In 2014 the space probe New Horizons passed by the dwarf planet Pluto at the edge of our solar system, and beamed back photographs of the planet. Until that moment, our image of Pluto had been a faint blurry image, due to its distance and small size. Now, for the first time, we could see in miniscule detail what the planet looks like, we could see landscapes on its surface with enormous mountain ranges of ice towering over vast canyons. A part of reality that had been hidden from view, never seen before, suddenly opened up and we could imagine being there in a completely new sense. Seeing these images was mind blowing for me - If we can reach deep into outer space and reveal secrets that have been hidden there for eons, what other parts of existence can be revealed?
All the while, we are not on Pluto when seeing these images, we are here on earth. What are we actually seeing? What is the experience that the photograph gives us? Is the way that photographs reveal hidden things for us a de-mystifying of existence, or something that expands our life-world?
Teleportation is an artistic research Ph.d project in visual art at the Faculty for Art, Music and Design at the University of Norway. The main components of the project have been two field trips, three exhibitions and a final presentation. In Teleportation, I have experimented with creating synergies between photography and installation. I have been motivated by a curiosity for how such synergies can be used to explore fundamental existential phenomena such as absence, presence and appearance, and how such phenomena manifest in visual art in the form of representation, illusion, realism and immersion.
Vision is a sense that can reach across vast distances. By simulating the way that the eyes as lenses give us the world -by extending the vast reach of vision and at the same time assuring us that “it was there”- cameras and photographs promise us the experience of “being” somewhere else. This gives photographs a transcendent quality.
“Teleportation” is a fictional technology making it possible to travel vast distances in an instant. By conceptualizing photography as a form of teleportation I wanted to bring attention to this transcendent quality, but also to the photographic experience as a liminal state between reality and illusion. There is definitely something real in photographs: we know that the way such images are created as imprints, means that what they show really could well have taken place. Their way of giving us the world certainly resembles the way it appears to us through our eyes. Still, what photographs show us is not the same as a lived experience. They are images that require a leap of faith and a suspension of disbelief to achieve their realism. As images, photographs can present themselves in different physical forms, sometimes becoming objects, entering into our corporeal reality in a more concrete, tactile way. Is there a point then, when they stop being images?
I wanted to re-mystify the photographic experience in a culture where everybody is a photographer, and photographs have become a kind of currency struck by hyperinflation. In a world of zoom meetings and selfies, where photographic representation shapes our reality, I find it hard to catch a glimpse of the mystery that to me is photography. As the project has progressed the following question has become more and more acute: Could I use an investigation into mechanisms involved in photographic representation to create artworks that not only actualize technical, perceptual or aesthetic characteristics in the medium, but also to use such an investigation to create situations for existential- even spiritual contemplation in a contemporary art context?
Maybe if I approached it from a slightly different angle than photography itself, this could be a possibility. Installation art engages the viewer in a multi-sensory experience that resembles lived experience to a different degree than images. In installation, materials, surfaces and forms of movement that we engage with in everyday situations and associate with fundamental physical reality, can be manipulated and reconfigured into aestheticized situations. Installation art (and theatre), initiates a play between illusion and lived reality along similar lines as photography, but in a different arrangement. Installation practice opens possibilities for creating immersive situations, and has the potential to engage its audience in a more immediate, pre-conceptual and overwhelming way.
I wanted to use the opportunity of conducting a large project in the context of my Ph.d to find a way for me, coming from a background in photography, to work with installation practice in a convincing way. I was interested in exploring what could happen if questions and insights I have come up with when working with photographic material were used to produce installations. What would be the effects of playing out photographic material in staged situations where touch and movement were as central to the work as the sense of vision?
In the eighties, we used to watch the movie Back to The Future1 on VHS video tape. Our copy was the last in a long line of copies, or "generations" as it is called. The loss of image and sound quality from this repeated copying was so bad that it was hard to make out the details, and the movie had a kind of distance that added to the mystery of it. Representation started to form its own reality. I found that I could use the context that a ph.d project provides - the ability to make consecutive exhibitions under the same project heading - to produce artworks, observe the reception of the works and then use both this information and the works themselves to create new work. I could build levels of representation - “generations of copies”, and let the process and the material create its own reality and mystique. Eventually the material would fade away and eliminate visual representation altogether.
An overview of the artistic reflection
This artistic reflection consists of four chapters (or essays) and a chronological overview of the project. The chronological overview is meant to give a basic impression of the events that have taken place and the works that I have produced, and functions as a starting point for the four chapters. Supporting the reflection is a project page on Research catalogue, with documentation from the exhibitions, field trips and the production process.
The chapters can be understood as suggestions for four different interpretations, cardinal directions between which the project can be located. They are by no means exhaustive, and even though I, as the artist, have intimate knowledge about my intentions and motivations for making the project, my interpretations are just that - interpretations, and as such, heavily influenced by what I have hoped the project to achieve in the end. This is the natural consequence of the intertwining between intention, interpretation, production and result that occurs in an artistic research project, and the special form of knowledge that our field can provide.
In chapter 3, Playing against the camera I discuss how the project has originated in photography, and how the works can be interpreted in relation to some issues associated with photography, in particular technology and indexicality. This chapter was initially written for the artistic research journal VIS in 2020, answering an open call for projects that use their tools and materials in ways that are “wrong” or unconventional. The fact that it was written at an earlier point in time than the other chapters, can give an insight into my understanding of the project about half way in the process. The following chapter 4, Speechless, discusses the dilemmas relating to language in relation to exhibitions and when trying to make artworks meant to be experienced at a pre-conceptual level within the context of artistic research. Chapter 5, I could might as well have been a caveman in the forest with tigers all around, explores the cross-pollination and synergies that can take place in the encounter between photography and installation, and how such synergies ultimately can elucidate fundamental issues of being related to absence, presence and appearance. The final chapter 6, You had to be there, was conceived when reflecting back on my work and perhaps becoming more honest with myself about what I wanted the project to achieve. It is an attempt at reading my field trips and exhibitions in light of ideas of the sublime, and how the project might be seen as approaching my intention of making work that facilitates existential or spiritual contemplation.
Teleportation has enabled me to produce work at a scale and scope that I had not dared dream of. I can safely say that I consider it my biggest professional challenge and achievement so far. The project is however the result of numerous collaborations and contributions, and I would in particular like to acknowledge the support from my supervisors Eamon O´Kane, Carina Heden and Johan Sandborg. Furthermore, my exhibitions have been realized with the help of some incredibly skilled technical personnel: Robin Everett, Gabriel Kvendseth, Tim Ekberg and Dillan Marsh, as well as a large group of dedicated students. I have also had the pleasure of working with two assistants, Dale Rothenberg and Laura Gaiger, who have been extremely reliable and committed to the project. Not least, I have had endless emotional, professional and practical support from my partner Aurora Solberg, for which I am forever grateful.
I also want to thank Tove Kommedal at Tou Scene and Petter Snare at KODE Bergen Art Museum for providing me with the opportunity to exhibit there, and all the technical and administrative staff at those institutions and KMD who have helped me out. I want to thank DIKU and the Faculty for art, music and design at the University of Bergen for trusting me with the financial and academic support that has enabled me to complete the project. And finally, I want to thank all the visitors to my exhibitions for completing my works, and telling me about their experiences.