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In the spring of 2019, Sølve Sæther and I traveled together with director Marte Gunnufsen to Chicago to shoot the short-film Metamorphosis. Our second collaboration together. If you’re in Oslo, Norway and feel like watching it on the big screen, be sure to visit Oslo Fusion Film Festival.
Season five of Arkitektens Hjem just premiered! I feel so lucky and proud to have been part of another season of this beautiful series, and to have worked with such talented people. If you’re in the country, feel free to check it out.
If it wasn’t already privileged enough collaborating with Vonrik Haug, we got our first gig warming up for Loud Matter at Østre in Bergen. Plug in your earphones and lean back.
Nine years since they last played together. Nine years since I last photographed them. Entirely acoustic, delicate and sometimes violent chamber pop. Have a listen or watch a raw segment.
Just returned from another spectacular weekend at Hvitsten Salong. This year’s contribution was another site specific installation; Ekko/Echo. Read more about it here.
Its finally out! The film I made to accompany the release of me and Steinar Engedahl Rossing’s experimental metal project, Lysmord. If you like what you hear, chances are you perhaps want to buy it!
Back after another week at Bergen Center for Electronic Arts. This time I had the pleasure of working with musician, Craig Wells. He is a sonic artist and researcher based in Bergen Norway. He completed a masters and PhD at Newcastle University in philosophy and experimental composition in 2014. Together we explored the sonic landscapes of modular, and sample-based beats. We are entertaining the idea of releasing some of it, but for now you can enjoy this random session we had at BEK’s rooftop one sunny day.
Edit:
Great news someone! We decided to release an EP on my affiliated label. It’s even out on Spotify already.
Great news! I was invited to participate at the Freaky Avant Garde group exhibition together with Anne Marthe Dyvi, Eirik Havnes and Admir Korjenic. And I also get to play a live set as part the Blue Rinse concert series!
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The term avant-garde is stolen from the military: the vanguard. Being part of the vanguard is about the mysterious foresight and tactics at the same time: a state of perceiving synchronously the alienated and familiar. In an artistic context, the term is used condescending or exalted, referring to deep hate or love, and it is here sound art fits beautifully in.
It is ten years since Lydgalleriet showed the group exhibition Zuper Klassik Freaky Avant Garde, where the starting point was to experiment with the noisy characteristics of sound art and the impossibility of curating an exhibition consisting of many sound art works. In response to the quotation «in the face of the Art, Silence is the only possible response», an exhibition was curated by people in Lydgalleriet's extended repertoire, with the idea that sound art was the freak of the art field.
Almost unsellable, yet very expensive, space-specific and space-consuming: sound art is still classic avant-garde, welcome to an audit, a new discovery or just another group exhibition that resists its own format: welcome to Freaky Avant Garde, with Carsten Aniksdal, Anne Marthe Dyvi, Eirik Havnes and Admir Korjenic. Blue Rinse same evening with live acts by Giuseppe Pisano, Mariam Gviniashvili, Adivan (Ida Nerbø & Ivan Paulsen) and Arthur Hureau.
Exhibition open from 05.04 –28.04
Its finally done and the sound sculpture lives! It premiered during the All Ears festival this past weekend, and was displayed on three different locations, following the festival around.
The sculpture consist of an audio piece loaded unto a usb-stick inside the cube (two outlets, as the other functions as a back-up). The audio piece is constructed from recordings taken under the process of making and destroying of a identical concrete cube.
This will be the only available copy of the audio piece, and will be available to the public via live performance or experiencing (or even buying) the cube itself.
My good friend Espen T. Hangård just released his debut album on Galleberg Forlag, and asked me to shoot his press photos. I also joined Are Mokkelbost, Spykidelic and him for two live shows - one in Oslo at Hærverk and the other in Tønsberg at Galleri Galleberg. My live performance was video documented and audio recorded if you feel like some eclectic electro sounds.
Director in charge, Charlotte Thiis-Evensen, together with architect, Carl-Viggo Hølmebakk.
So proud to have been part of this documentary series on Norwegian architects produced by NRK. For one year we’ve been traveling across the country exploring beautiful cabins embedded in various landscapes and terrain. I worked as a photographer on all six episodes and as an editor on two of them. Sadly only available for Norwegian audiences, but I’m certain that will change some day. Link if your lucky.
Music video for the track Alive by Next Life. Taken from their upcoming album. Shot and directed by Carsten Aniksdal. Music and editing by Next Life/Hai Nguyen Dinh.
Just returned form another great Hvitsten Salong where I had my installation Bird watching shown. Three days of art, music and festivities. Look to the sky for documentation or go to their homepage for future updates. Feel free to contact me for link to the film.
In the fall of 2017 James Welburn and Carsten Aniksdal each accepted an invitation from project developer Marieke Verbiesen at the Bergen Senter for Elektronisk Kunst (Bergen Center for Electroinc Art) to use their new sound production studio and initiate a mini-residency series called "BEK Studio Sessions". In short it was a one week residency at BEK where two musicians who have not worked together before can do a collaboration. Over the week long stay they extensively explored two ideas, resulting in a pair of lengthy experimental music compositions.
The resulting material was successfully performed on Monday September 4th 2017 as part of an event series for new experimental art called 'Prøverommet' at Landmark, Bergen Kunsthall.
A few months later Welburn was approached by Italian tape label Subsidence about a possible release, he suggested the material from the BEK Studio Sessions and the duo met again to further hone down the two compositions. Meeting first at NOTAM Studio in Oslo, then followed by subsequent collaborative editing sessions in both their respective private studios in Lillehammer and Oslo, they slowly refined the material down into two compact, dense and deeply produced 8 minute tracks.
Released June 6, 2018 on Subsidence records.
Commission for Sentralen in Oslo. The glass is from Lamberts Glas in Waldsassen, Germany. It was cut by Waterjet Norge AS, assembled by Norsk Kunstglass AS and mounted in steel frames from Bolt Metall AS.
Camera and grading by Carsten Aniksdal. Music and editing by Are Mokkelbost.
Supported by Sparebankstiftelsen.
Documentation of Verdensteatret's HANNAH. Shot in collaboration with Sølve Sæther. Editing by Piotr Pajchel. Excerpt from the program at the Ultima Festival:
Verdensteatret are currently working on a new production that will premiere as a live performance at Oslo’s Henie Onstad Art Centre during the Ultima Festival in September 2017. In this brand new work, Verdensteatret will explore ideas about geological time and attention fatigue. As they put it: ‘There has never been so much past as there is right now.’ (...)
So proud to be among all the great works at The National Annual Autumn Exhibition at Kunstnernes Hus. I even sold two of the three available copies of this work. Cheers to that!
Photographer (and driver) on Iselin Linstad Hauge's music-video for Lucy Swann's Foreign Bodies.
Just returned form another great Hvitsten Salong where I had my film Landskapelser/Landscaping shown. Three days of art, music and festivities. Look to the sky for documentation or go to their homepage for future updates. Feel free to contact me for link to the film.
I once again had the privilege to work with these masters of death metal, the all mighty Execration. A band that continues to explore the depths and outer regions of their genre. Look out for their new monolith of an album out July 14th on Metal Blade Records.
