Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts

Latent City – Invisible Fields #2, Sunday 29 November, 14:00 – 16:40

This event will be live streamed on YouTube here and on BEK’s Facebook page here.

‘Backstage Zoom’ registration here.
In the backstage Zoom you can partake more actively in the event, with the possibility to ask questions and post comments. We encourage everyone to join the Zoom so that we can have a feeling of togetherness in spite of the isolated times that we are living in. This channel will also give a unique insight into what is going on behind the scenes. Please note that the Zoom content will not be a part of the streamed content.

Between Humans & Animals in Bergen is an auditory speculation around animals in the city. Artists Søssa Jørgensen and Yngvild Færøy take us on a trip where bones tell us stories about the city’s past, mixed with sounds from animals and humans in Bergen.

The video The Carrier by Hanan Benammar is a commissioned work for Latent City in conjunction BEKs 20 years anniversary. Benammar  reflects around observation, and uses trained pigeons as protagonists to tell stories of language, technology and migration.

There will be the world premiere of the first episode of Gitte Sætre and Frans Jacobi´s new web based TV series: Are You Ready? In it, a dead tree travels to our civilisation, looking at how we have organised things, expressing feelings of dread, humour and hope.

Maud Ceuterick, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Bergen will moderate a conversation with the artists and Stein Thorsen, leader of Bergen Brevdueforening (Pigeon Loft Association).

Latent City – Invisible Fields #1 took place on Saturday Nov 21st and dealt with issues relating to the invisibility and technological infrastructures, and the power relations therein.

PROGRAMME
Sunday 29 November 14:00 – 16:40

14.00 Welcome

14.05 Between Humans & Animals in Bergen, Live Radio by Søssa Jørgensen and Yngvild Færøy (Norwegian), 40 min

14:55 Conversation with Søssa Jørgensen, Yngvild Færøy and Stein Thorsen, moderated by Maud Ceuterick (Norwegian)

15:20 The Carrier (2020) by Hanan Benammar, video 17 min (English)

15:35 World premiere on the first episode of the web based TV series Are You Ready? By Gitte Sætre and Frans Jacobi (English), 27 min

16:05 Conversation with Frans Jacobi and The Living Unliving Surveillance Poet, moderated by Maud Ceuterick. Following this, Søssa Jørgensen and Yngvild Færøy will join in the conversation (English)

17:00 End of programme

About the participants of Latent City – Invisible Fields #2

Between Humans & Animals in Bergen, live radio with Yngvild Færøy & Søssa Jørgensen
Is man the dog’s best friend? Can the urban neighborhood include plankton, rats and cows? And what do archeologists and seagulls have in common? We tilt our ears and listen to the city animal, go bone collecting into Bergen’s past and sniff into the future city. Humans & Animals is a platform for sharing and discussing issues around humans and animals as companion species, in a soundscape collected from the city of Bergen. Please read more here.

Mellom folk & dyr i Bergen is supported by the Fritt Ord Foundation and BEK.

Are You Ready? by Gitte Sætre og Frans Jacobi
I am a dead tree from the Norwegian woods on a journey into the world of humans. My name is “The Living Unliving Surveillance Poet”, and every full moon I report back to nature through a very special tele channel on the world wide web, due to all species’ needing to be prepared for what’s coming.

You might think, WOW that’s a bit odd – well, everything is surreal at the moment. You need to be open to things out of the ordinary in these extraordinary times. Metaphysics is full of mystical coincidences and the first step to see things clearly is to not dismiss anything, but indeed expand one’s senses of what reality might entail. Oh Dear, this is exciting!

What do you say, Are You Ready?

Are You Ready? is supported by The Norwegian Art Council, The Danish Art Foundation, City of Bergen, University of Bergen/KMD, NBK Vederlagsfondet, The Audio & Visual Fund Norway, BEK/Future Diversities. Please read more here.

Stein Thorsen runs a pigeon loft in Askøy, engaging with animals in our society on a daily basis. He is the leader of Bergen Brevdueforening (Pigeon Loft Association). Thorsen was one of the collaborators in Hanan Benammar´s commissioned work presented at Latent City: The Carrier. Please see more info about the project here.

Maud Ceuterick is a research fellow in Digital Culture at the University of Bergen. Her research deals with gender and power relations in everyday spaces, as portrayed on screen. Her postdoctoral project ‘Affirmative Post-Cinema: Narrative and Aesthetic Responses to Gender and Power’, which received EU funding (Horizon 2020), deals with the narrative and aesthetic mechanisms of digital media, immersive technologies in particular. Please read more here.

Latent City presents artistic productions dealing with the city’s hidden stories. Seen through the lens of artistic observation, latent infrastructures and questions of digital presence and of power and democracy in our cities, meet in an exhibition that takes place over three weeks. The Latent City is the city that awaits, the one that is about to unfold, our common future city. 

Contributions by: Aleksander Johan Andreassen, Aske Thiberg, GaraGara Artist Initiative, Gitte Sætre & Frans Jacobi, Hanan Benammar, Hannevold/Prati/Qin/Shomali, Jan Mocek, Jonas Ersland, Kaeto Sweeney, Maren Dagny Juell, Marit Eikemo, Nayara Leite, Pia Rönicke, Stelios Manousakis, Stephen Connolly, Thure Erik Lund, Tivon Rice, Trond Lossius, VUMA Projects, Søssa Jørgensen & Yngvild Færøy. The programme is developed by BEK.

Several of the art projects are financed or commissioned by BEK, while others are existing works presented in new formats. A video programme will be on show throughout the project period and there will be an extensive program of talks and performances. Please find full programme here.

The title Latent City is inspired by the term “latent space” from machine learning and artificial intelligence. Latent space refers to the pool of compressed data that the machine analyzes in order to extract knowledge from, and where algorithmic computations often are so complex that they become opaque and gain a life of their own. Latent City thus approaches the city structures that are obscured from our view: infrastructures such as wi-fi and surveillance technology, more-than-human perspectives from animals and nature, and political factors that involve power relations and social exclusion. Sci-fi visions of the city and contemplations on city planning point to new possibilities as well as pitfalls.

Latent City

Latent City coincides with the celebration of BEK’s 20th anniversary in 2020 as a pioneering resource centre and springboard for artistic projects to come to life, at the forefront of art and technology. This year, BEK revitalises its history by showing art projects from the archive, and looks into the technological developments of the past 20 years, from a societal perspective. For Latent City, we have commissioned new works of art and texts, with support from the Arts Council Norway, Bergen Municipality and Fritt Ord Foundation.

Latent City is BEK’s culminating project for Future DiverCities, a four year long EU collaboration supported by the Creative Europe programme. The project has investigated new ways of collaboration while focusing on artistic production to examine our future cities. Please see Future DiverCities for more information. BEK receives funding from Arts Council Norway, City of Bergen, and Vestland County.

Bergen Kjøtt

Latent City is made possible at Bergen Kjøtt with the support of Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen kommune, Kulturrom, Arena Akustikk and BN Visuals.