Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts

As a part of BEK Opening Week 2022, we invite small groups for screenings of Lars Ove Toft’s new installation ‘like Night and Day’. The installation stages how a room is being transformed by light and darkness. Presence is shifting, what is distinct changes and objects appear translucent and mutable.

Saturday 19 February
16:00, 17:00, 18:00 and 19:00

C. Sundts gate 55, project space 3rd floor

The screenings are fully booked. We’ve sent an e-mail confirmation to everyone who has reserved a spot!

In ‘like Night and Day’ one enters a white, illuminated room. Curved mirrors on the floor distort the image of walls, objects and people. Tiny figures constitute a collection of exhibited objects. The light of the room oscillates from full light to darkness and back. In full light one sees that which is static, the objects; one also sees oneself and others. When the light is subdued, projections appear on the walls, a vivid world appearing in the form of graphical figures and moving surfaces. The room’s character changes, and the physical elements are expanded. The time passing from light to dark and back to light again influences the perceived presence of oneself, what one sees and what one notices intermittently. Over time an expectation of repetition appears, as does an expectation of change and a memory of the experience just a moment earlier.

The main elements of the installation are derived from the small farm where Lars Ove Toft grew up, on an island west of Bergen. All the video and audio material was recorded at the farm; the egg in the hologram was recently found in the barn, while the last hen left the farm in 1979. A curved mirror was used as a light reflector for a simple gas lamp when Toft’s father fished for sprat, and the display case of figures was built from old herring crates. All sound is composed material where «synthetic» sounds utilise identifiable sounds, or fragments of these, in a quadrophonic playback.

‘like Night and Day’ examines our ability to distinguish between what we deem essential from the insignificant. What appears first of what we sense, see and hear, and how can events and situations influence our experiences? What do we see immediately, and what appears over time?

Back to the full programme for BEK Opening Week 2022

LARS OVE TOFT

Lars Ove Toft (1961) works with video installation, sound and lighting design and builds kinetic sculptures and instruments. His main work takes place in collaboration with other artists and musicians, most recently in the exhibition ‘etter alle solemerke’ at Kabuso in 2020 (with Maia Urstad). His works also include performance and installation at PROA in Buenos Aires and Penghao Theater in Beijing, installation in Olav Tofts samlinger, Øygarden, as well as various contributions to exhibitions, concerts and stage performances during the last 40 years. Lars Ove Toft lives and works in Bergen, Norway.

‘like Night and Day’ is supported by the municipality of Bergen and BEK – Bergen senter for elektronisk kunst.

Thank you: Maia Urstad, Åse Løvgren, Philipp von Hase, Andrea Urstad Toft, Alexander Ghalioungui, USF Verftet and Kunstnerverksteder cs55.

Hunting camera: Bjarne Elde and Anders Inge Kalve

Images: Video stills by Lars Ove Toft