The Bjerknes Experiment
2021
2021
‘a little larger than the entire universe’
The Art Academy Master Exhibition
Bergen Kunsthall
The Art Academy Master Exhibition
Bergen Kunsthall
Installation detail: 16mm negative analogue film projection, 5m 57s.
The Bjerknes Experiment is an ongoing project that combines science-fiction with the history of The Geophysical Institute in Bergen. By displaying both faked and real historical documents, the project alludes to various supernatural anomalies taking place within the instutute and encompassing geography: strange gravitational and light phenomena, mutations, and weather patterns. Included within the display as a speculation on the origins of these anomoalies is material relating to the history of The Geophysical Institute, and the theories of three generations of Bjerknes scientists inolved in its creation: Carl Anton Bjerknes and the founders of the Bergen School of Meteorology, Vilhelm (1862-1951) and Jacob Bjerknes (1897 - 1975).
The fictional scenario was used to question the materiality of institutional knowledge, within the archive and the structures of display that influence our interpretation of information; how material, psychological and spacial boundaries are formed between ‘nature’ and ‘the human’ within the spaces of natural science.
Installation view: looped 16mm analogue film, 16mm film projector, digital inkjet prints, oak vitrine (blank 16mm film spiral, research material, temperature and humidity sensor, 16mm film camera). Variable dimensions.
Installation view.
Detail - framed digital inkjet prints, 50 x 70cm: logo for the Bergen Meteorological Institute at The Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, 15x20cm; post-mortem photograph of Norwegian Physicist Professor Carl Anton Bjerknes (1825 - 1903) - National Library of Norway, 20x15cm.
Post-mortem photograph of Norwegian Physicist Professor Carl Anton Bjerknes (1825 - 1903) - National Library of Norway, 20 x 15cm.
Bergen Meteorological Institute logo - The Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, 15 x 20cm.
Detail: hand-made oak and glass vitrine; 90 x 170 x 80cm.
Contents:
- Bjerknes, Vilhelm, (2013) Fields of Force. Book on Demand Ltd. Originally published as Fields of Force: Supplementary Lectures, Applications to Meteorology; a Course of Lectures in Mathematical Physics, 1905.
- Hovland, Edgar, (2007) In the wind: Department of Geophysics 90 years. Bergen: Fagbokfor.
- Blank 16mm film spiral.
- Paillard Bolex 16mm analogue film camera, Made in Switzerland, 1958.
- Fake typed letter to Professor Jacob Bjerknes dated October 1959 from Professor Guro Gjellestad, the first female professor at The Geophysical Institute in Bergen.
- Digital Inkjet prints of Nygårdsparken, Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, and Professor Guro Gjellestad - a pioneer in the field of palaeomagnetism.
Detail: Fake typed letter to Professor Jacob Bjerknes, pioneer in modern wethar forecasting and grandson of Vilhelm Bjerknes, dated October 1959. From Professor Guro Gjellestad, the first female professor at The Geophysical Institute - Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research.
Detail: Bjerknes, Vilhelm, (2013) Fields of Force. Book on Demand Ltd. Originally published as Fields of Force: Supplementary Lectures, Applications to Meteorology; a Course of Lectures in Mathematical Physics, 1905.
Detail: Blank 16mm film spiral.
Detail: Eiki 16mm analogue film loop.
Installation detail: 16mm negative analogue film projection, 5m 57s, silent.