We have received more then 70 applications from all over the Nordic countries for the HYBRID MATTERs production grant. The quality of the applications has been generally high and so it was really difficult for the HYBRID MATTERs team to come to a conclusion. Finally we settled on the exciting proposals TROUBLED ATMOSPHERE by Hanna Husberg and FOLDING by Lawrence Malstaf. We are looking forward to produce these new works in collaboration with them and keep you updated on the develoments.
Hanna Husberg (b.1981, Finland) is a Stockholm based artist. She graduated from ENSB-A, Paris in 2007, and is currently a Phd in Practice candidate at the academy of fine arts Vienna. Through a practice of video and installation projects she investigates how we perceive, and relate to our environment in times of anthropogenic climate change. Together with Laura McLean she conceived the Contingent Movements Archive and Symposium (Maldives Pavilion, 55th Venice Biennale / Adapting in the Anthropocene, UNESCO, Paris) Other recent projects include Human Meteorology (Galleri Mejan, Stockholm / Chateau de Chamarande) and Being with (CEEAC, Strasbourg). Hanna is also a participant of Frontiers in Retreat, a research platform in Multidisciplinary Approaches to Ecology in Contemporary Art coordinated by HIAP, Helsinki.
Her proposal with the working title TROUBLED ATMOSPHERE investigates the explosion of new materials dissipating into the biosphere and the atmosphere at large scales. By defining the atmosphere as troubled, her intention is to address the question of perception and visibility, and to stress the materiality of the atmosphere, and its characteristic as a medium to transmit light and vibrations and to diffuse volatile and soluble chemicals. She also evokes an estrangement produced by the difficulty to understand climatic phenomena occurring at multiple and contradicting scales.
Lawrence Malstaf (b. 1972, Belgium) is a Tromsø based artist. His work can be situated on the borderline between the visual and the theatrical. He develops installation and performance art with a strong focus on motion, coincidence, order and chaos and a series of sensorial rooms for individual visitors. He also creates larger mobile environments dealing with space and orientation often using the visitor as a co-actor. His projects often involve advanced technology as a point of departure or to activate the installations. Lawrence Malstaf has a master in industrial design and won several international awards in the field of art and new technology. He is also known in the dance and theatre world as an innovative scenographer. In 2008 he wins the Witteveen + Bos - prize for Art + Technology (NL), in 2009 he receives the Golden Nica at Ars Electronica (A), in 2010 he is the winner of the Excellence Prize at The 13th Japan Media Arts Festival in Tokyo (JP). In 2011 his project ‘Pavilion’ is selected for IBBT Art&D-call (iMinds) and in 2013 he wins the Norwegian Hedda Prize for best scenography. He currently lives and works in Tromsø, Norway, exhibits internationally and works closely together with Tallieu Art Office / Galerie Fortlaan 17.
His proposal FOLDING stems from a research project using side effects in 3D scanning and modeling software to explore the borderline between representation and abstraction. The aim is to accumulate a series of full scale kinetic sculptures based on 3D scans of the exhibition visitors. The kinetic and acoustic dimension in this project will involve breathing: The sculptures will breathe, expand and shrink according to real time breathing patterns of the public in the space. Thus the visitors are reanimating the abstracted models of earlier visitors and create a responsive choir of breathing avatars. A metaphor for the blurring boundaries between animate nature and inanimate simulation and modeling technology.