Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts

Magic of Seven is a new installation, commissioned by 3,14 and co-produced by BEK. This seven-channel video installation depicts collective exercises involving seven women, juxtaposed with archival material from various wars that unfold. Sætre explores the interaction between collective patterns and individual human actions. The understanding of causality, cause and effect, is a requisite in order to understand war and other major challenges we account, says Sætre. Art can undertake a role in which it challenges the social order and dogma. This is reflected in Sætre’s projects, for instance, her performative practices have even mobilized into action.

One of Sætre’s intents when conceptualizing Magic of Seven is the inclusion of re-enchantment processes, as a form of restoration of what has been lost, in our otherwise so disenchanted and rationalized, western world. The work presents internal relations, in which intrinsic value and dreams are emphasized. The term disenchantment, by the German sociologist Max Weber, is attributed to a process that has made the world more prosaic and predictable, and less poetic and secretive.

Gitte Sætre is a multidisciplinary artist, working with dialogue based art, performance, photography, video and sound. Her work has been presented in several venues, such as Bomuldsfabrikken, Oslo Kunstforening; House of Foundation as collateral program of Kochi Biennale, India; Media Impact, Moscow; Artic Artforum, Arkhangelsk; Komunitas Salihara, Jakarta; Kongernes Lapidarium, Copenhagen; XX1 Gallery, Warsaw; Pristine Galerie, Mexico.