops. Dings Tony is special in the way that he usually brings along an army of friends for his exhibitions. So was the case this time also. Since we had had so much fun making the drink-canon in Zurich, He suggested that I do something similar. I came out with this improved drink canon where the cocktail actually flies one and a half meters through the air inside the museum. I call it The Spirit Comes from Above.
After a lot of work, we finally released the VHS called VICTOR HR-3300 on the first of october 2017. To make it spacial, we made a big party at 1857 with live electronic music acts with FastFarwardEatsTheTape plus frends, screenings of all the videos and a lot of light and video effects for atmosphere. I was in charge of the video, but we got CRT-screens from several contributors with John Christian Gulliksen driving around and picking them up. It was a team effort. I hooked all the screens and projectors to the VHS. Carsten rented a great soundsystem, a strobe and disco lights and the overall effect was massive. As the party progressed, I started showing clips from my collection of lost and found VHS-tapes. The party climaxed with Roland Lifjell‘s magnificent techno-set. The whole room turned into a giant subwoofer and everyone started dancing!
I made this image for the cover of FastForwardsEatsTheTape’s VHS-videotape called VICTOR HR-3300. It is a digital collage of Carsten Aniksdal’s face together with samples from many 80’s movies that I used to watch on VHS. Yes, you heard it right, the album is released on VHS. A hommage to this lost medium that was such a big part of our childhood. Every song has a music video made by a friend of Carsten. I also made a video contribution.
I made a music video for FastForwardsEatsTheTape. It was made in a punk style, spending only 2000 kr and having a lot of fun along the way.
Read on and see the video >>
The highlight of the summer is for me Hvitsten Salong, an art festival situated between Son and Drøbak along the Oslo fjord. This little gem is the most beautiful little town of all the little towns in the entire fjord. Seriously, both Edvard Munch and Theodor Kittelsen had a house there. The experience is like no other. A weekend of art, concerts, nature, camping and the best people. It was curated by the eminent Jon Lundell. The summer of 2016 was a magical experience for all of us.
I made a little video together with Carsten Aniksdal with a contribution from Stina Högkvist. It was displayed in an old boathouse/bar on the pier. People viewed it as they stood in line waiting to buy beer. It was displayed on a vertical screen, so you gotta tilt your laptop on it’s side!
The concept was simple. We set up a metronome that was ticking throughout the shoot. Then Stina or I would make a movement using an object during four of those beats. The next person would make the next movement as a reaction to the last movement. Oh, and Petter Ballo dropped in!
Carsten filmed it and made the music. I directed and we did the post together.
On the 16 of June 2016, Petter Ballo, Christian Tony Norum and myself were invited by 1857 to make a performance in the legendary Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. It was part of the Manifesta 11 biennale. Petter made the poster and a giant aluminium head that serves wine through it two brain-halves. He also made a special barrel with a pump. My idea was a giant drink “cannon” to serve Gin Fizz directly to the audience through a barrel. Tony made a movie, several poems and a bunch of live painitngs. Everyone helped realising the cannon. The result was a happening that ended up as a wild party where the lines between audience and performer got erased.
Big thanks to Jenny Klinge for filming.
Photo by Carsten Aniksdal
I was invited by Petter Ballo to participate in a group exibition called Urkunsten (The Primal/ancient Art) in Hvitsten Salong. What an honor! But what to do when you have so little time to make art? You make it with lasers! After checking out the forest where we were exhibiting, I had the idea to make a laser pyramid. Some research was needed and I spent three days climbing in the trees. Finally I had the help of Kristian Castro to complete the installation. I was disappointed at first, but then it got dark and I switched on the smoke machine. Suddenly it was glorious! The title is Et tak for den troende. It means A Roof for the Believer.
I have long toyed with the idea of gathering a group of artists with the intention of making science fiction. We would not be bound by any medium, but would root our work in concepts developed together. Well guess what? It is becoming real and it is called The Office for Science Fiction. The starting point was the release of Atlaspunkt. It is an inspired science fiction poetry book written by Maria Dorothea Schrattenholz.
To show our support for this great event, some friends and I made stuff to make the release extra special and extra sci-fi. Carsten Aniksdal made music and video. Rudi Simmons made music he performed with Carsten. I made a videowall. It consists of eighteen ten inch screens that all show animated gifs with a science fiction theme. The idea is that this wall will be a source of inspiration and a referance point as it shows most of the key concepts existing in science fiction today. It is made up of hundreds of gifs curated around some loose themes. Each screen is unique and loops at around two minutes runtime.
Christian Tony Norum invited me to participate in a group exhibition he curated in Edvard Munch´s old studion in Ekely. I was honored and wanted to make something special. But I had so few days free for producing something! Luckily I had the 3D binaural camera I made with Kristian Castro. I was anxious to make something with it, so it was a perfect opportunity. But a video of what? The only idea I had to begin with, was an old idea from a shelved Spiderman musical performance. It was the brainchild of Rune Van Deurs and what fascinated me the most was his description of strapping toothpaste to his wrists to make the spiderweb effect. This stuck to my head and I built my movie around that.
During the last two years I have traveled to my studio in Leipzig whenever I could afford it to work on Saint Mummelmann. I am happy to announce that I have finally finished editing and making all the visual effects! I have learned a whole lot in this process. I even messed around with some 3D animation and particle generators. Ouch! Carsten Aniksdal is currently color grading it and making everything look nice. What is left now is the sound. I do not have many sound skills, so for this I have to apply for money to pay the foley artist and the composer, Ombeline Chadres.
Sometimes, while making an effect, strange images emerge form the process.
I like to make things together with my nephew, Kristian Castro. He is an art student and had couple of years in Oslo during which we did some projects together. The biggest project we did revolved around the idea of making a subjective 3D camera and showing the finished video on a stereoscope. We did some research and went for it head on. It seemed like a fairly easy thing to do at first, but I promise you it wasn’t!
For the third year in a row I have been a part of Jovialbiennalen. This time the little festival took place in Deichmanske Bibliotek on Schous Plass, Oslo. There were a lot of bands playing, all boked by Jørgen Sissyfus from Metronomicon Audio. One of the acts on the poster was “Los Castros”. Las Castros is Kristian Castro (my nephew), Alfredo Castro (my cousin) and I. Alfredo AKA Cutmaster Alf did a DJ set while Kristian and I made some kind of video-bonansa! We had a screen inside the castle-shaped bar showing funny clips related to the castle. We put a five old televisions on stage. They made simple squiggly circles that oscillated with the sound of the band. We had a couple of televisions hooked up to videocameras over the turntables so all could see CMA´s fancy scratching. We had a very wide projection over the stage showing the Jovial-banana and a lot of other strange stuff. We also had two projectors in the lobby that bounced off broken mirrors to create nice moody light effects. All in all we put in a ton of effort and were happy with the result. But, man oh man, were we exhausted afterwards!
I had the honor of being asked by Siljeholm/Christophersen to be head of animation on a Jordanian / Norwegian co-production. Is is called “Valley of the Moon†and is a stage production fusing contemporary dance, video and a story for kids. It is made using many of the same techniques as “Snik og Snokâ€, but this time also incorporating the floor as a surface to project video onto. “Valley of the Moon†is a story about freedom. A boy loves his pony so much that he keeps it prisoner. Luckily a few kata birds inspire him to change his mind.
KÃ¥re Saglien as Mummelmann in focused interaction with a fat bee.
Yep, it’s official. I have been working on Mummelmann for a coulple of months now. If you have not heard about this movie, you probably don’t know me very well, because it is a major deal for me. It is something I must do before I do anything else of magnitude. While attending art school, I had many strange dreams. I wanted to make a little art video based on these dreams. So, every morning before getting out of bed, I would write something from the dream I just had. Or make a drawing. Or a painting. I hung all this material on the wall and when I felt I had enough, I wrote a script based upon it. It is therefore quite strange and personal. To overcome this barrier I tried to make as coherent story as I could. With real characters, sets, costumes ect, ect. I started filming it in 2004 and I made everyone help me. People really put in a lot of hours and effort to help me make my dream come true! Alas, it never left my computer. I almost finished it, but then I had a hardisk crash that destroyed months of post-production. I was stupid enough in those days to not have a proper backup. Aaaaaargh! I tried finishing it later, but the realities of life made it impossible for me to get any serious time working on it. It has been sitting on my shelf for so many years. It is embarrasing. But now, as I have more fortune in my life and have set up a studio in Leipzig, Germany, I have that time and money to spend. I am doing it! I am editing and making several animated special effects. It is a lot of work, but it is really rewarding to see this old thing come to life again. This time it will be even better! The latest news is that The Caretaker has agreed to let me use his album called An empty bliss beyond this World as music for Mummelmann. It fits perfectly!
I used to work in a bar called Internasjonalen. Sometimes, if I am in Oslo and have the time, I still like to take an occasional shift there. To brush up the bartending skills, but also to stay in touch with the nice people that work there. These bartenders have a special vibe. They are all friends and hang out a lot. They are also a bunch of creative people and we have always talked about collabourating on some project. Sigrid Roholdt Tveiten finally decided to do something about it. She organised a small festival consisting exclusively of contributions from the people working in the bar. We called it Interfest.
Artists Steffen Håndlykken and Stian Eide Kluge run a special and brilliant gallery in Grønland, Oslo called 1857. It consists of a run down, little green house in Tøyenbekken that is actually quite nice on the inside. In the back of the small gallery space there is a door. Pass through it, and you are suddenly inside a enormous concrete hall. They have had very good exhibitions with a wide variety of international artists, but the winter is a difficult period for using the big hall. It is so big that it is impossible to heat. So, instead of making normal winter exibition, they decided to build a lighthouse instead. A lighthouse standing nine meters tall with a spiral stairway leading up into a tiny cinema. The light shining out of the room is not just a lightbulb, it is a videobeamer that projects seemingly random videos for 128 hours.
Some friends of mine had the idea of making a music festival called Jovialbiennalen. Jovial means goodnatured, festive and somehow happy. Many alternative bands were playing in Sound of Mu, MIR and Søndagbarn. I had a meeting with the søndagsbarn gang where we planned the event and ate great Duck confit. I engaged myself in the visual aspect of the festival. I wanted got make the festival go around and around. (In norwegian, “Ã¥ fÃ¥ festen til Ã¥ gÃ¥ rundt” means making the party go around, but also to be economically sustainable). As many things a possible should spin! So I made some spinning sculptures. Really just a bunch of readymades mounted onto motorised stuff like turntables. Oh, and a Wheel of Fortune!
I have been really busy the last five months working on Snik and Snok on the Moon. Frustrating at times, rewarding at others; it has been a real challenge, and a great learning experience. I have already writen about the start of the prosess, and about our trip to Jordan. Now I would like to illuminate a part of the building process in my litte studio at the best atelier community in Oslo: Grynerløkka Lufthavn. It is impossible for show it all, because there are hundreds of images, but I will roughly try to guide you through the process.
As part of our prosess with developing the Snik og Snok på Månen project, we had an eleven day residence in Amman, Jordan. Why should we travel to Jordan to make a show for kids in Norway? Well, Helle Siljeholm and Sara Christophersen have done several contemporary dance performances in the middle east and have great relations there. The National Centre for Culture and Arts, King Hussein Foundation (NCCA) offered us to use their great theatre hall for the developement of our project. In return we would hold a series of workshops for the in-house theatre company on how to create live performances together with video projections.
Yvo Warmers and me, AKA [!!!?] made a short documentary about the consciousness about capitalism in Leipzig, Germany. I made a website for the project, so that the participants could see the finished film when it was ready.
Hooray! I was accepted as a participant to a fabulous open space process in Leipzig, Germany called Platforma11.
Valerie Waldow, a positive, energenic, smart, superaware and superpolitical German woman told me about the underground in Berlin and Leipzig. She told about massive coalissions between culturally active people of numerous disciplines. That, exactly that, is the sort of activity that I am the most interested in. The more the merrier! She was working on a new experimental project with an international network, reflecting on the topics “art, politics and education†and their relationship to one another. I wrote an application. It was accepted.
I am collaborating with the dance duo Siljeholm/Christopersen on a wonderful production that blends theatre and dance. They (Helle Siljeholm and Sara Christophersen) have been looking for funding for a long time and have finally gotten it. We have started production and are having lots of fun.
For over a year ago I made some illustrations for the television series called “Hvem tror du at du er?”. It was directed by Ketil Karlsen, produced by Monster Entertainment and screened on NRK. It was a sucess! As the show now has been screened I am free to post my illustrations here.
I made some detailed drawings for the documentary Imagining Emanuel by Thomas Østbye. I was to make a drawing of a boat we didn’t have an exact descripion of. So I had to do a lot of research to find out the right kind of boat. Even then, I could not get hold of the blueprints for the actual real boat, so I had to make a realistic but fictuous design. Is this wrong? I don’t think so. After all the research I know that the ship Emanuel rode on was quite similar.
Carsten Aniksdal and me just finished making a music video for Karl Seglem. The name of the song is Old Movement. We recorded it in Oslo with a simple, but abstact, concept. Movement of random objects from one cut to the next. This way we hoped to surpass conventional logic and enter the surreal. Our budget was small as usual, but we got good help from friends. We invited them to bring an object, select a mask and spend half an hour with us and our Casio slow motion camera. Check it out!
It´s been a long time since I have updated my website! New things are happening and I am participating in various longer projects that I don´t want to show until all the parts are finished. Sorry! Anyways, I can show you a poster I made for the Critical Mass in Oslo.
Critical mass is a flashmob that has spread from San Fransisco to Oslo. Hundreds of bicycle riders meet and ride together throught the streets.
Click on the image to see the Poster!
I finished another painting. Three, actually! Wanna see photos of them?
I made a 10 second animation for the Natt & Dag award ceremony. It was specifically for the “Best Club Concept” prize. Click on the foto to read more and to see the video.
These past weeks I have been working for Monster on a historical documentary called “Hvem tror du at du er?”. It will air on NRK in 2010 and I am not allowed to reveal anything before then. Boy o´boy, am I exited about this project!
Scanpix called me up and asked if I wanted to draw some court drawings for them. I was surprised and flattered, naturally, even more so when I learned that the case in question was the famous and dreaded “Lommemannen” case. Read on…>>
I just finished five drawings for Stavn AS. They work with enviromental consulting and hired me to do something that is..
… a secret!
The 12’th of september is the opening day of the new club in town. It is an attempt to make a total concept activating as many fractions of culture as possible. For now we have a concert, dj, performance, contemporary dance, sculpture, lighting design, bar, disco, foto installations and several videos. The location is Dansens hus and we have a lot of great people involved. The organisers are: Ida Mary Cowell, Helle Siljeholm, Carl Nilssen-love, Sara Christophersen, Evelina Dembacke and me.
Click to read more and see the poster I made..>>
I was hired by SMFB to make seven drawings. I am not allowed to reveal anything about the assignment, but here is at least one of the drawings:
I have started the production of several paintings for a number of people. Here is the first finished one.
Jazzmontør asked me to make a whole bunch of drawings for an exebition about the town of Skien in the year 2030. Our goal was to make four short animated movies that each represents a path Skien can go down in the future. We slaved for ten days and actually managed to deliver on time. Puh!
I drew this to support the activities of my good friend Leif Richard Bones Egge who is very idealistic about electric cars. But he doesn’t like hydrogen cars because they are like wolves in sheepskin. Apparently they don’t pollute at all since water is the only waste product, but the production of their platinum fuel cells causes extreme amounts of polluting gases. The hydrogen car is really a crutch for the oil companies to lean on and is not a serious attempt to save the world. Electric cars is the answer! So beware of the Hydrogen monster!
Finished an Illustration for Utflukt an intellectual periodical aimed at literature, social issues an culture in general. My Illustration is for an article about Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1975). I hope it makes you wanna read the article. Buy the Magazine!
(Fun tip: Scroll, baby scroll!)
I finally got myself a new website so you can see what I’m up to these days.
