Curator: “Hard Feelings”, Tim Høibjerg, Art/Sensation Cube, 2021.
Tim Høibjerg
Hard Feelings
Opening 11 November
11 11 2021 - 12 20 2021
Curator: Susanne Fessé
Digital production: Untold Garden
Form: Elin Mejergren
Text Editor: Caitlin E. Littlewood
Hard Feelings (2021)
We are increasingly becoming more and more intimate with technology. It serves as an extension of our best and worst impulses such as healing (medical, social) or destruction (oppressive AI, weapons).
Hard Feelings explores ethics and morals, and the possible spiritual themes of advancing technology and artificial intelligence. What happens when machines will pass The Turing Test (The Turing Test, coined by Alan Turing in 1950, measures a machine’s capacity to demonstrate intelligent behavior, comparable to or indistinguishable from human behavior.)
Hard Feelings consists of sculptures of two loved ones made of hard surface materials forged together, frozen in a loving embrace but also formed as a powerful weapon. A juxtaposition of destruction and foundation that inhabits humankind. What crimes will we make these machines commit? When they reach a level of intelligence indistinguishable from humans, what are the ethical consequences of controlling these possibly sentient entities? The sculpture is placed on a platform with reliefs from Instagram, such as selfies and military equipment. A symbolic formation that gives the sculpture a heightened value (religious, gravesite, pedestal).
Tim Høibjerg
Tim Høibjerg was born in Kristiansand (NOR) and lives and works in Stockholm (SWE). He holds an MFA at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm (2021) and a BFA at the Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo, Norway (2019).
Høibjerg’s work takes place between the virtual and the physical, moving between digital software, animation, textiles, and sculpture. Exploring notions of fiction and reality, he aims to create tension between the familiar and the unfamiliar, between perception and interpretation.
Høibjerg describes his artistic method as such:
The decisions I make in my practice across the processes and techniques I use are closely linked to the content of my work. My workflow often comprises taking an object or subject from the actual world, scanning it before transferring it to 3D software, which allows me to perform experiments through the virtual realm. Manipulation of objects and materials in the 3D software embodies a sense of fantasy or play. The virtual environment is a means to create, manipulate and distort the natural world, serving as an analogical tool that enables reflection upon actual reality. Through printing, video projection, sculpture and textile, and digital interactive experiences, the final art works are now hybrid objects, made real through the artistic process. This approach creates a hybrid presence of both virtual and real worlds that allows me to question, explore, and undermine the binaries through technology and materiality.
Cube
Cube is a virtual exhibition space focusing on activating artworks with sound and lights. Hard Feelings placement in Cube challenges conventional notions of how we can show contemporary art in a 3D environment, promoting interaction with the environment in order to discover the work. Sound elements are placed in different parts of the room and are activated by the visitor’s movements in the exhibition, while the light dramatizes the mood of the work. Visitors can discover more via links and create direct contact with the artists on social media or private message.
Text by
Tim Høibjerg and Susanne Fessé
