POWER GAMES: Peter Fend & Morten Traavik

On June 1, 2012, our not-for-profit arts venue will be renamed NOoSPHERE (pronounced “know-oh-sphere”) to reflect our expanding geographic scope.* On this occasion, we are proud to present our first truly transnational exhibit. Curated by Russian-born Yulia Tikhonova, POWER GAMES is a staged dialogue between two artists who share a willingness to challenge boundaries and to face the consequences this brings.

The two artists share a belief in ‘truth disclosure’ projects conducted to challenge their own and others’ comfort zones. In this pursuit,they both play many roles: activist, pundit, craftsman, conceptualist, realist, fantasist, bad‐boy artiste ‒ sometimes all at once!

• While our point of departure, .NO as in Norway, remains the main focus, our sphere of activity is evolving. According to Vladimir Vernadsky and Teilhard de Chardin, the noosphere denotes the “sphere of human thought”: it is a stage of evolutionary development dominated by consciousness, the mind, and interpersonal relationships. Constituted by the interaction of human minds, the noosphere is an organized web of thought surrounding the Earth’s biosphere; a sphere of mind encircling the planet; the collective consciousness of the human species.