TRANS IT
2005. In collaboration with Catarina Kahn.

Trans It is a video- and soundbased installation made for Break The Ice.
The piece was shown at Klink and Bank, Reykjavik, Island.

Installation:
The project consisted of 3 double sided video projections, still images, filmed interviews, and sound.

Projectdescription:
Point of departure for the project was the NATO Military Base at Keflavik Airport, Reykjavik and NATO Survey Station in Stokksness (Iceland). The space in between these two poles was the field of a journey to illustrate ideas round transit, territory, spaces, history and memory.

A series of filmed interviews with people living at the NATO Military Base, at the NATO Survey Station in Stokksness and in the Wilderness of Iceland forms the core of the project.

We initiate each conversation with anecdotes and information we had learned from the previous interview. Our position was the one of a mediator. In asking questions about the stories we were told, we inevitably was led to another story, to another personal point of view and to another link with the country, site and its history. We were interested not only in what the individuals told us but also in how they relayed each anecdote: their ways of operating, what they mentioned, how they expressed themselves and how they personally became implicated in their discourses.

Trans It consists of a 2 video screens showing the interviewees silently listening to us when telling them the stories we heard. These noiseless spaces between words propose a more subjective, thoughtful engagement with the ways that history is communicated.

The sound elements were installed in different corners of the space, creating a murmur that fills the space with a continuous discourse of fragments of history, rumors, dreams and subjective interpretations of its history. As one listens to the various narratives it becomes impossible to dissociate facts from fables, making this work a challenge to transmitted knowledge and received history.

Besides from these elements Trans It consist of a 3 double-sided video projections shoot at NATO Military Base, the NATO Survey Station in Stokksness and the space in between.

Stills, videos and sound trace the passage around the dark labyrinthine space. 

Videoprojections

Stills from installation

Concept of Break The Ice:
Break The Ice took place in three stages.

STAGE ONE: THE MEETINGS – May 27th - 30th
3-day symposium in Reykjavik.
At this event, the focus was on networking and sharing experiences.
Three specially-invited keynote speakers were guests at the symposium.

STAGE TWO: THE EXPEDITIONS – May 31st - June 4th
12 selected artists – 6 each from the performing and visual arts – was sent out in teams of 2 for
a 5-day expedition to explore Iceland and develop a work together.

STAGE THREE: THE PRESENTATIONS – June-August
With the aid of our Icelandic hosts and NordScen´s web art portal, the six teams developed their
works at home during the summer. They returned to Reykjavik for 2 weeks in August to realize and
present their works.