MOMENTUM – 8th Nordic Biennial of Contemporary Art
Tunnel Vision
June 13–September 27, 2015

Press preview: June 12, 1pm
Opening: June 13, 2pm
Opening party: June 13, 7pm

Galleri F15 and MOMENTUM Kunsthall
Moss
Norway
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 11am–5pm

www.momentum.no
About MOMENTUM
Since its inception in 1998, MOMENTUM has presented outstanding Nordic and international artists while operating from and within Norway. The biennial has established as the perhaps most important assembly of contemporary art in the Nordic region.

MOMENTUM artists 2015
Hrafnhildur Arnardottir a.k.a Shoplifter (Iceland/US), Brody Condon (Mexico/US), Steingrimur Eyfjord (Iceland), Valia Fetisov with Dzina Zhuk & Nicolay Spesivtsev (Russia), Johanna Heldebro (Sweden), Minna L. Henriksson (Finland), Sofia Hultén (Sweden/Germany), Ferdinand Ahm Krag (Denmark), Agnieszka Kurant (Poland/US), Cristóbal Lehyt (Chile/US), Eva Löfdahl (Sweden), Joanna Lombard (Algeria/Sweden), Lundahl & Seitl (Sweden), Fujiko Nakaya (Japan), Christine Ödlund (Sweden), Ola Pehrson (Sweden), Edward Shenk & Brad Troemel (US), Daniel Steegmann Mangrané (Spain/Brazil), Bjarni H. Thorarinsson (Iceland), Sissel Tolaas (Norway/Germany), Ryan Trecartin (US), Steina (Steina Vasulka) (Iceland/US), Julius von Bismarck (Germany), Zhala (Sweden)

Tunnel Vision
MOMENTUM 8 explores tunnel vision as a cultural and artistic condition. Today’s networked culture not only generates hyper-connectivity, but also various disconnects. People and communities thrive in bubbles of their own. MOMENTUM 8 focuses on artists who inhabit worlds of their own logic and follow their thoughts all the way through.

MOMENTUM takes place in Moss, a small city just outside of Oslo where Edvard Munch withdrew for four years. The relative solitude that he enjoyed there, and which helped to cultivate his eclectic and highly personal practice, is not exceptional. It is rather exemplary. Tunnel vision might be prone to cultural condemnation as alarmingly asocial, yet it has for a long time also lent itself to artistic celebration as disarmingly eccentric. While MOMENTUM 8 addresses phenomena symptomatic of contemporary society and culture, it also deals with the persistent idea of “a room of one’s own” as a premise for artistic practice.

Current techno-scientific developments encourage individualism while simultaneously fostering segregated communities into which individuals can delve and disappear. The personalization of the Internet through the abundant use of cookies and algorithms generates so-called filter bubbles and you loops. User data is deployed in a manner that determines what we find and consequently also what we seek. If the Internet has been a window to the world, it is now also our own mirror image on the screen.

Immersion in self-referential loops is echoed in a renewed interest in psychotropic substances in society at large. Whereas the psychedelic movement of the 1960s was concerned with mind expansion, MOMENTUM 8 focuses on experiences of a narrowing-down of the mind. While we are submerged in a constant flow of data, new drugs and technologies are used to create a tunnel vision that narrows down the spectrum of information and our access to it.

Addressing conspiracy theories, paranoia and altered states of mind, the biennial explores what might be called compressed consciousness, and may appear incestuous, navel-gazing or idiosyncratic.

At MOMENTUM 8, the theme of tunnel vision will unfold as a multisensory experience triggering altered states of mind, physical awareness and an atmosphere that ties the various venues and events together across time and space. The artists of MOMENTUM 8 will present fragrances, sound pieces, 3D works, apps, music, installations and performances.

Curators:
Jonatan Habib Engqvist (Sweden), Birta Gudjonsdottir (Iceland), Stefanie Hessler (Germany/Sweden), Toke Lykkeberg (Denmark)