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Concepts
Points
The Ascii code
Installation built with of 340 pieces of glass, each one 6x26 cm. The glass has a text written in Ascii - code (American standard code for information interchange) melted into the surface. The idea is to show the connection between looms with punchcards and the develoment of the computer. Before the mid 1970s most computers had the information represented by the presence or the absence of a hole in a stiff piece of paper, just like the Jacquardlooms in the textile industry. The text in the artpiece is chapter 26 in the second book of Moses in which instructions are given for the construction of the tabernacle. The construction in shape of a tent made it possible to move anywhere, the tabernacle was not tied to a specific geographic place.
The visual work inspired to a soundproduction - Ascii för Jacuard i A - moll together with musician and composer Pelle Bolander.
Lines
Thread
Swedish title:Tråd
2600 meter sisal thread covering an area of 18x25 meter 150 cm over the floor. Visitors could step into the installation and become a part of it. Due to the structure visitors where connected as a part of the installation, but also at the same time physically separated from each other by the construction. The process of building the net was took about 22 days and was part of the artwork. A cube with four sides made of thread was also made during the same period.
The Void
Mindspheres
Barbara Ekström and Kent Turnefelt
MindsphereSound Pelle Bolander
54 spheres made out of cotton shopping bags. The Mindsphere project is an investigation in how the mind works in the space between abstract ideas, thoughts and dreams and the material world. An installation with the objects was made as a light – trap: a simple way to describe how light reveals matter. Once visible the objects also gains the ability to conceal other material shapes: part two in the project tries to find out how this works in relation to the human body, this part is called Man and Mindspheres. A serial of portraits develops from a start where the person is almost invisible in the mass of network which ends with a connection between the individual and the textile, a balance act.
In the third part the spheres collects the inhabitants in a town in Sweden into a common action putting the spheres on as a sort of textile helmet. The idea was to find people working or dealing with everyday life and at the same time wear the sphere a sign of something that´s completely different from ordinary circumstances. This act speeks to the playful quality in mankinds character - serious and sometimes strange, allowing fantasy and imagination to inspire us. The documentation of this part of the project - Inside Mindspehres, was used as a concept for the Cultural month of Lundby 2012.
Page under construction. More concepts will follow.
Contact: barbaraekstroem@yahoo.se
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The Void
The square alphabeth
Swedish title: Det kvadratiska alfabetet
The installations consists of ceramic casting from bricks presented as a fragmentary wall hanging in the room. Each brick has a positions that represents a letter in a square alphabet and the texts tells the short commandos from the onlinegame Counterstrike.
The construction of a brick wall adding one brick to another, is connected to the picture of ideas and agreements that forms a society. Rules and behaviour forms a pattern similar to a brickwall where each stone has its specific place. The double function of the wall protecting and at the same time excluding, is also a characteristic in society. In history those structures are constantly growing at the same time as they are falling apart.
The bricks in the artpiece are casting of real stones from the building of an old porcelain industry in Gothenburg. The stones are hollow, containing a small void inside. Each stone has a position that represents a letter in a square alphabet traditionally used by cellmates to communicate with each other with sequences of knockings. The text that is visualising short commandos from Counterstrike, that once was one of the worlds most played onlinegames. Many similar games has followed since, with players located all over the world, sharing the rules and agreements specific for the games. All information is, needless to say, passed on between players in binary code, one or zero, yes or no, knocking or silence.
Points and lines
Fog
Structures of thin lines connected with castings of ceramic fingerprints in the shape of 19 starconstellations.
The constructions were inspired by Polynesian sailors who developed the first nautical charts using shells linked together with reeds. The charts made it possible to navigate safer in the complex Polynesian archipelago and share information with others. This kind of inherited information is granted today and a huge stock of knowledge is available about almost any subject. In that way power is divided on more hands and the question now is to free space for practical use. The fingerprints in the artwork represents the individual experience that is essential in any journey.
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