Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts

Speculation about sound and landscape

The inspiration and starting point is an observation from a bench on the river bank; elderly and young people walking at different speeds on the road close by, a cyclist speeding past at high speed, paddlers drifting down the river, a speedboat milling past in the opposite direction, a loading boat passing slowly, almost motionless. The train on the other side of the river is heard before it appears; into consciousness a moving line in the landscape and a panned sound, from left, out to right.

Each of these activities has “its own time”; the cyclist, the train, the pedestrian or the cargo boat behave independently of each other. They pass there and then, but at some point they hit our ear or eye. In this meeting there is excitement and thus opportunities for visual and sound compositional contexts and collisions. We can imagine that they continue as individual, parallel timelines, both contemporaneous and non-contemporaneous, interconnected or completely independent of one another. One can also imagine that the various actions that these timelines constitute take place in a micro or macro perspective, in local and large communities, local and remote places, in us or in remnants of us, in the transfer of knowledge, cultural influence and development.

Here is a curatorial text and stills from the exhibition. Reopens as soon as restrictions are lifted.

“Etter Alle Solemerke” from maia urstad on Vimeo.

Work residency at BEK

During the preparation for the exhibition, the artists had a work residency at BEK, where video and scuptural elements was developed. Image through video editing and testing of a video installation set up in the project room. Sculptural elements through tests of electronic and mecanical solutions.

The material in the videos are taken from the nearby areas around Kabuso that are visible from the gallery room itself. The videos are processed in such a way that small changes displace and challenge the realistic image of the surroundings.

The sculptural elements are made up of mechanical and electronic components, where different parts are set in motion. The sound from here is baked into an abstract soundscape. The whole exhibition is a large joint composition of sounds, movements and images.

Lars Ove Toft (b. 1961) is the Director for BEK – Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts. In his artistic practice he works with video installations, sound and lighting design, and builds interactive instruments. The main emphasis of the work is done in collaboration with other artists and musicians, most recently with performance and installation at PROA in Buenos Aires and Penghao Theater in Beijing.

Maia Urstad (b. 1954) is based in Bergen and works in the intersectional field of sound – visual art, mainly with sound installations and performative sound works. She has exhibited throughout the world, most recently at «14. biennial for media art »in Santiago de Chile 2019 and «Hardanger music festival» in Lofthus 2019. In 2017 she was awarded as the city’s sound artist in Bonn, Germany and was awarded Rune Brynestad’s memorial stipend in 2019. Urstad is educated at Bergen Academy of the Arts and also has a background as musician and composer. Maia’s website.

This exhibition is supported by Art Council Norway, the City of Bergen, BEK and Bonnhoeren.