s h i f t d i g i t a l

By Annike Flo

These are strange times for metaorganisms.

s h i f t   d i g i t a l is a performative scenographic experiment reacting to the pandemic by tying together our digital lives with the microbes we share our bodies and spaces with.

s h i f t    d i g i t a l  is inspired by the Human Microbiome Project which has revealed that microorganisms living within us play key parts in, and influence our immune system, our brain, and our genome, which all used to be biological explanations of the individual self. What we consider human and our surroundings grow and dissolve into one another. Away from a purely scientific lens, s h i f t gives space to, nurtures and allows microorganisms to flourish. How and where do we start to feel like metaorganisms?

www.cocreateures.space

Annike Flo
Through her practice, Annike Flo investigates how to create in the age of the Anthropocene, working with themes of agency, and our relationship to ourselves and other organisms from a scenographic perspective. By including others who do their own worlding in staged spatial events, together with a human audience and herself, her work plays with the fusing of reality and performance. Next to her artistic practice, she also holds the position as project manager of Norwegian BioArt Arena, NOBA which is the first permanent arena for bioart in Norway. Annike Flo holds an MA in scenography from the Norwegian Theatre Academy (2018) and a BA in costume for performance from London College of Fashion, University of the Arts (2010). With over 8 years of experience working as a costume designer in London, she specialized in design for immersive and participatory theatre (secret cinema, punch drunk, immersive cult).

Intersected Waterbodies by Anne Cecilie Lie

Intersected Waterbodies

Intersected Waterbodies is an interdisciplinary, bio-digital artwork investigating a toxicological web of (tech) bodies, liminal spaces and the sea.

Today’s digital ecology is inextricably linked to extraction: of the Earth and through the exploitation of marginalized bodies, as well as emotional mining through social media, among others. 

Intersected Waterbodies is rooted in the city of Trondheim, which has a long history of digging deep into the body of the landscape, now exploring extraction below the seabed through NTNU to, allegedly, create an ethical and sustainable technological future. 

Facing the current environmental reckoning is urgent, but will a truly just future rise from excavating the place from which, most likely, all life on Earth originated, the planet’s last refugia, setting unknown chain reactions in motion? 

Moving from the exploitative Anthropocene/Capitalocene/Plantationocene into Donna Haraway’s restorative Chthulucene, marginalized worlds entangled with ours and that enable us to exist, come to the foreground. What life forms might be here in the future to come? And how can we leave as graciously as possible with those that are left behind in mind? 

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Anne Cecilie Lie

Through her work, Anne Cecilie Lie (b. 1983) examines how to create in the Anthropocene, with its accompanying philosophical and ethical questions, as well as for possible futures. She points out blind spots in social and built structures and proposes new alternatives for co-existence to the human-centric/exceptional. Site-specificity and cross-pollination are intrinsic to her work, inspired by Donna Haraway’s theories of tentacular thinking, based on feministic, post-colonial, scientific and science fabulating approaches to collaborative futures with humans and non-humans alike. Object-Oriented Ontology and Timothy Morton’s concept of Dark Ecology are also significant influences, where ecology includes all life and “non-life” such as technologies.  Through multisensory experiences, Lie seek to skew the human-centric view by highlighting marginalized other worlds that are interwoven with ours and enable us to exist.  Lie works with sound, performance, installations, and text, alone and in collaboration with others in the creative field, as well as partners within fields of scientific research and life sciences, knowledge producers such as educational institutions, libraries, and local communities.  Anne Cecilie holds an MA in scenography from the Norwegian Theatre Academy and a BA in Fine Arts from the Trondheim Academy of Fine Arts.

http://www.annececilielie.com

c o c r e a t : e : u r e s : s h i f t by Annike Flo

c o c r e a t : e : u r e s :  s h i f t 

c o c r e a t : e : u r e s :  s h i f t is Annike Flo in partnership with the myriad of beings living in the KiT gallery space, its human visitors and yet to be discovered guests. The project is a performative experiment attempting to shift our perceptions of other beings from other to kin, and our perspective of self from singular to plural.  

s h i f t  is inspired by the Human Microbiome Project which, among other discoveries, has revealed that microorganisms living within us play key parts in, and influence our immune system, our brain, and our genome, which all used to be biological explanations of the individual self. There is no clear line between us and other, you and your surroundings. How and where do we start to feel like a metaorganism?  s h i f t  plays with the idea of the historical Salon as a place of meeting + discussion, but also as a non-sterile and fluid aesthetic that can facilitate human-microbe encounters. Away from a scientific or medical lens, s h i f t  gives space to, nurtures and allows microorganisms to flourish where they already live, in this case, KiT’s gallery space, and on offerings donated by visitors.  

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Annike Flo (NO) 

Through her practice, Annike Flo investigates how to create in the age of the Anthropocene, working  with themes of agency, and our relationship to ourselves and other organisms from a scenographic perspective. By including others who do their own worlding in staged spatial events, together with a human audience and herself, her work plays with the fusing of reality and performance. Annike holds an MA in scenography from the Norwegian Theatre Academy (2018) and a BA in costume for performance from London College of Fashion, University of the Arts (2010). After graduating from LCF she specialized in design for immersive and participatory theatre (secret cinema, punch drunk, immersive cult), which she brings into her current artistic practice. Flo currently works as artistic project leader for Norwegian BioArt Arena, NOBA, in Ås.

The Darknet Spa by Unnur Andrea Einarsdóttir

The Darknet Spa

The Darknet Spa is an immersive sound installation that focuses on the topic of anonymous internet browsing through what is called the Darknet or Dark Web. The Dark Web is that part of the internet that operates outside the fringes of digital society, a lawless, virtual land where you are free to roam without government regulation or corporate intervention. The terms ‘surface web’, ‘deep web’ and ‘dark web are often used to illustrate the “geographics” of the internet and to explain the different levels of accessibility and encryption. 

Freud ́s model of the human mind categorises three levels of consciousness: the conscious, subconscious and unconscious. The Darknet Spa offers the audience to delve into the unconscious of our digital hive- mind, offering a glimpse into the darker sides of our collective psyche. The artwork investigates the responsibility we place on our technologies and how they ultimately function as a mirror that reflects back to us the broken parts of our society. Simultaneously the work underlines the gap between our physical and digital experiences, incorporating the viewer’s body into the Darknet as a materialized physical space.

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Unnur Andrea Einarsdóttir (IS/NO)

Unnur Andrea Einarsdóttir is an Icelandic visual artist and musician. Her work explores our relationship with technology and the utopian and dystopian manifestations of our digital present. It investigates the divide between our virtual lives and physical bodies, and how global networks influence our identities, societies and collective perception of reality. Unnur Andrea works mainly with video, performance, and installation, often seeking to create an immersive and encompassing experience for the viewer. As a singer and music producer, the sonic elements remain an important and central factor in most of her work.

www.unnurandrea.net