Press release RE-ANIMATED Solo exhibition by Jakob Kudsk Steensen Curated by Toke Lykkeberg Tranen Contemporary Art Center Ahlmanns Allé 6, 2900 Hellerup, Kobenhavn, Denmark November 9, 2018 - February, 14 2019 Text by Toke Lykkeberg, Director at Tranen Contemporary Art Center. The last Kaua’i ʻōʻō bird died in 1987, and with it, so did the species. In 2009, its mating call - first recorded in 1975 and later digitized in an ornithology lab in New York – was uploaded to YouTube. Since then, the song of the Kaua’i ʻōʻō calling in vain to a mate no longer there has been played by people more than half a million times. One such listener is the Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen, born the same year that the bird went extinct. His largest solo exhibition to date, RE-ANIMATED, is a response to this call. The exhibition is a restaging of its song. It’s a grandiose resurrection of the bird. And it’s a reconstruction of its original habitat on the Hawaiian island of Kaua’i, in a wholly new, distorted version. Over the last couple of years, Jakob Kudsk Steensen has become a notable figure within virtual reality at the intersections of art, film, and grassroots collaboration. With RE-ANIMATED, he re-interprets his starting point in animation as a form of re-animation, by imbuing dead material with life and spirit anew. RE-ANIMATED is a video and VR work that meditates on our paradoxical techno-scientific development. Advancements in man’s control of nature have triggered processes that humans no longer control. A process is set in motion that simultaneously stokes fears of increasingly fatal natural catastrophes, and hopes for resurrection and eternal life. This process is mirrored in Kudsk Steensen’s island, which is a landscape of both dreams and nightmares. As a digital gardener, the artist has collected and planted a broad range of flora and fauna, which he, by use of algorithms, has programmed to take over the island. The virtual landscape is equally an entrancing ecosystem filled with water, light, plants, birds, fish, and insects, and a biotech laboratory for a resurrected, monstrously-scaled bird. The exhibition dives into a history that unfolds across the 5 million year old volcanic island of Kaua’i, in the Hawaiian archipelago. This pacific island is known for its endemic animal species such as the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō, which are not found anywhere else in the world. The island is a study in the accelerating eco-crisis; a microcosm of mass extinction often presented as the sixth in the history of the earth, after the dinosaurs went extinct 66 million years ago. It is the story of an island that has been overrun by Western explorers, missionaries, colonial masters, and scientists since Captain James Cook’s arrival in 1778. While Western visitors have been immortalized through their work, the island’s diverse life has continuously suffered from the viruses and invasive species that have accompanied newcomers. Mosquitoes carrying fatal disease have forced the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō into the mountains, where nesting has become virtually impossible due to increasingly frequent hurricanes. In brief, RE-ANIMATED is the story of a bird that became extinct in the 20th century, and is resurrected in the 21th century. The exhibition is marked by a recognition of how newcomers such as biologists have colored and influenced what they’ve come to study. Kudsk Steensen’s all-encompassing photorealistic version of the volcanic island also draws a picture of an island distorted by the artist’s own visions. It is a virtual landscape haunted by its own past, and shaped by imaginings of its future. In RE-ANIMATED , the simulated Pacific island of Kaua’i and the exhibition space at Tranen in Hellerup meet and merge. As a result, at Tranen you enter the virtual island, and on the virtual island you enter Tranen. The exhibition originates in the artist’s work inhabiting a grey area between virtual and real worlds, which nowadays impact each other and fuse. Kudsk Steensen’s virtual island also echoes computer simulation models that climate scientists use to predict future climate scenarios for life on earth. RE-ANIMATED is the result of extensive field work collecting and 3D-scanning flora and fauna as well as a multitude of collaborations. The American Museum of Natural History has granted the artist access to its restricted archives, where Kudsk Steensen has handled and photographed preserved Kaua’i ʻōʻō birds collected in the late 1800s. Michael Riesman, Musical Director for the Philip Glass Ensemble, has composed an ever-changing algorithmic score for the VR component. Colleagues of the artist working in the fields of VR and experience design have made a visualization of the bird’s mating call, and developed a system that enables the audience’s breath and voice to organically impact the virtual atmosphere. Ornithologist Douglas H. Pratt has been interviewed by Kudsk Steensen about his thoughts on and memories of the Kaua’iʻōʻō, which he has also painted himself. Tranen would like to thank Bikubenfonden for generously supporting the exhibition, as well as the Danish Arts Council. The exhibition is accompanied by a selection of novels, short stories, and scientific literature curated by Jakob Kudsk Steensen. The books have served the artist as reference points during the making of RE-ANIMATED . Now they will also serve the public as alternative points of entry to the exhibition and its themes. RE-ANIMATED is the second exhibition in Tranen’s new exhibition program. The focus will be on contemporary art that is not primarily centered on our contemporary condition. When everything from climate to technology evolve at an accelerating pace, the present becomes ephemeral and starts to shrink. Meanwhile, our knowledge of the past expands. Speculation about the future abounds. As a result of this movement, much art is no longer contemporary, which literally means ‘of its time’. Instead, art is ‘extemporary’, meaning ‘out of time’. Accordingly, Tranen will provide a space for imagining time and history in a multiplicity of new ways, over the next two years. Toke Lykkeberg Director of Tranen Jakob Kudsk Steensen (1987, DK) is based in New York. He has recently exhibited at the Zabludowicz Collection, 360 space in London, and the 5th Trondheim Biennale. In 2017 he was the subject of a solo exhibition with Times Square Arts in New York. In September 2018, the artist was nominated for the prestigious International Future Generation Art Prize 2019. RE-ANIMATED credits Creator, producer and main developer: Jakob Kudsk Steensen Composer and Music Director: Michael Riesman Co-producer: Toke Lykkeberg Nielsen and Tranen Contemporary Art Center Music technical director and audio programmer: Jerry Smith Character optimization: Jeremy Thompson, 2Nstudio Programming assistance and audio interactivity: Todd Bryant Bird song visualization: Andy Thomas Research assistance: The American Museum of Natural History, NYC Jazia Hammoudi: Research assistant Made with support from The Danish Arts Council, Bikuben Foundation, Harvestworks, Mana Contemporary and Artist Alliance. RE-ANIMATED is produced and owned by Erratic Animist LLC, directed and founded by Jakob Kudsk Steensen
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