Light & Power features an installation in which the body and the city’s infrastructures are closely intertwined. Electricity cables are rolled and twisted into themselves, and while a rescued streetlamp still functions in the gallery setting, materials from the urban sphere are reassembled into a staged, non-functional setting. The infrastructural objects bend in a corporeal manner, while the body bends in the city shapes in the two videos ‘Working through the crisis’ and ‘Turning you on’. Between the seductive language of advertisement and the precarious structures surrounding it, the paradise seems now distant, while we face the consequences of unsustainable economic dynamics of mass tourism and international circulation.
‘Working through the crisis’ was filmed in the months following the pandemic lockdown. It consists of a 20-second video where a person rolls down a bridge in eternal loop. The action refers to a constant pressure linked to performativity of labour, conveying both a feeling of despair within an absurd context, and an almost comical response to the demand of staying productive and work through an exceptional moment of crisis. The video is shown in a low key old cctv monitor, alluding to the point of view of public space surveillance footage.
PODIUM Oslo (2021)
Photo credits: Ayatgali Tuleubek
Film: Petri Henriksson
Østlandsutstillingen (2023)
Photo credits: Istvan Virag
Links: https://kubaparis.com/archive/light-power
