CONSTRUCTED SITE The exhibition title refers to the artists’ working method as well as their subject matter. Using both computer simulation and old-school 3D models, they build common scenarios that are subsequently depicted in various art forms: photo, video, sculpture, animation and painting. Hence, what the spectator believes to be ordinary, everyday situations are, in fact, constructed realities.

Sven Påhlsson creates animations that are simultaneously alienating and hauntingly seductive. In a glowing review of a 2002 show at ICA Boston, NYT’s Holland Cotter pronounced his work one of the highlights: ’’a hallucinatory, digitally generated trip through nocturnal suburbs, past fortresslike malls and housing developments that resemble colossal power plants, all viewed as if by alien surveillance. It’s a threatening, bad-dream vision of American 1950’s optimism”. Påhlsson’s current project in progress, Running High, is created with 3D-animation technology. Two years in the making, this complex and rich virtual world is built up of thousands of 3D models with advanced lighting setups emulating real-world illumination. The end result will be presented as a six-screen synchronized multiprojection video. In this exhibit at .NO, Påhlsson will show five stills accompanied by a video scored by Erik Wøllo.

Daniel Østvold works with a different kind of 3D modeling: like the old renaissance masters, he manually builds replicas of reality in order to paint them. In a recent interview in the art magazine Kunst, Østvold talks about his interest in the classical myths: Why are they necessary? Why do we seek to escape reality?

Nils Olav Bøe captures his staged scenarios on video and photography. Entitled Sunrise, his contribution to the show consists of three panoramic photos and a video depicting landscapes in which urban architectural constructions emerge. One aspect of young contemporary art captures political actions and social protests by means of documentation, and attempts to understand this reality as a performative act by transferring it into the exhibition space. Bøe turns this approach on its ear: He constructs realities using models. This distancing also invites critical reflection, but without prescribing a specific direction. The video is accompanied by a score by the internationally recognized musician and producer Daniel Lanois.