Concepts of O/ 2022

Documentation of work included in the exhibition Concepts of O at Rogaland Kunstsenter 2022.

The Unthought Known/ Sound work, 6 min loop, Silkscreen printed on glass. The work is based on a thought transfer experiment conducted at Maimonides Hospital in New York in the 60’s. The experiment was an attempt to see if a telepathic correspondence between a sleeping person and a person looking at a picture in a separate room in the hospital could occur. The Unthought Known is a term used in psychoanalysis to describe the experiences that are intuitive or felt, pointing to the preverbal phase; experiences, sensory impressions and relationships that strongly influence the individual later in life, but which are outside the consciousness and outside the language. Alliances between clairvoyants and the artist are explored in the work, and the polyphonic and fragmented form of the mediation of such «visions» has.

Vocal Matriarchy/ Installation. Sound work 12 min. loop. Benches of MDF, textile, copper, and chalk drawings. The title of the work is taken from the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk who uses the term vocal matriarchy to describe the work of the psychoacoustic researcher Alfred A Tomatis. Tomasis argued that the biological symbiosis between mother and child is central to the development of the child’s language and voice, starting already in the first stages of fetal development. Her body serves as an acoustic resonance chamber where the fetus «senses the language». The sound work was composed in collaboration with sound designer and producer Martin Mikkelsen. Chalk drawings retrieved from the following publications: “Geometrical Psychology, or, the Science of representation. An abstract of the Theories and Diagrams of B.W Betts», Louisa S. Cook. (1887). “Theory of the World and Organized Beings According to the Principles of M” Frans Anton Mesmer (1784) “Who shall survive? Foundations of Sociometry, Group Psychotherapy and Sociodrama», Jacob L Moreno (1953).

Jærtegn / Augury /Video installation, two projections. 3 min. and 7 minutes loop. 60,000 people are buried in Sofienbergparken. They are remains from when the park was Oslo’s largest burial ground. Sofienberg burial ground was in use in the period 1858-1931. Occasionally weather conditions and telehive, bone remnants push up from the ground. In February 2021, Sofienbergparken was commissioned by the artist to be investigated using georadar, where signals are reflected in objects that lie underground. In the pictures, the graves appear as diagonal stripes, areas that show traces of tombstones and old paths. The projected text expresses various forms of perception, vision and interpretation; an artist’s and a clairvoyant’s perception is set up against the archaeologist’s interpretations using his technological tool. The work was part of Fremtidens Levninger in Sofienbergparken and Deichman Grünerløkka, where the artist was the initiator and producer in 2021. Geo-scanning was performed by the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research.

The exhibition Concepts of O forms part of the artistic research project conducted at KMD, University in Bergen, Institute of Art between 2017-2022 ( together with the exhibition Concepts of O, Kunsthall 3,14 2020). The exhibition was funded by Bergen Municipally Visual Art, project fund, Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond, Norsk Kulturråd Visual Art project fund, and Norsk Kulturråd, Fond for Lyd of Bilde. Photo documentation by Bjarte Bjørkum.