Polarstar

POLARSTAR follows the sound trail of legendary Norwegian sealer M/S Polarstar. The sound works are the optical soundtrack based on harbour- and sea maps. The sound is found by using the 16mm analogue film where one physically can glue on visual elements and have it read as sound. The topography at sea and the typography of the explanatory symbols of the nautical navigational charts has been scanned and made into sound. This way we are able to hear distances and places. What you see is what you hear.

As a viewer and consumer of media and of art especially, one is expecting it to have a logic of narrativity. The need to find a story, a narrative and something solid in even the most abstract work of art, and maybe in particular when fronting sound works is present at all times. Formalism and narrativty comes together in POLARSTAR trying to find out where these parameteres (of art) collides. Including the old, outdated and possibly dying media of 16mm film POLARSTAR can be looked upon as an anachronic and nostalgic way of looking at objects, but when these objects are combined with conceptual ideas a new body of knowledge is produced.

The project was supported by The Municipality of Bergen, Arts Council Norway, Norwegian Visual Artists Association, Bergen National Academy of Arts and Filmwerkplaats Worm, Rotterdam.