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INSTALLATIONS


Hanger 1 Hanger 2 Hangar
Kunstnernes Hus, Århus, Denmark. september 1994

Some 900 cattle bones attached to metal wires suspended from the ceiling of the exhibition room form the external contour of an aeroplane. The aeroplane is modelled on the Douglas DC-3, which since the 1930s has been used as a passenger and cargo carrier all over the world, for both civilian but particularly millitary purposes - one of the most succesful aeroplanes in aviation history, the DC-3 is still in service today. The DC-3 is an archetype, the embodiment of virtually classic aviation design, and an aeroplane familiar from innumerable documentary and feature films. In the installation, the bone formation of the DC-3 is dimensioned so that from wing tip to wing tip and from nose to tail it fills most of the room. It hovers about a metre above the floor locked between the room's vertical wooden columns. The point of suspension of every single bone corresponds to a particular point in the space on the surface of a DC-3. The suspension thus moves in the correct aerodynamic curves, tracing the contour of the wings and other features. However, each individual bone was randomly selected with regard to size and shape, and the orientation of the bones in space is likewise arbitrary. The fact that the bone DC-3 is to some extend transparent, the spectator being able to see through the fuselage to the bones on the opposite side, means that the spatial fluidity of the aircraft is dependent upon where in the room one stands. Whichever angle they are viewed from, some parts of the suspension wil have the appearance of a chaotic, flat curtain of bones, while at the same time other parts are perceived as a well-ordered, three-dimensional definition of an aeroplane. Moving around the installation, the focus continuously changes between the two, and it is impossible from any single position in the room to form a 3D picture of the complete aeroplane. Positioned on the floor under the right-hand wing of the aircraft are three banks of black compressed-air cylinders. There are 12 cylinders in all, each containing around 10,000 litres of compressed air. During the course of the exhibition, each cylinder in turn is made to release a small but constant flow of air by means of an adjustable valve.The escaping air is audible throughout the exhibition room as a low, high-frequency whistling sound which is easily recognised as originating from the cylinders. As the cylinders carry no label or other form of inscription, visitors cannot immediately identify the nature of the escaping gas unless they are familiar with the special colour code used on cylinders of this type. The total content of the cylinders, around 120,000 litres, corresponds to the three-week duration of the exhibition.



After the fire 1 After the fire 2 After the Fire
Kunstnernes Hus, Århus, Denmark, september 1994

Visitors approach the exhibition room by an elevated ledge which runs along one side of the room at a height of several metres. From this vantage point, a stairway situated roughly halfway along the ledge descends into the body of the exhibition room, which resembles a large, deep tank. The tank is penetrated by some 500 fire hoses hanging from the ceiling. The hoses are supported on metal wires attached to thei connectors and are suspended at a uniform height and distance. The hoses are spaced less than half a metre apart, so that visitors cannot descend into the tank but must remain on the ledge. The hose connectors are suspended at what for most people is normal eye level, and form a horizontal plane which is observed either from slightly above or from slightly below, depending on the height of the spectator. This horizontal surface with its square-shaped network of hose connectors defines the room s perspective plane, and divides up the room so that all below is compact and made inpenetrable by hoses, while all above is empty and airy, with a clear field of vision except for the thin metal wires. In the vertical plane the hoses move from order and regularity at ceiling level to chaos and disorder at floor level, where the hoses lie entangled in a morass of clay and water. A landscape consisting of several tonnes of wet clay was spread over the entire floor by a proces in which the ends of the hoses were trodden down into the clay to become intertwined. Immediately after the installation was completed this clay landscape resembled a muddy swamp with puddles of water between islands of firm clay. Over the course of the exhibition the water evaporated and the clay dried out. Halfway through this process there was a transitional period with a mixture of dry, light clay and wet, dark clay depending on the thickness of the clay layers. At the end of the exhibition the clay landscape had become a light, crusty surface in the dried-out tank.



Hjerteinstallations Hjerte (heart)
Installation, 1996

The installation is build up as a anatomical diagram of the human heart with four chambers connected to veins and arteries. Four water bed mattresses filled with water is connected to heavy rubber tubes so that the water can pass through the system. That will happen if someone for instance steps on one of the filled water bed mattresses, that gives way in a very elastic and pulsating manner. The heart instalation is a number of objects put together in a schematic system, and in that way it also investigates how unsentimental and down-to-earth it is possible to depict a very burdened and klichélike symbol as the heart, which normally relates to a lot of emotional concepts as love, life, hot-bloodiness etc.



Landskabets Afslutning Landskabets Afslutning (The ending of the landscape)
Kildeparken, Aalborg, Denmark, june-august 1997

The installation consists of several kilometres of nylon line which is stretched between the trees in a park within an area of about 90 x 60 metres. In this area all the trees are at a certain size, the treetops do not start until a height above 6-7 metres. The nylon line stretches in all directions from tree to tree at a height of five metres and with that it marks a level, a horisontal plane, that lies as a very slight ceiling above area of the park. Very slight especially because the nylon line at certain light conditions and from certain angles almost is invisible, while it seen against the light reflects and becomes flickering and alive.



Vandene Stiger Vandene Stiger (The waters are rising)
Efterårsudstillingen, Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Denmark 1997

The installation is starting from a drawing of a waterfall and the Flood by the swedish painter and draughtsman C.F. Hill. The installation consists of a ten metres long and five metres high curtain of pvc strips hangin down the wall. Five sculptural wall objects made of folded linoleum are hanging at different places on the wall behind the curtain. The wall objects relate in a way to the C.F Hill drawing: The pvc stribes relate to the downfalling flood of the waterfall and the hanging linoleum objects represent bundles of three dimensional lines from the Hill drawing. In the drawing trees and houses, drawn with the characteristic rough and expressive strokes of Hill, fall down with the waters, and in the installation these lines are made three dimensional, sorted and collected in bundles on the wall.



En meter motervej 1 m Motorvej (1 meter Motorway)
Haven i Havnen, Aarhus Harbour, Denmark, september 1998

This installation project takes place on a neglected and overgrown area on the harbour with wild flowers and bushes, where various objects, sleepers, scaffold elements, and structural iron is stored on a smaller part of the space. A section of a motorway, a very small section at a length of only one metre is placed here. With six traffic lanes is this section considerably wider than it is long: exactly 28 metres wide. At first the motorway section looks like something, that is oriented in the other direction: as a small asphalt path, but on the short section the traffic is oriented along the white lines (the traffic lanes), across the path. We talk about a complete and coherent object made of asphalt, grass, and iron with hard shoulders, lines, central reservation, crash fence and everything. The motorway section lies hidden and discrete a little aside on the edge of the place, near the fence, where it doesn´t stand in the way for anything.


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