Research Catalogue

We left Eden Performed by Marius Igland Group Musicians: Sebastian Grüchot Violin Trygve Rypestøl Sax Bjørn Rønnekleiv Clarinets Marius Igland Guitar Espen Grundetjern Bass Trygve Tambs-Lyche Drums Production Camera Andi Gyberg Lights design Andi Gyberg Sound Engineer Espen Grundetjern Consultant Espen Grundetjern Producer Marius Igland Editor Marius Igland Mix/master Marius Igland Music All compositions and arrangements by Marius Igland Timestamps: 0:14 - Prologue 3:18 - I - A different Animal 11:55 - II - Exploring 19:15 - III - Ambience 27:55 - IV - Water 32:59 - V - Anthropocen 41:07 - VI - Chronophobia 48:31 - VII - Forward we go 53:12 - VII - Returning This production was shot live in Kristiansand, Norway 12th of May, 2024

Prodigal Misfortunes fuses digital drawing with eerie storytelling to create a captivating realm where the boundaries between the visual and narrative blur, inviting audiences into a unique experience. This synthesis leverages the strengths of both mediums, with the algorithmic medium providing a limitless canvas for visual exploration and the eerie narratives weaving complex, thought-provoking tales that engage the imagination and evoke deep emotional responses. Algorithmic drawing, with its capacity for intricate detail and surreal environments, sets the stage for stories that push beyond the ordinary, crafting scenes that are as haunting as they are beautiful. The eerie storytelling, in turn, infuses the artwork with a narrative depth that transforms each piece into a window into otherworldly tales, filled with mystery and the uncanny. But algorithms are not neutral entities and its socio-political effects result from the will of real individuals behind them who use them as an apparatus for social control. Thus, we endeavor to maintain an explicit distance between artist and computer, in the context of the emerging AI/LLM technologies that threaten to reverse the mind-over-matter stance of classic dualism. The use of mathematical chance through algorithmic processes to create drawings, aims to break free from technological functionalism. Mathematical randomness serves as a tool to explore the artist's inner self. Despite their digital nature, these drawings are firmly rooted in the tradition of drawing: they serve as a medium for expressing the artist's thoughts, embody the process of transferring these ideas onto a canvas over time, and highlight the artist's presence. Through a created software tool the software that produces the drawing stands as an artwork on par with the produced images, although remaining invisible. Thousands of lines of code have been written, although they remain in obscurity as an inherent aspect of its personal nature.

A work-in-progress artistic research project. Initiated by Hanns Holger Rutz and Nayarí Castillo in autumn 2021, it develops into multiple intermedia objects that involve collaboration between different artists, objects that engage in sensorial exchange among themselves and with humans. This exposition is very much in flux, trying to capture the meanderings of the process.

My PhD project, ‘Things That Might Be True’, is based on Carl DiSalvo’s concept of adversarial design (DiSalvo 2012), which differentiates between ‘design for politics’ and ‘political design’. DiSalvo defines the former as design that simplifies and streamlines people’s electoral actions and interactions with municipalities, healthcare, and the government. ‘Political design’, on the other hand, sparks debate, problematises, and suggests new ways of exploring specific themes and concepts. DiSalvo’s concept is built on Chantal Mouffe’s distinction between ‘politics’ and ‘the political’. I set out to question DiSalvo’s dichotomy. Through practical experiments, I expanded and processed adversarial design. My goal was to challenge the prevailing ideas in society on how citizens (should) connect with their inner political lives. My project examined how visual communication design might help devise new methods and tools for the public to approach politics, and, by extension, expand the conversation about democracy on a personal as well as societal level. Through public engagement, dialogue, discussion, and introspection, I explored ways for citizens to listen to and connect with their inner political voice. I conducted four participatory sub-projects: the lecture series ‘Things That Might Be True’; the Voices publication; the Inner Political Landscapes collage-making workshop; and the Political Confession workshop. The findings of these four experiments led to the development and materialisation of a fictional new department: the Stemme Department. The department's activities display the artistic outcome of my PhD project and illustrate how people can come together to reflect and engage in dialogue with their political selves. In early March 2024, the Stemme Department’s activities were presented at Bergen Storsenter and Bergen Public Library during a four-day event, which included an exhibition, a workshop, and lectures. My project expanded the dichotomy of adversarial design by suggesting the concept adopt an additional category: ‘political, political design’. Through an ambiguous and empathetic design practice, this additional category would mirror and borrow characteristics from both design for politics and ­political design.

Imagining Liberation is an artistic research project with the aim of investigating methods in speculative nonfiction. This project begins with a question: What kind of cinematic images can arise from imagining a liberated Palestine? Dalia AlKury’s interest in staging simulated pasts in her earlier documentaries and then staging speculations of futures during her PhD research stems from a deep frustration with the lack of art imagining a world that she hopes is possible. Both practices—staging in documentary and speculative fiction—are rooted in posing the question “What if?,” to offer another possible world or narrative. Her work combines these approaches in the realization of her own method in speculative multitemporal nonfiction. Dalia AlKury approaches documentary filmmaking not as a way of documenting reality, but as a way of constructing an alternative one. Her final artistic results are informed by a long legacy of politically poetic Palestinian aesthetics and by grievances over the historical and present day witnessing of the violent ethnic cleansing of her people. By committing to framing her vignettes in a fictional liberated Palestine, an emancipatory art making process starts to take shape. The process excavates an often-oppressed critical rage and pushes it up to the surface through different narrative tools. Imagining Liberation traces the filmmaker's confrontational journey while experimenting with staging, subverting, futuring, abstracting, and decolonizing to reach a type of catharsis in the face of a continuously fragmented diasporic existence. By staging her own return to a liberated Palestine in different modes from writing to filming, Dalia AlKury runs into ethical dilemmas questioning her self-censorship, representation of “others” and the elusive role of cinematic catharsis. This book encompasses her critical reflection on the short films , narrative experiments and video diaries created throughout her research. The three main audio-visual works that will be shared and analyzed are Congratulations on Your Return, Levitations, and What if a Tree, What if a Crow?

The artistic development project Radical Interpretations investigates two iconic works for solo percussion and re-composes these. The goal of the project was to develop new creative and transdisciplinary research in interpretation of musical works. Participants: percussionist Kjell Tore Innervik, Norwegian Academy of Music (NMH), composer Ivar Frounberg, NMH, designer Maziar Raein, Oslo National Academy of the Arts, experience designer Ståle Stenslie, The Oslo School of Architecture and Design, and music recording producer Morten Lindberg. During the 3 years project, the team engaged with the music of Morton Feldman and Iannis Xenakis. The solo percussion pieces The King of Denmark and Psappha were the point of departure. The cd [UTOPIAS ](http://www.2l.no/pages/album/141.html)(2L) contains the pure audio version of the pieces in high definition and immersive sound.-><- On this site you will find other interpretations and iterations of the music made by the team.