StartPoint Prize 2015

Karl Isakson

Four works by Karl Isakson could function independently, but they are related content wise and form wise as well. They are still presented as a single four part installation. The connecting factor is modern technology, i.e. the impersonal yet omnipresent part of our lives which is used here so that it affects our imagination and emotions. The largest work regarding its dimension is an installation formed by the source of a very loud sound,  which we can only imagine since it is completely muted by layers of a special material. The topic of another work abstract black-and-white prints depicting strange structures is again the permeability of fabrics and inner space: film negatives registering the penetrating light are inserted in regular T-shirts. The last two parts are video installations played unusually on a tiny iPhone screen. However, the gadget itself is also part of the topic. It plays through a small tunnel with a system of mirrors and, at the same time, records a film (i.e. a shrunken cut-out which corresponds with the tunnel diameter), which is simultaneously replayed and re-recorded. It doesn't matter what film sequence was at the beginning, because after a few repetitions, the image always copying its own detail becomes a pulsating screen generating certain colours.The second work also concerns the iPhone and the technology of its display. The artist had the iPhone sent to Baotou, a Chinese city, to carry out a trivial task: he had it record a local flower with a violet bloom, since it is here where rare metals, mainly Europium, are used in the displays to display the blue and violet colours. (mf)