'Scattered Horizon': an amalgamation of kinetic sculptures and sonic ambience

The laws of nature have occupied the minds of artists, anchoring a variety of immersive art forms and media. When fine art practices were still restricted to watertight genres—painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and dance—natural phenomenons of gravity and magnetism were often translated to a medium, in attempts to gauge their intensity. The textures and tones of such translations led to the development of few approaches by artists, presenting the power of natural phenomenons. In that vein, the exhibition Scattered Horizon, organised by Olivier Renaud-Clément, with visual artists Grönlund-Nisunen, Ryoji Ikeda, and Kaarel Kurismaa at Esther Schipper, Berlin, spans across kinetic sculptures and sonic ambience to facilitate an immersive experience for the audience.

Renaud-Clément and Esther Schipper had been in discussions to display the works of Ikeda, for a considerable amount of time, since they first saw his exhibition a decade back at the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, Berlin. When the right opportunity arose, they connected him to light artist duo Grönlund and Nissunen, represented by the art gallery. Seeing a shared close rapport amongst them, the idea for a dedicated space with immersive installations for each of these artists was proposed.

In an interview with STIR, Renaud-Clément further cements the bonds shared by the three artists, and how they feed each other's practice, "Not a coincidence, but sheer luck and beauty of life’s incidence, all three artists have been friends for 30 years and it was an easy dialogue between Grönlund and Nissunen and Ikeda. The piece by Grönlund and Nissunen was created specifically for our exhibition. The intentions are similar in dealing with sound, time and light.” The main gallery space is divided between the artists Grönlund-Nisunen and Ikeda to create an immersive light and sound environment. Accompanying these creations is an assorted selection of both recent and historical works by pioneering Estonian installation and sound artist Kaarel Kurismaa, near the bookstore area.

Ikeda is a Japanese visual and sound artist who lives and works in Paris. Often the 'raw’ element of his sonic work borders on exploring the potential of humans to listen and hear, in efforts to disturb how we hear the sway of soundscapes. The works sans the pulse are experimental in nature, letting listeners pay close attention to their surroundings. The Finnish artist duo, popularly known as Grönlund-Nisunen, have over the past three decades created minimalistic architectural and kinetic installations. The quadruple amalgamation of architecture, design, sound art and visual arts in their works has been a response to the natural law of forces. To arrive at this point of expressive engagement, the duo navigates lyrical flow technology, with sound and light serving as the key materials in their works.

The immersive experience of the installations by Grönlund-Nisunen are extended by the three natural states of matter: air, water, and gas. These forms nudge curious minds to look at the dynamics of time, pressure, and electromagnetic radiation. The installations by the duo are not stand-alone light art, but strive to activate the built environment where they are placed. The tactile value of the installations is recognised as soon as the viewer experiences a dual sense of awe and intuition. The immersion feature of the exhibition is key to experiencing the work presented here. “They allow contemplation, disruption, and questioning, and can be experienced very quickly or for a long time as neither work is on a loop and keeps creating new sequences and equations. The relation of the sounds of both pieces sometimes overlap each other and seem to offer a new accidental dialogue between the two works,” shares Renaud-Clément.

The three swaying lines of work, presented at Scattered Horizon, against the walls of a dark exhibition space garner the attention of the viewer. The experimental nature of the exhibition nudges the audience to ruminate on ideas of the horizon, otherwise conceived as a fixed site of straight perception. Here, the 'constant movement,’ marked by shifts and modulation, leads to a 'disorienting effect.' Additionally, the sonics supporting the three sine wave tones further underscores the physical sensation of the work.

The immersion twined with the multi-sensory experience makes the work 'visible, audible, and palpable.’ The experience is akin to visiting an adventure park, where as soon as one takes a ride, the stability of the surroundings is disturbed for an adrenaline rush. In a similar spirit, physical and cognitive responsiveness goes topsy-turvy against the moving horizon line. It is this liberty of response endowed onto the audience that enables a ride dotted with meditation and thrill. 

On a concluding note, Renaud-Clément does not pin the exhibition to superlative adjectives but rather wraps his final takeaways around easy terms, saying, “Simply come and experience each work for yourself and pay attention to your own feelings and emotions and the physical relationship to the pieces.”

The exhibition, Scattered Horizon is on view at Esther Schipper, Berlin until February 25, 2023.