The Telling Orchestra is an electromechanical object theatre, an installation, a performance of moving objects that is impossible to place within borders of artistic categories. The process of perception happening in the brain and heart of the audience during the performance is a way of mixing together impressions incapable of separating them. Just like this we imagine that The Telling Orchestra must have been produced. It is impossible to say what came first; a word, a picture, an object, a sound, a movement.
This work is sometimes presented as a performance with actors, titled Concert for Greenland, –and sometimes, like here in Prague, as the installation The Telling Orchestra. In both forms it is a vision from a far off, arctic landscape, set in a construction of weather beaten planks, rusty mechanics and computer-programmed bone fragments and driftwood.
The original concept and choice of materials originate from a journey to Greenland in 2003.
Characteristic for the work of Verdensteatret is that they are building exquisite links between seemingly incompatible technologies and materials. The experimental use of audiovisual technology in a close dialogue with more traditional and historic tools of artistic expression results in complex orchestral works or space-related musical compositions. As the process of creating the performance went on, the different medias that interplay started to generate images and stories on their own - as if the construction itself was hinting to what it was capable of expressing.
Computer software and driftwood; two materials far apart is to them just as valuable –used parallel as a matter of course.
Asle Nilsen works both as a visual artist and has worked with all aspects of stage art in Verdensteatret for 25 years, consistently crossing artistic professions and different media. He has developed a truly original visual language with extensive use of new technology, electronics, robots in dialogue with more traditional expressions.
His spatial strategies, for instance to let the room ”grow” its own architecture over time, -to be open for the fact that the room has it’s own will, -to create a situation where ”controlled” accidents creates undercurrents that surface as architecture much later in the artistic process, -fits perfectly into this year’s concept for PQ2011.
The Telling Orchestra is an example of close cooperation and dialogue. Verdensteatret consist of visual artists, composers, musicians, performance artists, inventors, computer engineers and physicians, sensitive to each other’s ideas and expertise. The professions float into each other and the process quickly changes direction.
The artists that have made The Telling Orchestra are: Asle Nilsen, Lisbeth J. Bodd, Håkon Lindbäck, Piotr Pajchel, Christian Blom.
Other artists involved: H.C. Gilje, Eirik Blekesaune, Rune Madsen, Trond Lossius.
Curators for this project at PQ11: Olav Myrtvedt, Christina Lindgren, Marianne Roland.
from The Telling Orchestra. Foto: Asle NilsenSee video of the work
here.
VERDENSTEATRETSeeing the sound, listening to the images
Verdensteatret is a company that work outside the theatre institutions. The group consist of artists from many different artistic professions making installations, performance art, concerts and other art related works. Verdensteatret currently ranks amongst the most innovative art groups in Norway. Their characteristic combination of advanced technology in a close dialogue with more traditional tools, results in complex works and space-related compositions. Their works are presented internationally in different art contexts and locations.
The presentation of The Telling Orchestra at PQ2011 is supported by Arts Council Norway, Fritt Ord Foundation, The Royal Norwegian Embassy in Prague.
Verdensteatret is supported by Arts Council Norway.
www.verdensteatret.comwww.pq.cz