Elevator Poetics

ANDREA MARTINUCCI

A New Unoptimised Generation Machine built by Andrea Martinucci is constructed from daily dialogue with Aldea’s machinery systems. Very Personal, Intuitive and Scalable, the machine is composed of a platform titled (28042023_Sit with me), one drawing, three paintings and a Performance in collaboration with Aurelio Di Virgilio. The Fragmented and Decentralised Machine generates lateral narrative. This first model is displayed on the floor as an Open Shell for visitors to walk, sit, people watch, forget, and obsess over it. On April 28, from 19:00:00 UTC+2 to 19:30:00 UTC+2, please stand in front of the New Unoptimised Generation Machine to observe the Generated Performance emerging from the following Prompt: Why do you keep watching the same ocean?

KATARINA SYLVAN

GRAVITY’S MARBLES: Katarina Sylvan presents a sculpture inspired by Deep Blue, the first computer to defeat a human chess player, titled Equals/Deep Blue; Kite, a kite sculpture inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s kite, Box, a box sculpture; Friend, a horse sculpture; Rolodex, a Rolodex sculpture; Phantom Flexx, a framed Xerox print; Glove, a glove sculpture, and Brick, a brick sculpture. Learn about Katarina’s quest for the ideal atmospheric conditions to cast an epoxy horse!

STORY TIME: “I 3D-sketched the horse and proceeded to 3D-printing, for which you need to create a clay support around the object into which you pour silicone, creating the object’s negative. The silicone is then covered with plaster for support. The procedure is repeated on both sides of the objects to create a 2-part mould. Epoxy resin is poured into the horse’s negative in batches of maximum 5 centimetres, in intervals of minimum 24 hours, to avoid overheating and in extension explosion.. What we did not know at the time was that the epoxy takes 7 days to cure, and needs specific conditions above 18 degrees Celsius. It was 17 degrees Celsius in the studio, and so the horse was liquid. As I wanted a solid horse, we had to think of an Reliable and Integral Alternative Solution. We carried the horse to another studio equipped with ceramic kilns, and heated the place to the optimum temperature of 20 degrees Celsius. The horse started to harden. As it stands now, it is in a semi-liquid, semi-solid condition, and if the atmospheric conditions allow it, I might be able to display it on wheels, with a plastic tail, standing on a podium shaped like a star. Alternatively, a Proactive, Predictive and Reactive Solution™ will be put into action. The atmospheric conditions were crucial in the making of the work. It was a real learning experience to ensure the Reliability and Integrity standard practices for developing, executing, and continuously improving a cost-effective Artwork Development without compromising safety or environmental performance.”

JONATHAN VERVOORT

Tea Party is a 3D-printed mythical creature sculpture of digitally fabricated wooden and plastic skin. A dragon evolved from its first form as a STL file living in a 3D digital model database, into a copper, black and ash-burned fragmented being, engraved with AI-generated data. Over the course of its gestation, a few other creatures creeped in the software. The strangely mutated creature now emerges from Bergen’s waters.

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ANDREA MARTINUCCI

“Ancora, ancora e ancora” Based in Italy, Andrea works with assemblages and overlaps across diversified contents. By composing images through modification, fragmentation and hybridisation, Andrea elaborate metaphorical nonlinear narratives. Andrea’s observation of reality translates into the rethinking of everyday objects emptied of their daily value, as ruins expelled from a society speeding towards its own collapse. He works with painting, moving images, writing and for this occasion with performance in collaboration with Aurelio Di Virgilio (performer and dance maker - https://aureliodivirgilio.com/).

JONATHAN VERVOORT

“Gcode. 4 ever” Jonathan Vervoort is an artist based in Amsterdam, whose practice exists at the intersection where the digital, the analog, the expressive and the rational come together. His work emerges from the inexhaustible stream of visual data that one is constantly confronted with. Working across various media, Jonathan is interested in re-coding references, histories and mythologies. Errors, glitches, erasures, and absences, employing the technique of superimposition to allow layers of meaning to accumulate, exploring today’s image culture status quo and its relation to the human urge to mark our existence on this planet.

KATARINA SYLVAN

“The soul is a cavalier that rides the body.” Katarina Sylvan is an artist based in Stockholm. Her medium-promiscuous practice spans tiny moving image pieces on raspberry pies, sculptures, radio pieces, and writing. She is a scanner enthusiast, and co-runs the publishing platform Luxemburg Press whose latest publication and exhibition emerged from the belief that the Kingdom of Sweden, is, in fact, the Kingdom of Luxemburg.

Gallery Hours:  Thursday - Sunday 12 - 4pm

Aldea, C.Sundsgate 55, 5004 Bergen

Supported by:

Bergen Kommune, Kulturrådet and Vestland Fylkeskommune