Postponed // April 23rd – May 10th BEK presents at Bergen Kjøtt:
Published
Aleksander Johan Andreassen (NO) // Aske Thiberg (DK) // GaraGara Artist Cooperative (IDN) // Gitte Sætre & Frans Jacobi (NO/DK) // Hannevold/Qin/Prati/Shomali (IT, CH, IR, NO) // Jan Mocek (CZ) // Jonas Ersland (NO) // Reso-nance numérique (FR) // Pia Rönicke (DK) // Stelios Manousakis (GR/NL) // Stephen Connolly (UK) // Tivon Rice (US) // Trond Lossius (NO) // VUMA Projects (NO/US/TZ/LR) // Søssa Jørgensen and Yngvild Færøy (NO) // Zeno van den Broek (NL/DK)
Between April 23rd – May 10th, BEK will present a selection of projects reflecting on the technological challenges facing our current and future cities. The projects take a range of temporal and spatial formats, including single performances, workshops, an exhibition, a sound app and a video programme on loop. See programme outline below.
The core activities will be at Bergen Kjøtt with a video programme of six films that are shown together with an exhibition-in-the-making by Indonesian GaraGara Artist Cooperative, that will include residues of workshops and an open lab. The artist collective Reso-nance numérique will host a workshop prior to the opening on April 23rd, resulting in an interactive light installation that will become part of the ongoing exhibition. This flickering light installation will connect the facade of Bergen Kjøtt to the outside through a web-browser interface.
The performance “Virtual Ritual” by Jan Mocek takes place in virtual cities of MMO games. These dealings with city development, public space and social interaction will be performed on April 23rd and 24th.
VUMA Projects are developing a geo-localised app that shares histories and experiences about certain places in the city centre from people of color in Bergen. The stories and sounds will be accessible by going to certain places, and guided city walks will take place in April and May.
On April 24th at Landmark, a live programme of concerts and performances will address the invisible fields of technology encountered in everyday life.
“Are You Ready” is a net based TV-series by Gitte Sætre & Frans Jacobi, in which the main character is a living unliving stick. By visiting our civilization from the woods of the West Coast of Norway, the stick challenges our thinking around ecological issues, culture politics and city development. At Bergen Kjøtt, Sætre & Jacobi will present a performance at the opening and the premiere of a prequel to the TV-series on May 10th.
On May 10th it is also possible to listen to a composition by Trond Lossius that connects the suburbs to the city as an integral part of it. Following that will be a live radio broadcast, “Humans & Animals” by Yngvild Færøy and Søssa Jørgensen, investigating the relationship between humans and animals. This episode will raise the question: how to think around the structures of our future cities when taking in the perspective that the city is a space shared with other species?
The combination of workshops, live acts, live radio, performances and a video programme presented in and around Bergen Kjøtt in April and May will be a polyphonous approach to think around the technological challenges of surveillance, social relations and ecological issues that cities face. The project will present different artistic visions of the future, together with research or interventions into the existing city’s fabric and identity. Taking their cue both from the immediate surroundings of Bergen along with other cities, future and virtual cities, the works presented raise questions around ownership, diversity and the “right to the city” that we inhabit together.
Images: Videostill from Tivon Rice’s “Environment Built for Absence (an unofficial/artificial sequel to J.G. Ballard’s “High Rise”)” (2018), computer-generated text, HD video, and documentation from Zeno van der Broek’s A/V performance “Breach“.
Programme outline April 23rd – May 10th (detailed programme TBA)
Opening hours Bergen Kjøtt April 24th – May10th: Fri – Sun 12 – 17
April 23rd
Opening at Bergen Kjøtt
18.30 – “Virtual Ritual” by Jan Mocek, performance (tickets needed)
20.00 – Public opening: Performance by Gitte Sætre & Frans Jacobi, videos, exhibition
April 24th
Bergen Kjøtt: “Virtual Ritual” by Jan Mocek, performance (time TBA, tickets needed)
21.00 at Landmark, Bergen Kunsthall: Performances and live acts:
“Breach” A/V performance by Zeno van den Broek
“Hertzian Field #2”, performance by Stelios Manousakis
Hannevold/Qin/Prati/Shomali, film/performance
Jiska Huizing DJ
May 10th
Bergen Kjøtt
“Folk & Dyr / Humans & Animals” by Yngvild Færøy and Søssa Jørgensen, Live Radio with guests
“Edgelands” composition by Trond Lossius
“Are You Ready” by Gitte Sætre & Frans Jacobi, premiere of TV-episode
Other
Workshop with Reso-nance numérique, April 20 – 21st on DIY building connected light device
City walks with VUMA Projects, date and time TBC
Workshop “Extracting FRUIT DNA” with GaraGara Artist Cooperative, date and time TBC
Workshop “CIRCUIT BENDING / FRUIT SONIFICATION” with GaraGara Artist Cooperative, date and time TBC
More info on the workshops and how to sign up will come soon. If you want to participate in a workshop, please contact producer@bek.no
Information on how to buy tickets to Virtual Ritual and the event at Landmark will come soon.
About Future DiverCities and BEK
BEK has been involved with an EU collaboration with 10 European partners since 2016, that facilitates art productions that in different ways relate to the city’s future and its diverse expressions. This dissemination event is BEK´s final production in the collaboration. Read more on BEK here, and on Future DiverCities here. Future DiverCities is a four-year project supported by the Creative Europe Programme.
BEK – Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts is an interdisciplinary centre for the development of art and new technology. We aim to extend the field of electronic art through collaboration, critical reflection and the sharing of knowledge.
