https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/1955415/1955416
PhD in Artistic Research University of Bergen Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design The Art Academy – Department of Contemporary Art.
Supervisors: Daniel Jewesbury, Darla Crispin, Anne Helen Mydland and Frans Jacobi.
Artistic reflection and documentation of artistic result submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor (PhD) in Artistic Research at the University of Bergen. Date of public defence: 8.12.2023
'Oceanic Horror - or How to Survive the Night in the Haunted Mansion of Absolute Capitalism' is an artistic research project that explores the potentials of utilising the genre of horror fiction to create new narratives in a political and time-based art practice. It is invested in the temporal qualities and entanglements of the horror genre and how these relate in strange ways, not only to our current tempor(e)ality and the modes of financialisation that informs this, but also to art practices using the temporal as material. Framed around the revisiting of the mid-nineties trading firm 'Island' in the advent of high frequency trading and its successor the trading company 'Archipelago', pushing the algorithmic trading systems further into the splash of web 2.0, 'Oceanic Horror' uses the methodologies of Transrealism and Meandering to create new nonlinear narrations revolving around the relationship between the opaque structures of absolute capitalism and the socio-political horror experienced in everyday life. The research project searches for a certain condition found in horror fiction, that relates to its relentless nowness, its proposed prolonging of this now, its relation to eventality and the quasi-event and finally how horror fiction wants to do things to the body - not only in a simple reaction mode but really in the very temporality experienced in and by the body. The artistic result of 'Oceanic Horror' was exhibited at Kunsthall 3.14 in Bergen 21.04.2023 - 04.06.2023, comprising a multi-channel video installation combining digital renderings with fictional cinematic scenes in an immersive total installation of office furniture sculptures forming makeshift sleep stations in the exhibition space. The reflection for 'Oceanic Horror' is presented in this Research Catalogue exposition, including both written material, images and a comprehensive archive of all the video works that make up the entangled narratives of 'Oceanic Horror - or How to Survive the Night in the Haunted Mansion of Absolute Capitalism'
