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Towards a Cultural Psychoacoustics
by 3,14´s text contributor Johnny Herbert
In connection with the exhibition Triplight, by Camille Norment
Camille Norment subtly modifies the field of psychoacoustics when stating that her work “utilises the notion of cultural psychoacoustics.” She has defined the latter as “the investigation of socio-cultural phenomena through sound and music—particularly instances of sonic and social dissonance”, asserting that these phenomena work “through sound as a force over the body, mind, and society.” Setting a stage for Norment’s piece Triplight, being exhibited at Kunsthall 3,14, I would like to further consider what we might think of as “cul-tural psychoacoustics”, drawing from Ralph Ellison’s description of listening in his landmark book from 1952, Invisible Man. Written just before the production of the Shure microphone Camille Norment uses in Triplight, at the cusp of the large-scale uprising of the American Civil Rights Movement—and no doubt ringing in the heads of some of its participants—the sketch of a “new analyt-ical way of listening to music” in the celebrated and much studied prologue of Invisible Man (not to be confused with H.G. Well’s science-fiction novel from 1897, The Invisible Man) might be a blueprint for a practice of cultural psycho-acoustics.
Trauma and Position
by 3,14´s text contributor Johnny Herbert
In connection with the exhibition Poetics of Resistance
Hopefully aiding an approach to Marcelo Brodsky’s and Joy’s work presented here at Kunsthall 3,14, I would like to offer a few thoughts on trauma, caught in its widespread impersonal intimacy and conceptual slipperiness, in tandem with Walter Benjamin’s call to focus on the “position” of a cultural producer within conditions of production in a passage cited in the exhibition text accompanying the presentation of video work by Joy.
Falling apart together
by 3,14´s text contributor Johnny Herbert
In connection with the exhibition Septentrionalis
The strange thing about current global capitalism is that it seems to be destroying its own conditions for reproduction and persistence. There is a building sense of deflation and hopelessness, or, better put, inagency (non-agency). This should not be understood as passivity. Passivity de-notes a more decided inactivity, whereas inagency states the ineffectiv-ity of any activity undertaken. In light of this, I have been increasingly inclined to understand cultural production as a method and activity of sufficing—an aid to a sense of “making do” within the meshwork of cur-rent capitalism. Within this framework, a cultural object put out into the world can be understood as akin to a kind of flotation device, safety net, noise abatement, or counter-acoustics that makes life (more) bearable. I mention this very briefly here as I think this approach offers some traction on a perennially difficult topic to discuss succinctly within art. This is something I’d like to focus on in connection with Marianne Morild’s work: abstraction.
Den vanskelige tilgivelsen
av Elisabeth Schanche
Førsteamanuensis i psykologi, Universitetet i Bergen
I forbindelse med utstillingen Living Forgiving Remembering på Kunsthall 3,14.
Hvordan kan forsoning bli mulig etter urett er begått? En kunstutstilling i Bergen utforsker dette i tilknytning til brutale og dramatiske historiske hendelser. Kan disse verkene også si oss noe om temaet tilgivelse i vår egen hverdag?
Kunst gjør det mulig for oss å ta inn og forholde oss til sider av virkeligheten som kan være overveldende hvis de vises direkte. Gjennom det kunstneriske uttrykket blir det som er smertefullt og skremmende, utholdelig. På den måten kan vi bevege oss nærmere og føle. Kunst kan vekke empati, og gi tilgang til perspek-tiver vi ellers ikke ville tenkt over. Kunst kan også vise oss hva som er menneskelig mulig, og dermed fremme håp.
Våren 2021 ble utstillingen Living / Forgiving / Remembering vist i Kunsthall 3.14 i Bergen. Denne ga oss som publikum muligheten til å dvele ved de tre temaene som utgjør tittelen på forestillingen. Jeg ble invitert til å reflektere omkring tilgivelse – og er blitt oppfordet til å dele mine refleksjoner i Prismet.
Paranoia’s Afterlives
by 3,14´s text contributor Johnny Herbert
In connection with the exhibition (1944 – 1991) – Former NKVD – MVD – MGB – KGB Buildings
What is the afterlife of paranoia? More particularly, here, what is the psychological fallout of the particular paranoid regime within Lithuania for which the buildings Indrė Šerpytytė has focused on were and are reminders? How might one, and how does Šerpytytė, cope with and work through the remains of such a psychological and physical architecture without perhaps taking a paranoid or suspicious approach?
- Lana Mesić
Anatomy of Forgiveness
Interview transcriptions by Lana Mesić. In connection with the exhibition Living, Forgiving, Remembering, at Kunsthall 3,14.
...read the interview transcripts here >>>
To Make Ready
by 3,14´s text contributor Johnny Herbert
In connection with the exhibition Living Forgiving Remembering
Themes of tolerance, reconciliation, and forgiveness are gestures of repair that attend to ruptures, tensions, or breaks of implicit, silent social contracts. Along with frequent calls for more empathy, such terms are recently frequently invoked. But what it is about the ruptures, tensions, and breaking of social contracts that necessitates repair, and is the goal of the repair to return something to a previous state, or is it a more reformative—or, even, newly formative—gesture? Further, and something to bear in mind throughout my thoughts here: who is being asked to tolerate and/or reconcile and/or forgive? Does the work in the exhibition in fact go beyond the frame of tolerance, reconciliation, and forgiveness?
ANDY ROCKET AND THE FLYING FISH NO. 1
21.06.2019 Lauching
By Andre Smoge
The carton ‘Andy Rocket and the Flying Fish’ is written and drawn out by the local artist Andre Smoge.
45 pages have been produced over 50 days and came from the printer the day before the opening of 'Fallen Fruit' by David Allen Burns and Austin Young at Kunsthall 3,14.
As fresh as it gets, talking about what we all are thinking about these days.
What happens next?
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Bergen/Copenhagen Papers no. 1
Intended to reach and create a small circle of engaged and committed readers who will be able to relate to the output in a direct, informal manner. The Papers are produced in collaboration between Kunstakademiet – institutt for samtidskunst, Kunsthall 3.14 and Lydgalleriet in Bergen, and RSS Press and SixtyEight Art Institute in Copenhagen. For each issue, these institutions will host these social circles around each essay and where the issues at hand can be discussed and oriented to new responses or dialog.
The first issue contains an essay by Gitte Sætre and images by Kent Klich. The images 'Birdfly' and the text 'Syvende etasje, Synkront' share the format of the fable. Instead of describing the political issues in a direct, journalistic manner, both artworks use an allegory to describe urgent political issues, thus opening a poetic entry into a potential discussion. The paper also contains open peer reviews by artists Ane Hjort Guttu and Stine Marie Jacobsen. The launch of this new essay as event and publication initiative will take place at Lydgalleriet in Bergen, Norway the 6 of June 2019.
Bergen/Copenhagen Papers is a new print-only journal on art & politics; and a new initiative and dialogue between cities; published by Really Simple Syndication Press, Copenhagen, and organized in collaboration between:
Lydgalleriet, Bergen; Kunsthall 3,14, Bergen; Kunstakademiet - Institutt for Samtidskunst / KMD / UiB, Bergen; and SixtyEight Art Institute, Copenhagen.
Process
Bergen/Copenhagen Papers is a low-tech artistic research magazine, made fast and directly without a long and expensive process of design and printing. The magazine will be published in a small print runs, measured to the circumstances. It will arrive at irregular intervals, whenever a relevant need to publish arises.
The name Bergen/Copenhagen Papers is to be taken quite literally; the publication springs from an already ongoing process of traveling and thinking in and out of these two cities. Through a mutual interest, the editor Frans Jacobi and RSS Press have set out to facilitate a certain strand of artistic/political thinking. How can art engage in a politically-charged horizon, scorched by apocalyptic abysses and systemic entanglements? How can art add creativity and vision to societal debate?
The journal is edited by visual artist and professor Frans Jacobi.
Journal design by THE WINTER OFFICE.
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Opening speech for 'Between Red' by Tonje Haugland Sørensen
Tonje Haugland Sørensen, Postdoctoral fellow at Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies, University of Bergen, Norway.
The connection between of war, landscape and art is and old and established triumvirate. Perhaps we should start by asking why, because when you approach it from a military perspective this trio seldom gives either strategical or tactical insights. By this I mean it is not directly applicable in a manner which can help formulate military plans or battle maneuvers. Subsequently, the triad of war, landscape and art is seldom included when politicians and generals draft their plans and strategic approaches. But perhaps it should be.
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Opening speech for 'Murmuri' by Sofie Marhaug
Sofie Marhaug (1990) is the leader of the party group of the Red party in Bergen City Council, and also a PhD fellow in comparative literature at the University of Bergen.
Humans have been making ceramic bowls for thousands of years. They have been found in the ruins and excavations of ancient China, Greece and Crete, as well as in some Native American cultures—and we even find traces of ceramic bowls from the old Mesopotamian empire. This particular way of shaping and changing the world around us, and of interacting with nature, seems to be widespread across the world from the very beginning of what might be defined as human culture or civilization.
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A world report on # Metoo
BY FORMER EXHIBITORS AND COLLEAGUES AROUND THE WORLD
In Norway, we declare #MeToo to be wide and deeply structured.
#MeToo has hit the public debate so hard that people in power are losing their positions in high numbers. It seems like something is happening and it seems to us that it´s NO mayfly. However, we live in Scandinavia a region said to be the most progressive democratic society where women are more equal to men than in other places around the world. Kunsthall 3.14 wrote former exhibitors around the world and asked how the #MeToo campaign is received in their countries.
We formulated three questions and send an e-mail to 15 artists covering all corners of the world and with their permission we post the comments.
READ THE INTERVIEWS
Stamping Time
by Sohrab Mahdavi
Like in the many-worlds interpretation in quantum mechanics, where the outcome of a dice throw opens the possibility of any one of the six numbers to emerge as true, Letters I Never Wrote opens the possibility of an alternate reality, one in which a different history (absence) is hinted at. (...)
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Inclined towards...
by Apichaya Wanthiang
(...) By telling stories or producing work we cultivate biases. We value and pay attention to our intuitive preferences, while keeping a critical eye. In general, biases are associated negatively with falsely or unfairly advancing or promoting self-interest. However, I would argue that we are made out of such complex motives and interests. It is impossible not to be biased. By sharing our preferences we may be pointing towards what we believe to be of value or what we think is good. Both in terms of what we think constitutes good art, but also what is good in a larger philosophical thinking. To be unbiased in this sense would nearly mean to stop existing. We do not even know most of the time what we promote in what we produce, but we have gut instinct and automatic preference… and yes, sometimes they are wrong. (...)
Quarries of Wandering Form
by Judy Price
Quarries of Wandering Form explores the limestone quarries in the Occupied Palestinian Territories of the West Bank and makes visible the geopolitics and spatial dynamics of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). White Oil II (2017) is a subtle examination of the impact and workings of the occupation, where much of the material quarried is expropriated by Israeli authorities and used in settlements and exported as Israeli stone.
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Lost in translation, or drifting among words
by Adriana Alves
(...) As most art practitioners, researchers and admirers, I see the importance of experiencing art in loco, though we are all also compelled to second-hand experiences through visual documentation, written descriptions, statements and analyses. We can only see what our repertoire enables us to see. My geographical restriction and the resulting voids it engenders call for attention. They are yellow lights flashing insistently during this self-reflexive process of not only thinking about art but also acknowledging my limitations in facing it. When I think of the world, I think of my world plus the usual referential cultural poles. I know that the world is a lot larger then that, I even listen to Al Jazeera. But still, my fundamental understanding of the world is based on the West, and let me put this straight: my West is not the West, it is the peripheral West. (...)
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New Arab Art Order
by Khaled Ramadan
Within the context of extreme political changes and social instability, the Arab world had to re-define the landscape of its art and visual culture in response to its changing identity. The changes or rather the expansion of visual culture, including the media industry, in the contemporary Arab world led to the birth of a new generation of image-makers who are on the rise, offering alternative sources of information and entertainment and enjoying social awareness from across the region. The new image-makers managed to expand our understanding of visuality coming out of the Middle East as they seem to apply their own rules of engagement and eventually shape a new contemporary visual order in the region.