Stereoskopisk scenografi (2011)

Stereoskopisk scenografi (Stereoscopic Scenography) is a spatial textile installation created specifically for the Spetsen Gallery at Bonniers Konsthall upon an invitation from curator Camilla Larsson as part of the Bonnier Konsthall Five year Celebration (2011). The piece was conceived in a collaboration with Ulla von Brandenburg, whose film Chorspiel (2010) was screened inside the textile structure. Stereoskopisk scenografi consists of black painted draperies, which mimic the facade’s glass sections and as a structure, the space itself. Inside, a smaller darkened space provides a screening room for Ulla von Brandenburg’s film. Conceptually the piece departs from the particular architectural conditions of Spetsen – the atmosphere of the room as an observatory – and from the provisional and imaginary relationship to spaces, transparency and role play in the film. As well as from a more general theme of observing and narrating, through different perspectives and points of view.

Where Chorspiel unfolds as an introspective, psychological operetta piece, Stereoskopisk scenografi approaches this theme in a more extrovert and scientific way. Illustrations from old astronomy and physics’ books have been painted on the draperies, highlighting prominent moments or devices in the history of vision and observation, visible from both inside and outside of the space. In a sort of historical chronology of ideas, inventions and devices related to the act of observing and interpreting our surrounding world, the piece aims at pointing out the shifting and changing character of knowledge, ideas and imagination over time; how history is always interpreted through the ”lens” of the present. The title of the piece refers to a device, the stereoscope, which was invented around 1850 and created a 3D-effect or illusion of depth in an image by presenting the viewer with two separate images (one for each eye). The physical convergence of two separate visual fields in order to create a more ”true” or ”spatial” depiction of reality, is here used in relation to a wider interpretation of what it means to be ”two”. For example, what does it mean to merge or combine two different (artistic) perspectives or practices into one?

–