Art happening ‘En Avant’, by pop up digital art-dedicated ‘Grok Institute’, will be kicking off on June 17th, for three days of technological frolicking. The works selected provide a titillating selection of new and not-so-new media, flashing light, foreign sounds, and much brain sweat. The overall event aims to provide a critical questioning  of the role of the individual, the artist and society when faced with the machine. The works on show include a new, in situ piece consisting of a living virtual sculpture, by artist Simon Elliott and PRICKIMAGE; Joseph Pompei shall puzzle audience with hardly audible yet maddening sounds, and Grok Institute’s loyal digital artist Thomas Traum will also have his word in a video installation. Also, for the first time, the event will be  hold lectures with Professor Stephen Brewster from Glasgow University, discussing themes such as  the true meaning of Ubiquitous Computing. And last but not least, new comer, London-based Oscar Carslon will show two pieces specially made for the occasion. Carlson talks to Dazed Digital about new media, Chris Marker, and the power of farts.

Dazed Digital: There seems to be a rise of interest in new media and video art in the UK, why is that?
Oscar Carlson: The embrace of video and new media in UK I think comes from it's marketing abilities. Video is an instant thing, you can reach masses of people because they understand the format. They think it's crazy video art but you're still seeing something happening on a screen. The YBA heritage has put UK in a unique place where all artists are meant to be stars. In British art schools, students are taught to make work that sell the persona rather than the work itself. They are shown successful artists and then sit and wait for their own breakthrough. This is not the case anywhere else in Europe (even though it seems to be moving in that direction). In America it's business but in UK it's entertainment and fame, which I think makes artists there use video and new media intended for the advertising industry.

DD: What will you be showing at ‘En Avant’?
Oscar Carlson: The works I'm showing with for Grok thing are responses to the invite. I have never done sound work before and the situation was very specific. As with the technology. I was asked to make works for these particular speakers so then I didn't want to do anything obvious. Well, 'Apple and Prunes' is quite an expected response to the "hidden speaker". Sounds that would sneak up on you. I also wanted the works to be funny in a more direct way than before. Often, my work has this ambivalence where it's very serious but on the verge of being funny and vice versa at the same time. Very funny but also serious. Apple and Prunes has a fart in it and the gesture of putting a fart in the first sound installation I've done is for me pretty radical. But what's more is that it also points at our sonic perception of our environment. Some natural sounds warn us of danger and now computers do but we created it, and what happens when we hear the sounds in the environment, should we laugh? 'Apple and Prunes' doesn't see fear in technology but rather look at the way sounds of technology has entered and maybe even taken over our sonic perception and navigation of the world.

DD: And the other piece?
Oscar Carlson: The other work, 'Out of Another Dimension' is also a response to the commission. I wanted to hear rainbows and unicorns and had no idea what it might sound like so I commissioned a musician to create it and it sounded just like I had (not) imagined it. In the same time as I find this commissioning / out-sourcing very interesting, the sound of rainbows and unicorns also hilarious, I can laugh at it. Hence, "The Hilazing Series", HILArious / amaZING --> HILAZING. ‘Out of Another Dimension' has sounds impossible to hear, sounds one can only imagine. The piece questions the legitimacy of ears.

DD: Can you talk about your technique and us of video in your work?
Oscar Carlson: In ‘The Artist In Paris’ (2006),  I used video to wrap up a lot of stuff, to put a lot of things into one thing. I wanted to use actual film but could only afford 35 mm still film. The aesthetic had to correspond with subject of nostalgia and pastiche. I kind of knew in advance that it would work to use still images to make a moving image. I hadn't seen it other than in my head but I had heard of Chris Marker's 'La Jetée'. We actually watched 'La Jetée' on the morning of the shoot, only to make sure I wouldn't rip something off. When I was editing I was looking for a rhythm, where you wouldn't notice the stillness of the images. A man can stand next to a tree for 25 of the same frame per second.

In 'Ascent of Man', I shot mountains in the same way. I used still film again to make a video of something that doesn't move. Somehow, it didn't quite work out. The installation of 'The Artist in Paris' was always a mayor aspect of the work initially, even though it has been screened in a number of places on its own and the images has been used for other stuff. In the video, the artist is working on this installation, in which the video is later shown. Or rather, the remnants of something with much larger ambition. In and out of itself...


'En Avant' by Grok Institute June 16th – June 19th @ The Future Gallery, 5 Great Newport Street,  London WC2H 7JB 
Public opening times: Thurs 17th: 10am - 5pm, Fri 18th: 10am - 5pm, Sat 19th: 10am - 6pm