Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts

Works by:
Åsne Eldøy
Samuel Brzeski
Neal Cahoon
Gitte Sætre
Anne Marthe Dyvi

Åsne Eldøy: Kartleggeren / The Mapper. Various media.
This installation at BEK was live-streamed at bek.no 27^th May – 7^th June. The work is the next step in Åsne Eldøy’s ongoing project Grusregisteret (The Gravel Register). The project looks at natural and man-made gravel resources, how these national geological resources are mapped and the system of assigning value. How these issues are inscribed into our landscapes, as well as the political priority are of central focus, along with the built environment of our everyday life. The installation can also be seen IRL by visiting our space at C. Sundtsgt 55 in Bergen.

Samuel Brzeski: Into Wanderer Lonely. HD video, 5 mins.
This work is an assisted rewriting of the classic romantic landscape poem I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth. The poem was rewritten using the geolocation and mapping application what3words. This work presents what could be seen as a contemporary landscape poem of shifting territories and linguistic complexities.

Neal Cahoon: I am the dot (and the dot is me). HD video, 12 mins.
This video is a thinking through of movement, walking, reading, travel, transport, surveillance, and weather. The video consists of a reading, animations based on GPS data, chance-organised poems, music samples, and soundwalk fragments. Made using random.org & the RunParticles programme.

Gitte Sætre: from Are You Ready? HD video, 6 mins.
Gitte Sætre has got a new companion these days: a wooden stick that is visiting our troubled modern times from the deep valleys on the north-west coast of Norway. This video will be part of an online TV series that premieres this autumn, titled Are You Ready?, made together with artist Frans Jacobi.

Anne Marthe Dyvi: Triptyk / Trefold. HD video, 8 mins.
Dyvi has developed a video that attempts to depict and articulate the core of what landscape is, and the sound that you hear is from the oldest music written down, that the artist has digitally reworked.

About the workshop Returning to Actuality

In the workshop, we investigated understandings of landscape as a diagram of structural power relations, landscape theory and the politics of landscape representations. As a starting point, we delved into ‘fukeiron’ which is a theory of landscape that filmmakers in Japan took up at the end of 1960s as a critique of modes of documentary and representation practices, and a lack of ability to address structural power relations. A focus for the workshop was also critical cartography, the politics of landscape representation and discussions around non-anthropocentric world views. The workshop was developed by Åse Løvgren, artist and project developer at BEK.

“Landscape is a way in which economic and political relations of domination and subjection manifest and become visible to the observing eyes.” 
– Returning to actuality: fukeiron and the landscape film, by Yuriko Furuhata, 2007

Bios

Åsne Eldøy works with photography, publications and installation. Through the practice of looking, reading and building, Eldøy’s projects revolve around themes such as belonging and transformation. Her approach is often sifted through landscapes, history and city development, and is poetic yet political. Eldøy was educated at the Bergen Art Academy, graduating with a BA in Photography and a master’s degree in Fine Arts, and she has a background in photojournalism. aeldoy.com

Samuel Brzeski is an artist, writer and researcher. His predominantly text-based practice concerns the embodiment of different modes and acts of reading and the relationship between writing and sound. He is searching for different ways in which text can have a body and can be embodied. He does this by creating collective and controlled experiences of reading through theatrical video and sound installations, durational vocal performances, exercises in conceptual writing and performative workshops. Brzeski has had recent projects with Black Box Theatre (Oslo), Bergen Assembly, Galerie 207 (Prague), Lydgalleriet (Bergen) and Galleri Slakt (Bergen). Throughout 2020, he is also writer in residence at Lydgalleriet. samuelbrzeski.com

Neal Cahoon is a writer and curator from Northern Ireland. He holds a PhD from the University of Roehampton, London, where his thesis focused on ambient sound, the act of reading, and Cagean chance poetics. Recently, he was part of the curatorial team for the 2019 edition of the Lofoten International Art Festival, and the LIAF ‘Kelp Congress’. He is also a member of the Mustarinda Association in Finland.

Gitte Sætre’s oeuvre deals with current and relevant issues, such as climate change, neoliberal ideological patterns, as well as cultural radicalism. Her body of work is characterised by the weight of contemporary society yet opens up room for humour and quiet reflection. Sætre is a multidisciplinary artist, working with dialogue-based art, performance, photography, video and sound. Her work has been shown at, amongst other places, Oslo Kunstforening; the collateral programme of Kochi Biennale, India; Media Impact, Moscow; Artic Artforum, Arkhangelsk; Komunitas Salihara, Jakarta; Kongernes Lapidarium, Copenhagen; XX1 Gallery, Warsaw; Pristine Galerie, Mexico; WhiteBox, New York; Kunsthall 3.14, Bergen; Bergen Kunsthall, KODE and Guramayne Art Centre in Addis Ababa. gittesatre.com

Anne Marthe Dyvi is an interdisciplinary artist educated at The Bergen Academy of Art and Design graduating with an MFA in 2010.  Her work can be described as interdisciplinary, site-specific and process-orientated, and she has a special interest in technology and time, human existence, survival and behaviour. Dyvi has exhibited in Norway, Sweden, Italy, Slovakia, England, Germany, Estonia, Iceland, Denmark and Lithuania. She was a part of the resource group developing a national archive for video arts in Norway for the Norwegian Arts Council. In addition to her own practice as an artist, she is a member of the artist group Ytter, and worked as an artistic developer at BEK from 2010 to 2019. annemarthedyvi.com

About Så jævla sanntid (So damn real-time)

In 2020, BEK is celebrating its 20 year anniversary and throughout the year we will present a number of different projects – both new artistic projects and a selection from our archive. First up is Så jævla sanntid (So damn real-time) 2020 – a series where we explore various digital formats and show them online. In the coming months, we will publish these artistic projects on bek.no.

Today, in this different version of everyday life, many of our actions, interactions and experiences have moved to digital platforms. A lot of activity – meetings, concerts, teaching, gaming, exhibition visits, lectures and more – happens in real-time: the actual time in which a process or event occurs. In the year 2000, strong and reliable Internet, as well as free hosting for artists’ websites, were key reasons for the creation of BEK. These services enabled entirely new forms of collaboration, which could take place in real-time over the Internet. In 2000, BEK organised the workshop Så jævla sanntid, exploring real-time video processing and this culminated in a live, real-time video jam. Back then, everything was ‘so damn real-time’, in other words – real-time was the new hype. Right now, many of us may want more of a physical reality than the one that occurs in ‘so damn real-time’ over the web. We are looking forward to presenting arts and technology projects from BEK digitally, and to seeing you all IRL again!

And speaking of hosting and streaming services these days: Did you know that the very first Vimeo server was stationed at BEK?

/ 55 \ Så jævla sanntid
A one-week workshop focusing on the technical and artistic/creative aspects of the ‘NATO’ software for real-time video processing. Led by Hans Christian Gilje. The workshop culminated in an all-night video jam at the Akademiske Kvarter.
– from BEK’s annual report 2000

Poster design by Luke Drozd.