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KHiB's Yearbook 2006-2007
The focus of the Yearbook 2006-2007 is research in art and design as an essential activity at the Academy. We present projects from our professional staff and research fellows to describe artistic research. The Academy’s professional activity is also described in selected MA projects from last year.
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Artistic Research – Space for Investigation
In 1995 the Act of Universities and University Colleges validated artistic research equal to all other academic research. Artistic research is now a priority of art education and a prerequisite for vital education, in the same way academic research is applied to other fields at universities and university colleges. From an institutional perspective artistic research is far more than the sum of a series of independent works or exhibitions. Professional staff are responsible for the institution’s creative development, a critical perspective, a strong focus and an articulate voice.
Art to a New Level
By education Trond Lossius is a composer with a degree from the Grieg Academy at the University of Bergen. However, gradually he realised that what he wanted to make wouldn’t work in a concert hall. He began looking for other venues for his compositions and worked more and more with other artists on sound installations. Meanwhile he uncovered several issues which urged further enquiry into the borderland between contemporary music and fine art.
Design as Resource
The primary objective for the Dept of Design is to define design as a resource. The focus is research and development in design and the subject areas have established teaching strategies and exiting projects emerge. During the last year the department has been promoted through projects, often in cooperation with national and international partners.
The «Artistic Genius»
What do we mean by «artistic genius»? Does it exist? If so can it survive in a contemporary art context or is it simply a mythical being belonging to times gone?
Artistic Research at KHiB
Historically education has been the Academy’s primary duty. We educate artists. The basic philosophy is simple – the Academy is an arena for teaching the best international art has to offer. This aspect of the Academy’s activities has lately been enhanced by an essentially new aspect; the Academy has become an active participant in the surrounding world, an alternative voice and a primary mover in the art world.
Creating Value by Design
Those of us who work with design have for a long time felt the need to demonstrate that design is much more than surface decoration, glossy magazines or a nice chair. Design does not only refer to aesthetics or form. Over the years the term design has become diluted and exhausted from abuse by many outside sources. It has become the victim of prejudice. However, an awareness is emerging of designers as a resource and recognition of the design process as a value in and of itself.
MISRAT? RATSIM? WHAT?
ARTISM was the title of the second MA graduation exhibition presented by KHiB at Bergen Kunsthall in April 2007. The title was chosen by the participating students and functioned as description of a field within which a diverse range of creative practices are conducted. It was also meant as a provocation to the viewer of the exhibition or the reader of the catalogue; they would be challenged to question and to discuss. Artism mapped out a terrain upon which contemporary art practices may be elaborated, interrogated, articulated, analysed and, not least, enjoyed!
In Search of the Photograph. From the very beginning, trusting the photograph was probably a huge mistake
Photography is right now of more than usual importance, it is the foundation of our visual understanding. One could even say that photography is so dominant that it has become invisible. Especially in this digital era where photography is said to be transformed by bits and bytes, easily manipulated and easily distributed. There should be a heightened awareness towards the nuances of the tools that are in use. The Miracle and geniusness of photography is not in the image nor in the technology that carries forth the image. The miracle is in our trusting of the photograph.
Space Cadet
The two halves of my brain swirl harmoniously; they continually merge between art and science then fact and then fiction. Every now and then this harmony is interrupted as the two halves temporarily separate, then flip over, and over, in a repetitive cycle of repulsion and attraction. My creative process then begins. I must clarify that this is not at all painful! I profess that this is nothing new and of course a lot of us think like this. We are fascinated by both the worlds of art and science and occasionally we create in the space in between.
Natural Transition or Unbridgeable Gap?
Atle Tveit graduated from KHiB in 2006. Together with his fellow student Lars Tornøe he established the design company Tveit&Tornøe. Several contracts have already been signed with producers. They also teach at KHiB at Subject Area Furniture and Spatial Design/ Interior Architecture. How well prepared were they for the world outside the Academy and the competition? How did the Academy prepare them for this transition and what did they have to do on a personal level in order to succeed?
From El Greco to Pop Art
There wasn’t much interesting painting to be seen at exhibitions, neither in Norway nor internationally, during the 90s. In 2003 I was in Venice with a group of students to see the Biennial. What was presented of painting was little and depressing. Painting continued to be seen as a dead end.
Innovative Collaboration in Wood
«Learning by making» is the principle of a series of experiments at the Dept of Design under the title of «Wooden structures». Projects share the common denominator wood, but approach things differently towards a variety of ends.This time the challenge was a spatial structure composed of free-standing walls.
Curatorial Experience and Education
The ceramic field is a diverse collection of styles, methods and applications. Today, more than ever before, the field expands and diversifies its options and potentials. Based on a crafts tradition, ceramics has over the years emerged as progressive contributor to contemporary culture, connecting vital components of crafts, design and art.
Global Table – New Forms to Ceramic Objects
In 2006 China’s Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute and Bergen National Academy of the Arts signed a formal exchange agreement.The same autumn two representatives from KHiB visited Jingdezhen to manage the project Global Table, together with fourteen students from both arts and design.
The Fellowship Programme is Here to Stay
The Programme for Research Fellowships in the Arts was established four years ago, and Siri Meyer, who is Head of the Steering Committee, is very satisfied that the programme is well established and on the way to being publicly recognised. - The programme aptly demonstrates a need for new approaches to knowledge production, she says.
The collective perception of regional identity in a time of personal branding
Over the last few years it has become more common for cities, regions or states to establish professional visual identities in order to attract investors, tourists and new citizens. The concept of «visual identity» first appeared in the USA, where large corporations developed comprehensive identity programmes.
Conversations With Spaces
I use audiovisual tools to transform, create, expand, amplify and interpret physical spaces, wanting to explore and interact with the environment using audiovisual media, to create a poetics of everyday life. This is partly inspired by ideas of the embodied mind from cognitive science, from psycho geography about the individual’s relation to its environment, and expanded cinema.
Photographing the Barents Region
The project is a photographic investigation of the landscape of the Barents Region. The project will explore the area with special attention to how landscape and built environment relate to conflicting aspects of history, culture, economy and politics.
A Chair for a Symphony Orchestra
My MA project was concrete but complex. I tried to solve a problem I observed during a performance of Beethoven’s Third Symphony by the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. The one hundred musicians of the orchestra seemed to be sitting in rather uncomfortable chairs. Each musician seemed to be seated differently; diagonally, at the tip of or leaning backwards or forwards in their seat. The problem was confirmed by a good friend in the orchestra the following morning when he told me this was a general problem in all concert halls.
Who Wants Yesterday’s Papers?
Newspapers remain an effective mass medium with many advantages. It’s portable, easily accessible, cheap and you can read it when you want and at your own convenience. Newspapers cannot design themselves out of circulation plunges, but good design can contribute to improved accessibility and legibility, and become more attractive.
Appropriated Strategies
I challenge the dramatic revolution which prioritises and increases advertising in our larger cities, especially in Oslo, the city I grew up in.
Distorting Reality
- My MA project investigates the transition between stills and moving images. I apply multiple camera-based expressions, from photography to video installations. My work is conceptual and primarily opens spaces the observer can enter.