New-ness

Back in Iceland, this time indefinitely.

It seems apt that Sigur Rós has just released new work also...

Sigur Rós - Ekki múkk from Sigur Rós on Vimeo.

Driving Into Öskumyrkur

From the Icelandic publication The Grapevine:

Video taken around noon on May 22 after Grímsvötn erupted
26.5.2011 Words by Anna Andersen

Living in one of the most volcanically active areas in the world, it’s not surprising that Icelanders use a number of words that derive meaning from eruptions. For instance, the word ‘öskumyrkur,’ which translates to ‘ash darkness’ is used to describe total and utter darkness.

While it may be used to describe an Icelandic winter night, that darkness really pales in comparison to the darkness that results when ash blocks out the sun, stars and lights. It’s difficult to imagine until you’ve experienced it. And we don’t recommend experiencing it, so watch this short video of us driving into 'öskumyrkur' at around noon Sunday, May 22 after Grímsvötn erupted and blanketed southeast Iceland in ash.

Sigurður Guðjónsson - Deathbed

Sigurdur Gudjonsson - "Deathbed" (2006): trailer from HILDA magazine on Vimeo.

An artist I've recently discovered in my research, I am looking at creating more dark and brooding spaces that relate to collapse, revolution, and darkness.
I'm researching for the contemporary performance set design I am doing with director, Thomas Quirk. It is based upon the life of Edgar Allan Poe and The Raven and will look to notes both haunting and poetic, dark and disturbing, spatial and theatrical.

Collapse. Recomposition.

In Egypt.
Revolution and demonstrations for freedom from Egypt's President Mabarak.

Ideas of resurgence, collapse, strength, prevalence, and emergence. A recomposition from revolution and collapse. The cyclic rise and fall. The humanity found within it.

Spatial Muse Experiments

I am at Nes Listamiðstoð Artist Residency. So my time spent in the following month here will also be an experiment in existing in a different environment and how I can use that environment in my experiments. I will be intervening with the weather when I can to accentuate natural forces or to see things differently; recording ephemeral or invisible factors in the world. Making something that is invisible, visible. A kind of spatial inquisition.

You can see them on the extended SPATIAL MUSE EXPERIMENTS blog.

Ciao ciao
x

Decay. Destruction. Recomposition.

Ólafur Eliasson.

The artist I most feel connected with.
The ideologies are exceptional, and his conversations called "Life in Space" are also exceptional.



It is true about distance perception in Iceland; early cartographers mapped the country bigger and smaller across the fjords because of light and perception. Also very good points about presence, existentialism, and art.

There is definitely a tangible reality that is important within the experience of art, a physical presence with surrounding environments.