Nothing to see here
Unnur Andrea Einarsdóttir (IS) with Boris Kourtoukov (RU/CA)
The interactive multimedia installation Nothing to see here allows the viewers to explore their surroundings through an Augmented Reality application.
The audience gets a glimpse of something they are not meant to see: the daily operations of the DRM (Department of Reality Maintenance). Two agents are trying to fix an error, working hours to make sure everything runs smoothly and that our world continues to appear consistent and intact. They are mired in the guts of this world.Digital infrastructures have come to be what binds and holds the world together, hard to imagine if they collapse or disappear. We tend to forget the physicality of these immense structures, driven by power grids, claiming a large share of the world’s energy and natural resources. We tend to forget the invisible parts of the networks anatomy, the thousands of data signals passing through our bodies and the air around.
Nothing to see here challenges our perception of reality, uniting the audience in a digital experience they can agree is there, while we all know it’s not really there.
Unnur Andrea Einarsdóttir (* 1981) is an Icelandic visual artist and musician that recently completed her M.A. degree from the Trondheim Academy of Arts. Her work explores our relationship with technology and the utopian and dystopian manifestations of our digital present. It investigates the divide between our virtual lives and physical bodies, and how global networks influence our identities, societies and collective perception of reality. Einarsdóttir works mainly with video, performance and installation, often seeking to create an immersive and encompassing experience for the viewer. As a singer and music producer, the sonic elements remain an important and central factor in most of her work. For FMR 21 she collaborates with the Oslo based artist Boris Kourtoukov that works within a wide range of the digital medium. From bending reclaimed technology, making expressive wearables, to co-opting algorithms for individual introspection. His recent works have been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum (New York), V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media (Rotterdam), Kunstnernes Hus (Oslo) and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Toronto). Currently Kourtokoukov is exploring new possibilities in digital experiences as a future pilot at the Norwegian Cultural Schoolbag’s Art Lab.