Nordic Outbreak visited the Danish Architecture Centre (DAC) in Copenhagen between October 10-22, 2013. The collaboration between Streaming Museum and DAC around the presentation of Nordic Outbreak in Copenhagen questioned the ways in which digital aesthetics challenge, disturb and show new routes for architecture and urban planning, perceptually, conceptually and practically.
In Copenhagen, Nordic Outbreak unfolded under the theme and title Digitally Disturbed. Ideally, digitalization would bring us nothing but wonder and ease. Ushered in by technological progress and the promise of a better tomorrow they would facilitate more creativity and efficiency, extend our human capacities and enable more spectacular perceptions in our everyday urban lives. In reality, however, digitalization might be slightly more complicated. Aesthetically, politically, existentially and practically the works presented in Digitally Disturbed all respond to this condition. They encourage us to question ways in which digitalization frame our perception and engagement with the city and built environment. At the same time, they also point beyond this framework and show us new inventive ways of using digital media as a means of alternative behavior and cultural imaginary in relation to the city and the built environment.
The exhibition at DAC was composed by indoor projections and screen installations distributed across different spaces on three floors in the DAC building and an outdoor facade installation commissioned for the exhibition. Playing with various situations of spectatorship, some intimate, some immersive, some hidden and some manipulating the sense of spatial configuration and stability of the room, the installation played with changing stances of spectatorship as a symptom of our time, reflecting new ways of viewing and experiencing visual content in our digitally infused urban society on various types of information screens in temporary, drifting situations.
The indoor Copenhagen program included: Eva Olsson, On Non-Freehold Property (2011) Jessica Faiss, Rewind (2011) Mogens Jacobsen, Landskaber (2006-2007) Pernille With Madsen, Transition (2008-2009) Sigurdur Gudjónsson, Veil (2012) Søren Thilo Funder, Everywhere (2007) Vibeke Jensen, SLEEPER_CELL (2003/2013)
The outdoor exhibition presented a new work by Egill Sæbjörnsson, Brick Is The Key (2013); a site-specific video-mapping installation with sound commissioned by Danish Architecture Center and Streaming Museum for the facade of DAC on October 10-11.
The exhibition was opened with a remark by the Director of Nordic Culture Fund Karen Bue and an introduction to the exhibition by Jacob Lillemose and Tanya Toft, as well as an artist presentation of the new commission on the DAC facade by Egill Sæbjörnsson.
Documentation of Brick Is The Key (2013)
Egill Sæbjörnsson’s Brick Is The Key (2013) was commissioned by Streaming Museum and Danish Architecture Center for the Nordic Outbreak opening in Copenhagen, themed Digitally Disturbed. The piece is an intervention on the architecture with which the artist works delicately with the facade of DAC and “disturbs” its materiality by letting the notions of analog and digital meet in perception. See the documentation of the new work below.
Video by Rebekka Elisabeth Anker-Møller
Egill Sæbjörnsson on Brick Is The Key
Video by Rebekka Elisabeth Anker-Møller.
Digitally Disturbed Talk&Debate
Accompanying the exhibition, the Nordic Outbreak: Digitally Disturbed Talk & Debate took place October 10 at DAC. Following an introduction to Nordic Outbreak by Tanya Toft, presentations were given by a strong line-up of artists, architects and urban scholars from the Danish art and architecture scene about the “disturbance” of digital aesthetics in practices of architecture and urban planning.
The presenters included Rune Nielsen (architekt, Ph.d., Kollision), Mogens Jacobsen (artist), Martin Brynskov (lecturer, Aarhus University and founder of Digital Urban Living), Kristoffer Ørum, Anders Bojen og Kaspar Bonnén (artist group Radiant Copenhagen), and Kristine Samson (urban researcher an og assistant professor at Roskilde University). Discussions addressed the themes of media architecture and the spectacular city, digital urbanity, mental mapping and urban dystopias/utopias. Full program here.
Photography by Katrine Brandtbjerg Mosegaard and Louise Møhl. More documentation from Nordic Outbreak – Copenhagenhere.
The Nordic Outbreak program in Copenhagen was curated by Tanya Toft and Jacob Lillemose in collaboration with the Danish Architecture Center.
The program was supported by Realdania, The Danish Art Fund, Nordic Culture Fund and Nordic Culture Point.
Highlight video from Nordic Outbreak in Copenhagen
Video by Lasse Lundberg Andreasen.
NO-DAC Flyer
