“Inside The Black Box!!?” is an exhibition coordinated by artists Jamie Hudson (UK) and Victor Svedberg (SWE) in collaboration with NSFW.
The exhibition centres on one sculptural form: an empty IBM Enterprise Server Rack. Relieved of its original function, this container becomes the site and subject of the exhibition, a void containing an endless possibility.
Exploring the subjectivity of this strange and ordinary box, the artists propose a science fiction where a skeleton is re-animated and transformed.*
Throughout the exhibition, the “black box” will host various forms of production as sculptors, sound artists, and image makers engage with themes of technology infrastructure, intelligence, and materiality.
Decidedly episodic, “Inside The Black Box!!?” will grow and evolve over time, gradually becoming a group exhibition over several weeks, installing and connecting works by an interdisciplinary cast of artists.
*No attempts to demystify will be made.
** Documentation by Philip Svensson.
Hanna & Björn is an artist duo driven by the pursuit of the supersensible in what they perceive to be an increasingly disenchanted contemporary society. Their practice can be seen as an attempt to reopen the doors of perception, which have gradually closed behind us due to the collective rationalization and instrumentalization of both our inner and outer worlds. They work with video, photography, sculpture, and painting. In their exhibitions, these different media are often intertwined in spatial installations. As a part of their practice, Hanna & Björn run the publishing house Moon Space Books, where they publish books both by themselves and by other artists.* The duo consists of Hanna Andersson and Björn Engberg, who are currently based in Stockholm and Jämtland.
Teresa Winter is a Yorkshire based composer and musicologist. She is a mainstay on prism-pushing experimental labels Night School, Death of Rave, Kashual Plastik, and Boomkat’s in-house Editions imprint. With a PhD dissertation on the vitally important English composer and electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire, her work exists in conversation with the sonic and technological legacies of modernism, post-structuralist theory, and ritual.
Mia Windsor is an experimental musician interested in connecting materials to themselves and each other via frequency domain audio processing and feedback in complex dynamical systems. She is also interested in the digital artifacts that emerge from different methods of frequency domain audio processing. She is currently completing a practice-led PhD at the University of Leeds funded by a Leeds Doctoral Scholarship exploring this practice. Mia also makes pipe organ drone music and improvises with various friends including Teresa Winter, Thomas Carroll, Anthony Stillabower and Jo Christman.
Oda Haugerud is an artist based Malmö, Sweden working interdisciplinary with installation. Haugerud obtained a MFA at Malmö Art Academy 2024 and a Bachelor degree of Fine Arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam in 2018, being nominated for the GRA Awards for her thesis “Living Dead Surplus”. She has taken part in exhibitions and artist residencies internationally in countries such as US, Germany, Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, The Netherlands and Georgia. Previous solo exhibitions include Hall Gallery, Gothenburg, SE (2023), Good Weather, Chicago, US (2022), Galleri Konstepidemin, Gothenburg, SE (2020) and Heerz Tooya, Veliko Tarnovo, BG (2019). Her multidisciplinary installations often take on a site specific nature, consisting of video, audio, kinetic sculpture, 3D prints, text and repurposed found matter. By positioning herself as a co-producer Haugerud lets her surroundings seep into her work through collaborative and site specific gestures.
PWR is a Berlin-based studio for design and research run by Hanna Nilsson and Rasmus Svensson. PWR works with practical investigations into systems for communication and information storage, from Cloud to Dirt.
Ryan Gerald Nelson, is a US-based artist. Šayá Solstice (Red Mask) and Thothóya Solstice (Green Mask) are iterations stemming from an on-going body of works and research in which the artist reflects on the gap of time existing between the creation of ancient forms of communication—in the form of geoglyphs or petroglyphs—and the modern means of documenting those forms with advanced optical apparatuses. The artist cites two prominent sources of inspiration behind this body of work: His observation of the otherworldly Nazca Lines geoglyphs in southern Peru from the seat of a single-prop airplane nearly 20 years ago and; The ascension of powerful image-based technologies such as LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) as an archaeological tool. In response, the artist uses various materials and techniques to create paintings and monoprints of his own language of geo/petroglyphic-like expressions which are then further altered with various digital means.
ABOUT THE CURATORS:
Victor Svedberg is an artist and researcher within the fields of design, audio and aesthetics. Since graduating from HDK in Gothenburg he has worked with both self-initiated art projects and as a designer in the music industry. Victor Svedberg currently works as an in-house art director for Swedish record label YEAR0001. Victor has also released music as a member of the groups Team Rockit, Chariot and as a solo artist under the monkier Cotton Mouth.
Jamie Hudson is a British artist and designer based in Gothenburg. He collects and assembles various materials, making art to explore the mess of lived experience, resulting in image, text, audio and exhibitionary works. Since graduating with an MFA at HDK-Valand in 2021, his work has examined human tendencies towards abstraction, specifically storytelling as a technology and the generative possibilities of Science Fiction.