Jakob Kudsk Steensen
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Catharsis

Catharsis, 2019. 3.5 minutes video with synchronized spatial audio.

Catharsis (2019)

2D Cinematic Video

Commissioned by the Pinchuk Foundation, Kyiv

Catharsis is a large-scale, immersive installation that pulls audiences into a digital simulation of a re-imagined old-growth forest. This imaginary forest has existed undisturbed for hundreds of years, free from human intervention and suffused with birdsong. It was developed through fieldwork conducted by Jakob Kudsk Steensen and his primary collaborator Matt McCorkle, and its virtual ecosystem and synchronized spatial audio were built from 3D textures and sounds collected in a number of North American forests.

Set up as a continuous shot that moves from watery underground roots to the the forest’s canopy, Catharsis draws on Kudsk Steensen’s concept of ‘slow media’. As a philosophy and a practice, ‘slow media’ uses digital technologies to draw attention to the natural world and create new narratives on our ecological futures. Collapsing various ecological timelines, the work operates as a digital portal. It takes viewers on a meditative journey through a holistic new world, slowed down and up close.

Catharsis was exhibited at the Serpentine Galleries in January 2020 for Connect BTS 2020, the global public art project initiated by South Korean supergroup BTS. The original version of Catharsis was commissioned by the Pinchuk Art Centre (Kyiv). The work continues Kudsk Steensen and his studio Erratic Animist’s focus on emerging ecological realities, and the ways that digital technologies can be used to engage with past and present natural environments. The hope is that Catharsis creates a temporal space that gives audiences an overwhelming sense of communion and harmony.


Serpentine Galleries x BTS, Connect 2020

Serpentine North, London 14 January - 30 May 2020

Presented as part of global public art project, CONNECT, BTS. and initiated by South Korean supergroup BTS, Catharsis was presented outdoors at Serpentine Galleries London as well as a series of events with rotating indoor installations and live stream. The project’s broader aims were to redefine the relationships between art and music, material and immaterial, artists and their audiences, artists and artists, theory and practice. The outdoor installation was set within the grounds of Serpentine North at the nearby Zaha Hadid-designed extension, and set against the beautiful green spaces of Kensington Gardens. Inside a triptych version of the work was created with accompanying spatialised sound.

This followed Steensen’s previous work for the Serpentine, The Deep Listener (2019), an augmented reality app for mobile devices that offered an audio-visual ecological trail through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, to both see and hear five of London’s species: London plane trees, bats, parakeets, azure blue damselflies and reedbeds.

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For more information, please visit Catharsis at the Serpentine Galleries and see selected press & media section below.
Livestream the accompanying soundscape at catharsis.live

About Connect, BTS:
 Connect, BTS
Catharsis on Twitch 
BTS instagram

Culture Station Seoul 284

ReSOUND, Sound Beyond Installation, Seoul 21 June - 25 August 2024

“As the first d'strict Art Project, reSOUND presents a captivating multi-sensory exhibition at Culture Station Seoul 284 from June 21st to August 25th, 2024. Occupying the historic venue of the former Seoul Station, this exhibition features eight site-specific immersive artworks by acclaimed Korean and international artists and collectives. Their works have been exhibited worldwide and comprise large-scale immersive installations, 4DSOUND, kinetic sound, audience-driven live performance, interactive art, and ASMR. The artworks, carefully curated and resonating across the Station, invite participants to navigate both familiar and unfamiliar realms and themes, promising to interweave multiple senses and transport the public to new dimensions of sensory experience.”

More information via https://artproject-en.dstrict.com/about

CATHARSIS, Commissioned by Pinchuk Foundation 2019

The original version for Catharsis was a 3.5 minute video projected on 9 channel install on monolithic LED walls that surrounded the audience in a 3D scanned forest. The work was commissioned by the Pinchuk Foundation in 2019, along with works by Olafur Eliasson, Jeff Koons and others for the annual Yalta European Strategy forum. The experience behaves as an uncut flow, a single shot through a landscape where humidity, light, and 3D scanned textures burst into constellations of otherworldly patterns. Time itself loops into the experience, and twists and turns across the 9 screens arranged in a circular configuration that mimics the sacral format of ancient ritual sites like Stonehenge.

Catharsis is a new work composed of 9 monolithic LED walls, surrounding its audience in a 3D scanned forest where the time of the sun, leaves, water and mists follow individual timescales, creating a rhythmic single immersive shot through a world where time and place take new forms. Catharsis was commissioned by Pinchuk Foundation, 2019, for the annual Yalta European Strategy forum, together with work by Olafur Eliasson, Jeff Koons and performer Lilbuck. Steensen and his primary collaborator, Sound Engineer Matt Mckorckle, have created Catharsis, a large-scale spatial installation that immerses audiences in a remixed old-growth forest.The work’s virtual ecosystem and synchronized audio is based on field work undertaken by Steensen and Mckorckle, who capture 3d textures and sounds in a variety of North American forests. Using digital simulation technologies, their collaboration has produced an installation in which timescales are transformed, allowing the audience to experience a reimagined natural landscape slowed down and up close. Set up across nine monumental LED walls, the piece is a 3.5 minute video created as a continuous shot that takes viewers on a journey through watery underground roots, rivers, and up through a re-imagined forest. Operating across a number of human and planetary timescales, Catharsis slows down time to provoke a universalizing sense of calmness. The experience behaves as an uncut flow, a single shot through a landscape where humidity, light, and 3D scanned textures burst into constellations of otherworldly patterns. Time itself loops into the experience, and twists and turns across the 9 screens arranged in a circular configuration that mimics the sacral format of ancient ritual sites like Stonehenge. Catharsis continues Steensen and his studio Erratic Animist’s focus on emerging ecological realities, and the ways that digital technologies can be used to engage with past and present natural environments. It invites viewers to experience multiple timescales through a continuous shot, creating a temporal space that gives audiences an overwhelming sense of communion and harmony. Erratic Animist is an initiative lead by artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen that focuses on presenting audiences with new ecological narratives through digital technologies and collaboration with scientists, technologists, and artistic institutions around the world.
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CREDITS

Artist and developer, Jakob Kudsk Steensen
Sound artist, Matt McCorkle

SELECTED PRESS & MEDIA

In the press