Curatorial text by Roos Gortzak — The audio-visual installation Soothing Pants by Alice Slyngstad, which you hear, see and feel in Vleeshal, is based on the interaction with digital dating environments. Slyngstad refers to these spaces as infrastructures for distributing intimacy. The built-in coded language and the operation through algorithms have altered the way we communicate with one another in our search for (dis)connection. These systems have become a dominant mode of interaction in our urge for newness. They are defined by the cold operations of corporate endeavours.

Working with the language used on dating apps, Slyngstad’s practice deals with the ongoing contemporary process in which the corporal is becoming corporate. Communication between its users has become so automated that it can be seen as a form of algorithmic writing (‘hi what’s up, hi what’s up, hi what’s up, good u good u good u’). The handling of dating app profiles has become more and more like a mechanical act. With every swipe another person is unboxed: displaying their social status, class and gender identity through cryptic phrasing and quotations fuelled with irony and practical concerns (‘what kind of coffee’). Through being trained in mining human beings, we’re reducing them to their lifestyle choices and geolocation (‘less than three km away’). Like this, we’re building a mental map of entities of the city through online interactions.

In these digital environments we exist through language, exaggerating our fantasies and fictions. But how does one navigate through these rigid dating structures, when identifying outside of gender binaries or sexual norms? And beyond the algorithm? How can these corporate entities predict one’s preference, when we deal with fluid and complex existences? Or more broadly; where is the space for queer desire in a society built upon fixed structures?

For their installation in Vleeshal, Slyngstad took text fragments from profiles they found and chats they were engaged in. Slyngstad projected them on electrochromic glass panels resembling folding screens. Through this visual analogy, Slyngstad stretches the operations of the digital environment to communal fitting rooms, in which clients are forced to show themselves outside of their secluded booth, where the mirror is hanging and where the salesperson is ready to close the deal. These structures are not in place to comfort, Instead, they thrive on insecurity and can even be inherently violent for people not fitting the norm.

Algorithms of dating apps, by extension, are not built to meet somebody you like but will make you feel endlessly trapped in a humid waiting room. Thus we soothe ourselves and pant.

In the present, intimacy seems to be under pressure, and bodily desires are mediated in the digital sphere more than ever. Alice Slyngstad contemplates and confuses the confined structures of intimacy currently in place – an undertaking we can all benefit from.

Programming and tech: Colin Eccleston. AV engineer: Dario Giustarini. Head technician: Kees Wijker. Typesetting and design: Anna Bierler. Poster design and graphic profile: Vennica Sidibanga Kaseye
Thanks to: Ylva Guldbrandsen, Lisa Asplund

The writing-based installation Goodie bags takes you into the material-technical and emotional journey of identity shopping, while reflecting around a constant negotiation of norms. Through social cultures filled with projecting and mirroring, we’re fitting in, “passing”, being noticed and disappearing at the same time. What is the bodily and psychological labour involved in integration and integrating, normalizing and normalization?

Text by Angie Keefer — In theory, a beam of light reflected between two parallel mirrors will be trapped for eternity, obliged to bounce back and forth repeatedly, ceaselessly, every lap between the two surfaces lengthening by the distance previously traveled, as the mirrored light recedes farther and farther into time. The visual effect for a person poised between the mirrors will be that of standing at the center of a tunnel of clones proceeding to the ends of visibility in two, opposite directions. Paradise for some, a nightmare, perhaps, for others. In either case, an infinite illustration of perfect normativity, visually analogous to the proverbial “echo chamber” that has become the medium and the symptom and the watchword of the self-referentially self-preferentially tripwired and autoreplicating reptilian brain embedded in the core of the hyper-networked social body. Select your candidate from the following two options. Check here to verify you're not a robot. Click submit to complete your order. Thank you for your feedback. You are receiving this system-generated email because you are a valued customer. Please do not respond.

Credits:
Performers for camera: Tao Yang, Eve Boontje, Hanne Johne. Thanks to Helena Keskküla, Palmera Bergen, Jussi Andersson Supported by Kulturdirektoratet(NO), Norske Billedkunstnere(NO)

«Excuse me, what’s your excitement hours? Does your phone approve your fingerprint? Do cats lose their winter fur from your caress? Are you longing for mutual precipitation?»

Hyper Hidro Sissy tracks physical, psychological and social implications of existing with the medical condition hyperhidrosis. Hyperhidrosis is characterized by abnormally increased sweating from specific areas of the body. Especially from the armpits and the palms of the hands the sweating is triggered heavily by psychological factors, becoming a physical reaction to thoughts, emotions and social situations. The performance HYPER HYDRO SISSY drags a moist hand over the threshold of the public. The performance springs from a fragmentary textual material in which nervous derailments are explored as strengths, or even as a sensitivity in social or public moments. The texts flow out and become musical sequences in collaboration with a choir formed with local performers. The performance takes place on a damp slope behind the old swimming pool in Rensåsparken, which after being abandoned for 20 years is now being transformed into a culture stage. The performance activated a dark slippery forest slope directly behind the building as stage, and played in rainy weather with a running water scenography in the obscure location. The performance weaved together personal and local narratives, dreams and fictions of negotiating and intervening with the states of water and fluidity.

Performers: Thale Krogtoft Jensen, Amanda Kartfjord, Mathilde Rask Sørensen, Jan Ivar Bårtvedt, Carolina Diaz, Ada K. Mathisen. Dramaturge: Jennie Bergsli. Vocal coach: Thale Krogtoft Jensen. Producer: Tanja Andreeva.

Publication: Design and typesetting by Anna Bierler, printed by Raaddreier Amsterdam.

Dance, choreography, sound: Jennie Bergsli, Veronica Bruce, Alice Slyngstad. Textile, room: Karoline Bakken Lund, Oda Uhre. Costume: Bror August. Artistic bridge, producer: Veronica Bruce. External eyes: Ann-Christin Kongsness, Nikhil Vettukattil, Evelina Dembacke. Co-production: Black Box Teater Oslo, Spriten Kunsthall. Supported by Rauma Ullvarefabrikk, Innvik/Kvadrat, Norwegian Art Council, Fond for lyd og bilde, Skien kommune, Oslo kommune, FFUK, Norwegian Crafts, UD. With thanks to Telespinn, Lillunn, Dansearena Nord, Dansekunst i Grenland and Vitlycke.

2019 — Neverneverland, Amsterdam(NL)
2019 — Kunsthall Trondheim(NO)
2019 — Open Out Festival, Tromsø(NO)
2019 — TOYS show, Oslo(NO)
2019 — Palazzo Stabile, Alessandria(IT)
2019 — Bergen Kunsthall(NO)
2019 — Destiny's @ Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo(NO)
2018 — Glada Sprutan, Stockholm(SE)
2018 — Destiny's Winter special, Oslo(NO)
2018 — Eksersehuset, Agder Kunstnersenter(NO)
2017 — Kube Art Museum, Ålesund(NO)