The GPS Will Take Me Home | 2019

 

 

Solo exhibition at Ringsted Galleriet, curated by Heidi Hove and Morten K. Jacobsen

Video (8. min. 49 sec.), flat screen, TV rack, hunting decoys, Tru Audio Rock speakers, surround sound setup.

​

The GPS Will Take Me Home comprises video, sculpture and sound, with the collective imaginary surrounding the simulation of life and artificial intelligence as its focal point. In a 3D-animated video piece pigeons sing and speak in a futuristic tongue about subjects such as GPS technology, love and the preservation of the human body. The pigeons communicate and interact with electronic apparatuses such as a microwave oven, a robot vacuum cleaner and a cryostat. The pigeons appear as hybrids between organism and machine, between the natural and the artificial. As portals receiving signals from the future, or algorithms only partially capable of translating the data stream.

Pigeons are an omnipresent phenomenon in the metropolis. They have adapted to our form of life and have substituted human settlements for their natural habitats. The pigeon can be seen as a domesticated observer of human life, but in the exhibition it appears as a sentient entity, a cyborg, with a particular insight into the human world.   

In surround sound the pigeons sing autotuned pop songs infused with EDM and mixed with recordings of electromagnetic fields and synth sounds, creating tensions between the emotional and the artificial. The sound is played through camouflaged rock speakers which have originally been produced to discretely blend into public and pool environments. In the exhibition space they appear as simulations of the natural and attract attention rather than become part of their surroundings. Some of the speakers are outfitted with decoys usually used for hunting, consisting of two rotating wings. Here the bird is reduced to its most basic form: a movement, and with these means Settergren points to the human capability of creating new hybrids and manipulating life.   

The sound composition for the piece is created in collaboration with Sebastian Edin. Voices by Sebastian Edin and Anna Katrin Egilstrøð. CGI by Lars Hemmingsen.

​

Click here for review at Kunstkritikk

​

Supported by The Danish Arts Foundation

​

​