Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts

Anders Rubing’s presentation will reflect on the video programme within the Latent City exhibition, taking a cue from his ongoing research at the Center for Women and Gender Research (SKOK) at the University of Bergen. Rubing’s research aims to unpack how visions of different urban futures are produced by urban security and resilience discourses, with a focus on dimensions relating to migration, social inequality and gender. As an architect and teacher, Rubing has a broad approach to architecture, as something that both influences and is influenced by society, politics, economy, struggles for democracy, diversity, marginalisation and inequality.

Participating artists in the video programme are Aleksander Johan Andreassen, Aske Thiberg, Jonas Ersland, Pia Rönicke, Stephen Connolly and Tivon Rice. The video programme will be on show online at bek.no during the exhibition period here. Due to current covid-19 restriction in Bergen the exhibition space will not be open to the audience.

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.

Anders Rubing (b 1983, Umeå, Sweden) is an architect and a Ph.D. candidate at the Centre for Women’s and Gender Research (SKOK), University of Bergen. In his Ph.D. project, he wishes to unpack how visions of different urban futures are produced by urban security and resilience discourses, with a focus on dimensions relating to migration, social inequality and gender. As an architect and teacher, Rubing has a broad approach to architecture, as something that both influences and is influenced by society, politics, economy, struggles for democracy, diversity, marginalisation and inequality. Rubing was educated at Bergen School of Architecture (BAS) and is teaching at the same institution. He was co-editor for the award-winning book The City Between Freedom and Security (2017). Rubing has designed a broad spectrum of architecture, urban plans, and public art commissions and is currently one of three curators for the Nordic architecture exhibition Jävla kritiker!.

Portrait photo by Thor Brødreskift.

Latent City

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. 

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

Bergen Kjøtt

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

Bergen Kjøtt and BEK take the situation regarding covid-19 seriously; all events follow current guidelines and restrictions from FHI. This event will be streamed only, due to current covid-19 restriction in Bergen.