Jakob Kudsk Steensen
Re-Animated
09.11.2018–14.02.2019
I 1987 døde den sidste Kauaʻi ʻōʻō fugl. Dermed uddøde også arten. I 2009 blev dens parringskald – optaget i 1975 og siden digitaliseret på et ornitologisk laboratorium i New York – uploadet til YouTube. Parringskaldet fra den uddøde Kauai ´Oo, der ikke længere kunne finde mage, er siden blevet hørt af tusindvis af mennesker over en halv million gange. En af dem er den danske kunstner Jakob Kudsk Steensen, født samme år fuglen uddøde. Hans største soloudstilling til dato, RE-ANIMATED, er et svar på kaldet. Udstillingen er en geniscenesættelse af sangen. Den er en storstilet genoplivning af fuglen. Og den er en forvrænget rekonstruktion af dens habitat på øen Kauaʻi i den amerikanske stat Hawaii.
Jakob Kudsk Steensen har de sidste par år været en markant aktør inden for virtual reality i grænselandet mellem kunst-, film- og græsrodsarbejde. Med sin udstilling på Tranen genfortolker han sit udgangspunkt, animation, som såkaldt re-animation, altså genoplivning og besjæling af dødt materiale. RE-ANIMATED er en meditation i video og VR over vor paradoksale teknovidenskabelige udvikling. Menneskets stadig mere avancerede beherskelse af naturen har igangsat processer, som mennesket ikke kan beherske. En udvikling er påbegyndt, der både nærer frygten for stadig mere fatale naturkatastrofer og håb om genoplivelse og evigt liv. Udviklingen spejles i Kudsk Steensens ø, der fremtræder som lige dele drøm og mareridt. Som en digital gartner har kunstneren indsamlet og plantet alverdens flora og fauna, som han ved hjælp af algoritmer har programmeret til at indtage og overtage øen. Den virtuelle ø er dels et fortryllende økosystem med vand, lys, planter, fugle, fisk og insekter; dels et bioteknologisk laboratorium for en genopstanden fugl i monstrøs skala.
Historien, som Kudsk Steensen i sin nye udstilling dykker ned i, udspiller sig på den 5 mio. år gamle vulkanø Kauaʻi i økæden Hawaii. Stillehavøen er kendt for såkaldt endemiske dyrearter så som Kauaʻi ʻōʻō, der indtil for nyligt ikke fandtes andre steder i verden. Øen er et studie i den accelererende økokrise og masseuddøen, der ofte præsenteres som den sjette i jordens historie efter dinosaurernes uddøen for 66 mio. år siden. Det er historien om en ø, der fra og med kaptajn James Cooks ankomst i 1778 bliver overløbet af vesterlandske opdagelsesrejsende, missionærer, koloniherrer og videnskabsmænd. Imens tilrejsende vesterlændinge udødeliggøres af deres arbejde på øen, kæmper det diverse liv på øen med nye virusser og invasive dyrearter, som ledsager de tilrejsende. Kauaʻi ʻōʻō tvinges af dødbringende myg op i bjergene, hvor reddebyggeri i nyere tid er blevet umuliggjort af de stadig flere orkaner. Det er kort sagt historien om en fugl, der uddør i det 20. århundrede og her genoplives i det 21. århundrede.
Udstillingen RE-ANIMATED er rundet af en erkendelse af, hvordan tilrejsende så som biologer igennem tiden har været viklet ind i det, som de studerer. Kudsk Steensens omfattende fotorealistiske version af vulkanøen er også et billede af en faktisk ø forvrænget af kunstnerens egne visioner. Det er en virtuel ø hjemsøgt af sin fortid og formet af forestillinger om fremtiden.
På RE-ANIMATED vokser den simulerede ø Kaua’i i middelhavet og udstillingsstedet Tranen i Hellerup sammen. Som resultat kan man via headsets på Tranen bevæge sig rundt på øen og på øen bevæge sig rundt på Tranen. I den virkelige verden tilbydes et blik ind i en virtuel verden, der tilbyder et nyt blik på den virkelige verden. Udstillingen udspringer af kunstnerens arbejde i gråzonen mellem virtuelle og virkelige verdner, der idag påvirker og glider over hinanden. Men Kudsk Steensens virtuelle ø er også et ekko af vor tids computersimuleringsmodeller, som klimaforskere bruger til at opridse mulige fremtidige scenarier for klimaet og livet på planeten jorden baseret på tidligere udviklingstendenser.
RE-ANIMATED er resultat af omfattende feltarbejde så som 3D-scanning af planter, bl.a. i Columbia, foruden en lang række samarbejder. National Museum of History i New York har givet kunstneren adgang til arkiverne, herunder udstoppede Kaua’i o’o’ fugle. Philip Glass Ensembles orkesterleder, Michael Riesmann, har komponeret evigt foranderlig, algoritmisk musik til VR-delen. Kunstnerens kolleger inden for VR og oplevelsesdesign har udarbejdet visualisering af fuglens parringskald samt udviklet et system, der lader publikums stemme og åndedræt virke i landskabet. Ornitolog Douglas H. Pratt har lagt stemme til et interview om egne oplevelser af og overvejelser om den uddøde fugl. En særlig tak fra Tranen skal gå til Bikubenfonden og Statens Kunstfond, der generøst har støttet udstillingen.
Udstillingen ledsages af et udvalg af fag- og skønlitterære bøger kurateret af Jakob Kudsk Steensen. Bøgerne har været referencer for kunstneren under arbejdet og tjener publikum som andre indgange til udstillingen.
Toke Lykkeberg
Leder af Tranen
RE-ANIMATED er anden udstilling i Tranens nye program. Fokus vil være på den del af samtidskunsten, som ikke er enøjet fokuseret på samtiden. Når alt fra klima til teknologi udvikler sig med stadig højere hastighed, bliver samtiden flygtig og skrumper. Til gengæld vokser konstant vor viden om fortiden og spekulationer om fremtiden. Som del af denne bevægelse er megen samtidskunst ikke længere kontemporær, hvilket bogstaveligt talt vil sige ’med tiden.’ I stedet er den ’ekstemporær’, altså ’ude af tiden.’ Over to år vil Tranen derfor give plads til at tænke tid og historie på andre og nye måder.
Jakob Kudsk Steensen (1987, DK) har base i New York. Det seneste år har han bl.a. udstillet på Zabludowicz Collection 360 space i London og 5th Trondheim Biennale. I 2017 havde han en soloudstilling på Times Square Arts: BRIC i New York. Han er indstillet til den prestigiøse, international Future Generation Art Prize 2019, der vises på Venedig Biennalen i 2019.
RE-ANIMATED er støttet af Statens Kunstfond, Bikubenfonden, Harvestworks, Mana Contemporary og Artist Alliance.
The last Kaua’i ʻōʻō bird died in 1987, and with it, so did the species. In 2009, its mating call – first recorded in 1975 and later digitized in an ornithology lab in New York – was uploaded to YouTube. Since then, the song of the Kaua’i ʻōʻō calling in vain to a mate no longer there has been played by people more than half a million times. One such listener is the Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen, born the same year that the bird went extinct. His largest solo exhibition to date, RE-ANIMATED, is a response to this call. The exhibition is a re-staging of its song. It’s a grandiose resurrection of the bird. And it’s a reconstruction of its original habitat on the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i, in a wholly new, distorted version.
Over the last couple of years, Jakob Kudsk Steensen has become a notable figure within virtual reality at the intersections of art, film, and grassroots collaboration. With RE-ANIMATED, he re-interprets his starting point in animation as a form of re-animation, by imbuing dead material with life and spirit anew.
RE-ANIMATED is a video and VR work that meditates on our paradoxical techno-scientific development. Advancements in man’s control of nature have triggered processes that humans no longer control. A process is set in motion that simultaneously stokes fears of increasingly fatal natural catastrophes, and hopes for resurrection and eternal life. This process is mirrored in Kudsk Steensen’s island, which is a landscape of both dreams and nightmares. As a digital gardener, the artist has collected and planted a broad range of flora and fauna, which he, by use of algorithms, has programmed to take over the island. The virtual landscape is equally an entrancing ecosystem filled with water, light, plants, birds, fish, and insects, and a biotech laboratory for a resurrected, monstrously-scaled bird.
The exhibition dives into a history that unfolds across the 5 million year old volcanic island of Kaua’i, in the Hawaiian archipelago. This pacific island is known for its endemic animal species such as the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō, which are not found anywhere else in the world. The island is a study in the accelerating eco-crisis; a microcosm of mass extinction often presented as the sixth in the history of the earth, after the dinosaurs went extinct 66 million years ago. It is the story of an island that has been overrun by Western explorers, missionaries, colonial masters, and scientists since Captain James Cook’s arrival in 1778. While Western visitors have been immortalized through their work, the island’s diverse life has continuously suffered from the viruses and invasive species that have accompanied newcomers. Mosquitoes carrying fatal disease have forced the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō into the mountains, where nesting has become virtually impossible due to increasingly frequent hurricanes. In brief, RE-ANIMATED is the story of a bird that became extinct in the 20th century, and is resurrected in the 21st century.
The exhibition is marked by a recognition of how newcomers such as biologists have colored and influenced what they’ve come to study. Kudsk Steensen’s all-encompassing photorealistic version of the volcanic island also draws a picture of an island distorted by the artist’s own visions. It is a virtual landscape haunted by its own past, and shaped by imaginings of its future. In RE-ANIMATED, the simulated Pacific island of Kaua’i and the exhibition space at Tranen in Hellerup meet and merge. As a result, at Tranen you enter the virtual island, and on the virtual island you enter Tranen. The exhibition originates in the artist’s work inhabiting a grey area between virtual and real worlds, which nowadays impact each other and fuse. Kudsk Steensen’s virtual island also echoes computer simulation models that climate scientists use to predict future climate scenarios for life on earth.
RE-ANIMATED is the result of extensive field work collecting and 3D-scanning flora and fauna as well as a multitude of collaborations. The American Museum of Natural History has granted the artist access to its restricted archives, where Kudsk Steensen has handled and photographed preserved Kaua’i ʻōʻō birds collected in the late 1800s. Michael Riesman, Musical Director for the Philip Glass Ensemble, has composed an ever-changing algorithmic score for the VR component. Colleagues of the artist working in the fields of VR and experience design have made a visualization of the bird’s mating call, and developed a system that enables the audience’s breath and voice to organically impact the virtual atmosphere. Ornithologist Douglas H. Pratt has been interviewed by Kudsk Steensen about his thoughts on and memories of the Kaua’iʻōʻō, which he has also painted himself. Tranen would like to thank Bikubenfonden for generously supporting the exhibition, as well as the Danish Arts Council.
The exhibition is accompanied by a selection of novels, short stories, and scientific literature curated by Jakob Kudsk Steensen. The books have served the artist as reference points during the making of RE-ANIMATED. Now they will also serve the public as alternative points of entry to the exhibition and its themes.
Toke Lykkeberg
Director of Tranen
RE-ANIMATED is the second exhibition in Tranen’s new exhibition program. The focus will be on contemporary art that is not primarily centered on our contemporary condition. When everything from climate to technology evolve at an accelerating pace, the present becomes ephemeral and starts to shrink. Meanwhile, our knowledge of the past expands. Speculation about the future abounds. As a result of this movement, much art is no longer contemporary, which literally means ‘of its time’. Instead, art is ‘extemporary’, meaning ‘out of time’. Accordingly, Tranen will provide a space for imagining time and history in a multiplicity of new ways, over the next two years.
Jakob Kudsk Steensen (1987, DK) is based in New York. He has recently exhibited at the Zabludowicz Collection, 360 space in London, and the 5th Trondheim Biennale. In 2017 he was the subject of a solo exhibition with Times Square Arts in New York. In September 2018, the artist was nominated for the prestigious International Future Generation Art Prize 2019.
RE-ANIMATED credits
Creator, producer and main developer: Jakob Kudsk Steensen
Composer and Music Director: Michael Riesman
Co-producer: Toke Lykkeberg and Tranen Space for Contemporary Art
Music technical director and audio programmer: Jerry Smith
Character optimization: Jeremy Thompson, 2Nstudio
Programming assistance and audio interactivity: Todd Bryant
Bird song visualization: Andy Thomas
Research assistance: The American Museum of Natural History, NYC
Research Associate: Jazia Hammoudi
Made with support from The Danish Arts Council, Bikuben Foundation, Harvestworks, Mana Contemporary and Artist Alliance.
RE-ANIMATED is produced and owned by Erratic Animist LLC, directed and founded by Jakob Kudsk Steensen
Anbefalet læsning / Recommended reading:
Forfatter / Author
Titel / Title
Udgivelsesår / Publication date
Nils Bubandt and Anna Tsing
Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet: Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene
2017
Liu Cixin
The Remembrance of Earth’s Past: The Three-body Problem
2008
Liu Cixin
The Remembrance of Earth’s Past: The Dark Forest
2008
Liu Cixin
The Remembrance of Earth’s Past: Death’s End
2010
William Gibson
Neuromancer
1984
Stefan Helmreich
Alien Oceans
2009
Terence Mckenna
The Archaic Revival: Speculations on Psychedelic Mushrooms, the Amazon, Virtual Reality, UFOs, Evolution, Shamanism, the Rebirth of the Goddess, and the End of History Paperback
1992
Jussi Parikka
Insect Media
2010
Anna Tsing
The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins
2015
Jeff Vandermeer
The Southern Reach Trilogy: Annihilation
2014
Jeff Vandermeer
The Southern Reach Trilogy: Authority
2014
Jeff Vandermeer
The Southern Reach Trilogy: Acceptance
2014
Jeff Vandermeer
Borne
2017
Jeff Vandermeer
The Strange Bird
2017
Lyall Watson
Naturens mørke side
1995
Britt Wray
Rise of Necrofauna: The Science, Ethics, and Risks of De-Extinction
2017