Synsmaskinen

Globalised economy and culture are intertwined, forming a complex knot of overlaps and messy interconnections. Thus, in looking at climate crises one is implicitly confronted with financial crises and social crises. Given the intricacy of such structures, one method for understanding and facing these crises could be to examine certain manifestations and elements of their fallout. In this way, the inscribed objects or phenomena dealt with in the Synsmaskinen projects can be considered symptoms, symbols, contemplations - or perhaps as interventions into the crises themselves.

The name Synsmaskinen is taken from the Danish and Norwegian translations of Paul Virilio’s seminal book on the techniques of perception, La Machine De Vision. This title has inspired the overall structure and methodology of the project. SYN=vision / MASKIN=machine.

In a sense, Synsmaskinen operates as a conglomerate: each production results from different collaborative constellations of a group of international artists, including organisers professor Frans Jacobi, co-artistic-research leader Åse Løvgren, and research assistant Benedicte Clementsen.