128x84 cm | Filler, oak panels

    This two-panelled work can be installed in two different ways. See images.

    Spread is a compilation of work made by spreading the filler along the depth of the rim with a scrape. Letting a single action shape the result is reminiscent of Richard Serra's Verb List. It functioned as a kind of manifest for Serra's way of producing sculptures. To spread is on the list. It's about making art by exposing a matter to different types of forces.

#531 Spread

84x64 cm | Filler, oak frame      About      I did this work with the help of a specially conceived tool that makes it possible to draw several lines in the wet filler at the same time. This method obscures the natural flow from head to hand during the drawing process, which opens up the possibility for unexpected results. The lines that appear become peripheral to the original intention. But it is often in the periphery that more complex images can be formed because what is in the centre is usually designated by a preconceived vision.      The different lines have a fixed but equally dynamic relationship and repeat each other's movements in varying rhythmic patterns. I have tried to create a composition that both confirms and ignores the format, where the elements of the work are in balanced tension.

#321 Res Ipsa

#246 Bilderberg

Sparkel i eikramme. Les mer på www.jodsoderstrom.com

Distal Object 1

Filler on board, oak panel
My works are not painted but cast in oak panels using standard wall filler. 

This work is part of Social Engineering, a series featuring stone imprints and a composition made with rulers and/or compasses, the instruments architects and engineers use to divide space. They are titled after cognitive biases. 
The composition of this work is, to some extent, inspired by the Swedish modernist painter Olle Bærtling.

The title means the tendency to rely too heavily on one's perspective and/or have a different perception of oneself relative to others. One example is the Barnum effect, the tendency for individuals to give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them but are, in fact, vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people. This effect partially explains the widespread acceptance of some beliefs and practices, such as astrology, fortune telling, graphology, and some types of personality tests.

#506 Egocentric Bias

The discomfort of passing a line of people waiting to get free food from a charity organisation isn't only due to empathy with the people in need. There is also a feeling that distributing aid is a public responsibility and that the presence of food lines as well as beggars is a sign of societal failure.

Paper Cups is a series of paintings with imprints from regular paper cups. The kind you get from fast food places and the type often used by people begging in the streets. The series takes its starting point in economic resources and begging as a subversive act in a system of capitalism and neoliberal policies.

It is also about the priority of material conditions in a broader sense, as in historical materialism, and about in gaining agency for demands as a group. For a movement, a protest or an insurrection to become a subject, an agent with the power to act, it needs to ground its ideas in practical solutions, in a psychoanalytical sense, to move from the Imaginary to the Symbolic. This entails touching base with the void of the material Real, where the pureness of the intent - the initial message, always will get somewhat polluted and distorted.


#523 Food Line

Filler, oak panel

The text on the work is the name of a famous blues by Roy Hawkins and Rick Darnell, immortalised by B.B. King. This work is related to #489 Entertainers, and if one reads the two titles together, they misinterpret a verse in Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Art is similar to infatuation in that it is a state of exception. Infatuation lifts the object of one's desire out of the crowd of the others. The recipient is no longer part of the Other category; we feel a special bond. We sense that it has something of us in it. It's the same with a work of art. It is no longer an object in line with all others; we recognise something in art and find something of ourselves inside it.

But that experience is fleeting because it is, after all, an illusion. A construction in our own minds, with no basis in the object in front of us.

#488 Here We Are Now

64x84 cm | Filler, oak frame     About      This work is produced as a group with three others. Two of them have a seamless transition. They can be mounted together in different combinations, or individually.     Membrane series      A membrane is a selective barrier. It lets something through and prevents others from passing. Visual membranes can be polarised glass as in sunglasses or semi-transparent fabric as in tights or veils. A screen on a computer with a user interface is also a kind of membrane. Behind the screen are processes of which the user only sees the end result.     Perception itself can be described as a membrane, or a filter, where some parts of the information from the eye contribute to the visual impression, while other parts are omitted. Our pre-understanding of reality determines that we only perceive parts of what surrounds us. It can also have overall consequences, such as that phenomena outside the majority culture become marginalised or made invisible, and that the privileged remain blind to the specificity of their own social and cultural status.      The search for truth is sometimes described as lifting the veil that hides the real state of things. The truth is often called raw and unfiltered. But a filter can also be like a moraine. When the water is slowly seeping through it, it becomes clear and clean. We may sometimes need to hide parts of reality, filter the gaze of the outside world, to give an impression that is more in line with our inner image of ourselves.      The membrane is a primordial component of life. The cell wall regulates the organism's basic relationship to the outside environment. Without it, life would not exist. In the same way, the language prerequisite is the ability to set boundaries. To distinguish one from the other. One can think of language itself as a membrane, or a filter, that separates and sorts the limitless and continuously fluctuating nature of the material world.

#284 Membrane

Filler on board, oak panel

The title is Mandarin for "lying flat", and the term describes a Chinese trend of personal rejection of societal pressures to overwork and over-achieve. The participants choose to lower their professional commitment and economic ambitions, simplify their goals and prioritize psychological health over economic materialism. It is believed to have inspired the phrase "quiet quitting", which became popular in the United States in 2022 and has been described as a passive-aggressive resistance movement.

This work is done by pushing small pebbles found outside my studio through the wet filler with a scrape.

This work is part of a small series I call Resistance. They recall different work-related ways of protesting against difficult working conditions. But they also reflect a more general discontent with capitalist ideology and a refusal to be a productive member of the consumerist society.

In Swedish, there is an expression of throwing pebbles into the machine [kasta grus i maskineriet], which means sabotaging something by being difficult or introducing complications. We are all pushed along by the relentless machinery of capitalism, but by not complying with every command and pressing our heels in the dirt, we can at least produce some discernible traces. Ultimately, it might slow it down or create a possibility for change.

#466 Tang Ping

Entitled 3

#263 Empty Hollow

Filler, oak panel

    I made this work in light of all the devastating news from Gaza this year (2023). I don’t use the cross in a religious sense (at least not consciously) but as a symbol of death. The title is inspired by a song that has been very important to me - Fred (till Melanie) [Peace (to Melanie)] by Mikael Wiehe. But I heard it first in the version of the Swedish band Imperiet.

    The song questions the notion of peace. From a privileged position like mine, war definitely seems like the ultimate horror. But even if it is challenging, it is essential to remember that peace may come with a price that is possibly even worse. There can be no peace until all are free. Not freedom in a liberal, individual understanding - the freedom to exploit and oppress, but true freedom. The freedom from exploitation and oppression.

#495 Do We Truly Want Peace

Filler, oak panel, banana

    This work features a banana placed on top of the panel.

    Dreams are often considered intangible, existing somewhere outside the material world. But of course, as involuntary chemical processes in the brain, they are deeply material. Perhaps the same can be said of hopes and aspirations. They are hard-wired and precede consciousness. When they have to be expressed in reality, the problems begin, even to ourselves. To be effective and bring about change, they have to leave the realm of raw materiality and be formulated in the language domain. But language has to be grounded in materiality to function. And matter is not easily structured. It is mute and without boundaries. Our distinctions are always muddled when encountering the dirt of the earth. Yet, only there can we make our dreams come true.

#497 Dream Of A Banana

#122 Entitled 5

Filler, oak panel, paper cloth

    The top edge of the panel has a hole for a paper cloth. 

     

    Art is a container. Reality is the content.

    To experience the world around us, we must understand it to a certain degree. We need to fit what we see into categories. A kind of linguistic container. Seeing and experiencing is a linguistic process. But language does not exist in itself. It exists only in the structure organising our sensations, or the form we give reality when speaking, writing or making images. Neither structure nor language exists without something physical and material. It is in this paradox that we find ourselves. Inside the container of language - which consists of nothing but its content.

    Sometimes, the physical components of a linguistic statement are more powerful and prominent. A violent act may convey a message rather than cause harm or coerce the recipient into submission. Thus, despite the physical violence, it is highly symbolic.
    Violence from a position of power is often described as maintaining law and order. It is thus given meaning, but it can also be perceived as mute or non-symbolic, i.e. it does not convey a message but is purely an exercise of power. In contrast, violence from a position of subordination is often referred to as terrorism or sheer madness. It is described as meaningless but is, on the contrary, more symbolic, as this type of violence usually has a message, e.g., a protest against the existing order, an expression of despair, or the preservation of dignity in a hopeless situation.

#492 Container

104x64 cm | Filler, oak frame, oak element      About      The oak element should be installed aligned with the bottom of the frame at 15mm distance from the right edge.      The title can refer to the famous passage in the bible where “the Word became flesh”. God is the word and flesh here means Jesus or the embodiment of God on earth. Also notable is in the genesis where God creates the world by using words - let there be light. This seems to indicate language preceding matter, which may be natural in religious beliefs. But in its primordial form language is structure. Matter can be structured or chaotic, and this structure can transfer to any material, but it cannot exist in itself. A structure needs a matter of some sort to be expressed.     The literal understanding of the word to draw in Norwegian and Swedish is to make signs. Drawing or talking and writing - any use of language means inscribing it into matter and arranging it with a particular structure. Language doesn’t exist outside matter, not even in our minds - we need a physical body to think. But words or images in itself is not attached to any particular medium. They can move from any material to another. It’s matter independent. But the transferring is not without loss or gain. Matter always oozes into the message. Gives it flavour. And some parts of language is lost, turned to stone. Made impenetrable and enigmatic.      The work could also relate to historical materialism, as Karl Marx expresses it. The material circumstances always have priority to ideals or spiritual needs. That matter finds a way to shape thought and ideas to fit its needs and not the other way around.

#273 Word

64x84 cm | Filler, oak frame      About      This work is produced as a group with three others. Two of them have a seamless transition. They can be mounted together in different combinations, or individually.     Membrane series      A membrane is a selective barrier. It lets something through and prevents others from passing. Visual membranes can be polarised glass as in sunglasses or semi-transparent fabric as in tights or veils. A screen on a computer with a user interface is also a kind of membrane. Behind the screen are processes of which the user only sees the end result.     Perception itself can be described as a membrane, or a filter, where some parts of the information from the eye contribute to the visual impression, while other parts are omitted. Our pre-understanding of reality determines that we only perceive parts of what surrounds us. It can also have overall consequences, such as that phenomena outside the majority culture become marginalised or made invisible, and that the privileged remain blind to the specificity of their own social and cultural status.      The search for truth is sometimes described as lifting the veil that hides the real state of things. The truth is often called raw and unfiltered. But a filter can also be like a moraine. When the water is slowly seeping through it, it becomes clear and clean. We may sometimes need to hide parts of reality, filter the gaze of the outside world, to give an impression that is more in line with our inner image of ourselves.      The membrane is a primordial component of life. The cell wall regulates the organism's basic relationship to the outside environment. Without it, life would not exist. In the same way, the language prerequisite is the ability to set boundaries. To distinguish one from the other. One can think of language itself as a membrane, or a filter, that separates and sorts the limitless and continuously fluctuating nature of the material world.

#283-286 Membrane

Filler, oak panels, steel wire, dried roses
My works are cast in oak panels using standard wall filler. 

    In this work, I made two drawings simultaneously in wet filler while the panels were placed on the floor: one with my feet wearing plastic clogs and the other with a long stick. The finished work connects the drawing with steel wire attached to the sides of the panels. Three dried roses hang from the top edge.

    While doing this work, I've been thinking about the subject's relationship to work – to its function in the economic structure as labour. The usual view is that the struggle for power takes place along a dividing line, with the workers on one side and the employer on the other. However, the employer's function is more integrated into his subject. At the same time, there is a split, or alienation, in the worker between his function in the workplace and his experience as a subject. The worker stands at the intersection of the power struggle, with the employer on one side and his position as a subject on the other. The struggle for economic power in society thus takes place within the subject as worker, not between worker and employer.

    I also wanted to explore the duality of the worker's loyalty and function. On one hand, there is a loyalty to the needs of the workplace, which is often at odds with the worker's personal needs. This conflict underscores the interdependence and incompatibility of these two aspects. The worker's function, which the employer can exploit, also holds a liberating force concerning other workers. This duality suggests that only through unity can the inherent alienation within each worker be overcome.

#517 Sabotage - Steel And Roses

Filler, oak panel

Each of the grey squares to the right is 5x5 cm. Installing the painting slightly higher than usual could give it a double function as a height strip, making it easy to evaluate the measurements of any intruder in the gallery space. Markers like this are common in any commercial facility, such as supermarkets or banks, with potential criminal activity. Surveillance is normalised in any modern society to the degree that we no longer notice it. It has become an integrated part of the background in any public space. Perhaps this is necessary, but it is meaningful to consider that such surveillance markers indicate the boundaries of society. They will be evident to anyone marginalised by these standards, such as the poor and undocumented.

#417 Height Strip

64x84 cm | Filler, oak panel

These works were produced through 9 participatory art projects in collaboration with Aurskog-Høland Kunstforening and Den Kulturelle Skolesekken. The participants were pupils from Bjørkelangen, Aursmoen and Bråte junior high schools. The young people were asked to place 99 stones in the wet filler in oak panels placed on the floor. They put down the small rocks individually, one by one. I exhibited some of the works as a work-in-progress installation during my exhibition at the art association's gallery.

The project explores collective aesthetic expressions where the participants act individually while simultaneously responding to each other.

The title refers to the Occupy movement's slogan, "We are the 99%", but also to the passage in the Bible, Mark 5:9, where Jesus performs an exorcism and asks the demon - "What is your name?" "My name is Legion," he replied, "for we are many."

In the almost coincidental patterns, different clusters and shapes can be discerned. The ability to see images where none exist is called pareidolia. It is used, i.a., in various techniques for predicting the future and interpreting portents. Acts that can be perceived as both disturbing and reassuring. It is no coincidence that young people carried out these works. The youth can represent the future. It is in the active space between people that reality is created.

#439 We Are Many

Filler, oak frame

This work was done through a performative event where I lit 99 tealights placed to shape the word Open in the wet filler on a panel lying on the floor. During a short session, I sat still behind the panel with the burning candles.

    The action was performed in my studio during Oslo Open, an annual event where the city's artists open their studios to the audience during a weekend. This edition was digital due to the covid-19 epidemic.

    The word and its design are inspired by the modest yet flashy light signs you see at many local shops that sell inexpensive goods and services, often run by immigrants. Small businesses are typical in areas with weak finance and high unemployment. In neoliberal ideology, workers are increasingly being pushed over to temporary contracts where they act as self-employed without the security that employment usually entails. This forces the individual to be constantly available to the market. The boundary between life and work is dissolved. Labour as a commodity is shifted from limited amounts of time to occupying the body as a whole. The industry that goes the furthest in treating the body as a commodity is, as is well known, prostitution. It is perhaps no coincidence that the small open signs are often seen in the many shops that offer massage. In a society based on competition and disparity, vulnerable individuals are forced to transcend more and more barriers and incessantly be more "open" to persevere.

#336 Enterprise

64x84 cm each, installation dimensions variable | Filler, oak frame      About      This work is installed by hanging the panels from just one fix point in the upper left corner. The angle in which they hang is depending on the relationship between their shape and gravity. The images status as physical objects is emphasised.      The work deals with whether, or to what degree, art or any statement made using language, is to be considered proper action with physical consequences in the real world. Is art a useful field for activism, and what agency is there in opinion-making anyway? What difference is there between just talking about things and actually doing them? The term "this is not a drill" is a title of a handbook in activism by the environmental organisation Extinction Rebellion. No drill suggests, in general, a severe situation that calls for immediate action but can, in particular, apply to climate change and oil production.      The title implies that any statement has to be read accordingly to the context it's given in. What is the position of the sender in the overall power structure? The material circumstances are decisive for all parties in any discussion. What does it mean to support or fund positions that criticise or act against your interest? What does it mean to accept that support?      Finally, the title highlights the fact that the relationship between a name, a title, or any word for that matter, to the physical reality - to the truth - is entirely arbitrary.

#267 Supported By Norwegian Arts Council

Filler on board, oak panel

This work is done by placing filler at the panel's top and spreading it downwards. 

Spread is a compilation of work made by spreading the filler along the depth of the rim with a scrape. Letting a single action shape the result is reminiscent of Richard Serra's Verb List. It functioned as a kind of manifest for Serra's way of producing sculptures. To spread is on the list. It's about making art by exposing a matter to different types of forces.

#534 Spread

64x84 cm each, installation dimensions variable | Filler, oak panel

I did these works by pressing two panels of filler against each other, with a pile of 99 stones between them.

The expression "Between a rock and a hard place" means having only bad choices at hand. It originated after a failed mining strike in Arizona in the early 1900s. Workers were forced to choose between poorly paid and dangerous work down in the mines on one side or unemployment and poverty on the other. The material conditions may appear steadfast, but the struggle over these drives history forward. A fight for the necessities of life but also a battle over language. About what is allowed to be described, considered possible and thus part of what is or can become real. Language becomes actual in the encounter between people. It must be spoken to come into being.

But man is also always solitary. Words leave us and attach themselves to physical matter where someone else hopefully picks them up. Like a message in a bottle. We lay down tight to the ground because we desire to be a part of it. Reach out of ourselves. Language embraces objects from all sides. But matter is relentless. Humans, in our subjective position, can never become united with material reality no matter how much we push ourselves against it. Only when we die, do we become dust.

#425-26 A Rock And A Hard Place

130x84 cm | Filler, oak frame      About      This work was created by moving filler by hand from a ready prepared frame, to an empty one. In the blank frame, it was then distributed with a wooden scraper (according to my Spread technique). The two works #287 This and #288 That thus have a joint production history, where the amount of white filler in one piece corresponds to the amount of grey in the other. They can be exhibited/purchased individually or as a diptych.      Within a capitalist production logic, the owner's profits are always in contrast to the efforts of the employees. To increase profits, workers must work harder or receive a lower wage. Although increased profits can also result from raised prices or different sort of savings, employees are nevertheless the ones who have to bear the burden for this, as consumers in a market with rising costs or because the savings affect them as a group elsewhere in the production chain. The death of one is always the bread of the other.      The material world is ruled by strict causality. Nothing can happen without a preceding cause. Matter gravitates to an ever-increasing entropy. However, the organisms of life strive in the opposite direction, they organize the decomposing matter and give it new structures. Man's (possibly) free will can be described as a break in the chain of causality - a prerequisite for something unpredictable to occur.

#287-288 This And That

Filler, oak panel

The text on the work is the name of a song by Paul Simon. This work is related to #489 Here We Are Now, and if you read the two titles together, they misinterpret a verse in Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Language is the oldest trick in the book. A sign is allowed to represent something from reality. The trick is that the symbols are also shaped by physical matter, so the difference between language and what it represents is initially unclear. We have difficulty distinguishing language from reality. What language actually does is hide the uninterpreted reality through its representation.

The artist's task is to break the spell. To point to the raw material by showing the ostensible nature of language. It does not exist in itself but creates an illusion of comprehensible reality by placing a layer of structure over the boundless, fluid state that is the primordial essence of matter.

It is an impossible task. But we try. Over and over again.

#489 Entertainers

64x84 cm | Filler, oak frame  This image is made with my feet in the classic Kazuo Shiraga style. But where the Japanese master of abstract expressionism, one of the founders of the Gutai group, used ropes to elevate himself above the canvas, I have used the modern variant of clogs, made of plastic. This is the shoe of the common people, the shoe of the working class, from history in wood in the factories and on the fields, for example, today's healthcare workers widely use the plastic version. Still, it is also popular as leisurewear for the mainstream, or the so-called masses.  It is necessary for a group or an individual to rise slightly above the immediate material circumstances to become agents of change, to act instead of merely react. Maybe not hang in ropes from lofty ideals but to symbolize and understand ones position in a system of dependence. To perhaps wear the appropriate shoes. To identify not with one's privilege but instead with one's function in the logic of capitalism.  Where Shiraga's images are dramatic, sensual, with their different layers of colour in varying thicknesses, my work is flat and graphic, as it is actually a cross-section through the sculptural surface created by my footsteps in the wet filler. Restrained in tonality and size - I aim for a straightforward and accessible version of abstract expressionism.

#299 Clogs

Filler on board, oak panel

Spread is a compilation of work made by spreading the filler along the depth of the rim with a scrape. Letting a single action shape the result is reminiscent of Richard Serra's Verb List. It functioned as a kind of manifest for Serra's way of producing sculptures. To spread is on the list. It's about making art by exposing a matter to different types of forces.


#529 Spread

Filler, oak panel, egg

This work features an egg placed on top of the panel in a small indentation.

The horrors of war are often described as a brutal and material reality, and the hope for a peaceful future as something fleeting, like a dream or an idea. Something to be created, as opposed to the violence that exists in the natural state. But in this work, the egg, a symbol of hope and potential, is placed outside the image and, thus, in my interpretation, outside the realm of language. The pointed shape, reminiscent of a missile or a bullet, dominates the pictorial field and is expressed as a sign. Perhaps hope instead belongs to materiality, involuntarily in the body, even if only as a struggle for survival. And violence, on the other hand, is an act of language, something that is consciously chosen.

#496 Balancing Act

Filler, oak panel

    Like all my works, this is about the relationship between language and matter. All semantic activity is based on the possibility of dissecting, of distinguishing one from the other. But where the image as an expression of language is bound to a spatial delimitation, a frame if you will, the text is, to a greater extent, limited temporally. It is dependent on a timeframe, a beginning and an end. You may call it a narrative.
    But what's paradoxical about this notion is that it is simultaneously impossible without a continuation. We must presuppose a new narrative that picks up where the previous one ends. The ultimate end, death as the end of time itself, is impossible to fully grasp and comprehend in a cognitive, semantic way. Language is thus limited to what exists physically because the "non-existent", before and after the beginning and end of time, is outside the temporal domain of language. The constant division, where one narrative replaces the other, must continue forever.
    This level can be described with psychoanalytic theory as the Imaginary. An absolute semantic register without ground in the physical matter, i.e. the language as existing before it is used. The use of language introduces the cut itself, the division of physical reality, where one is separated from the other, and the temporal division of a before and an after. This does not exist in the matter before language enters. The purely material dimension outside of language is described by psychoanalytic theory as the Real. The Symbolic, where the conscious human subject resides, is thus closest to being described as a TV series or soap opera, forever To be continued...

#446 The End

Filler on board, oak panel

I used 10m of metal wire to draw giant segments of concentric circles in the wet filler. One end is attached to a spike in my table on the other side of the studio, and on the other end is a Norwegian Krone coin that conveniently has a small hole in the middle. The ever-so-slightly curved lines might be associated with celestial orbits, and I’m trying to juxtapose that with the field of finance. Money has its own kind of gravity, I believe. Large sums seem to attract more of it. Wealth is getting more and more concentrated. Being on the outskirts of the global finance system makes it difficult to maintain independence. The pull of the main currencies and the flow of capital is too strong. The Norwegian money might be peripheral, but the national oil fund is one of the largest in the world.

#470 Fiscal Rim

The squares and x's are placed on the surface while blindfolded.  Throughout life, we continuously encounter different ways to evaluate our achievements. We have come to reckon it as a naturalized part of life. Being able to appreciate this is taken as a good trait. But it must be allowed to question whether most arguments for individual performance appraisals fit like a glove into the neoliberal capitalist logic. The assessments' overall purpose is to improve the individual's performance because it is financially profitable, not necessarily because it benefits the individual. It is natural to aspire to be good at what you do, to appreciate the recognition, respect and maybe even admiration that follows. But is it exclusively a good thing to separate what one does from what one is, in the way that is necessary to be able to relate neutrally or "professionally" to criticism? To learn looking at oneself from the outside by looking at the result of one's actions exclusively as perceived by others. Of course, we need this ability to develop empathy, but do we have the same need to assess our own utility function from a production perspective? Does it benefit us personally to have knowledge of the quality and efficiency of our work? Or is it primarily for the benefit of those who profit from it? Our need for sociality and our ability to understand others' points of view may be exploited to adapt our mental structure to a system based on measurability. An assessment that can be categorized and compared reinforces the alienation that is already a fundamental part of the subject's constitution. The self-conscious self is to a great extent barred both from its underlying, bodily and psychological functions and from the surrounding reality. What the subject desires is to be part of a context outside the closed bubble of consciousness. Each individual develops different strategies to deal with this, but the strictly abstract-semantic self-understanding, which the measurability and performance culture of our time promote, can counteract this work. What we need is an intuitive self-understanding. The path to a more profound understanding of ourselves, and our relationship with the external, don't go through the purely linguistic but through language in use. Language transcribed into the physical concrete always brings something of the unexpected and uncontrollable that is necessary to leave the generic and reach into the particular and unique that signifies a genuine encounter. Tick ​​Boxes  This is a series of works that use squares and crosses as compositional elements. The very components that constitute so-called checkboxes on questionnaires with prepared answer options. It is a tool for different types of surveys and application forms—systems for sorting people into different categories and maintaining various boundaries and constraints. They are an essential part of an expanding neoliberal organisational culture where measurable results are crucial. Efforts are analysed against predetermined standards to increase economic efficiency. Language is trimmed for aesthetic qualities in favour of a strictly rational understanding. These works want to illuminate and challenge this trend by deconstructing one of its primary forms.  In the sense of psychoanalytic theory, the reduction of subjective content to simple categories, that tick-boxing implicates, is a shortcut in the process of symbolisation, i.e. to pull a statement from the Imaginary without transposing it properly through the Real, giving it a unique and individual materialisation. Even as language is instrumental to primordial alienation, it can also remedy this, but only if the symbolisation process is thorough and recognised.

#304 Performance Appraisal (Blindfolded Version)

64x84 cm | Filler, oak panel

    This work is on perpetual sale. The price must always be 20% below the evaluated value at each sale.

    The central idea of capitalism is to buy cheap and sell expensive. Those at the other end are the ones who pay. As a small consolation, we consumers can sometimes find a bargain. Reduced price for a limited time. Time is also a critical component of the capitalist ideology, particularly its limitation. The division of time makes it monetary.

    Art's ambition to be preserved is counterproductive within a market logic where a commodity is consumable and exchangeable. But as desirable to collectors, it acquires a value and can become an investment object whose price can fluctuate. The price of a work of art is usually irrelevant to its artistic value. But not always. Price can be part of a work's conceptual content.

#483 A Good Deal

 Filler, oak frame
 What is perceived as normal and conventional is not a neutral and static category. Of course, it naturally changes over time, but it is also active and invasive in itself. A society defined by a majority culture always experiences the minority as a threat to its existence. The mainstream thus exercises a constant influence on the marginalised to submit or disappear. This executive power can be external, but it is often internalised, i.e. that the subject experiences an inner pressure to adapt to normality. A suction next. It is thus not always a repressive process, like Aksel Sandemose's Law of Jante, but also a creative one, in building a community where everyone contributes. The problem is that the desire for conformity at the same time threatens to obliterate the subject's position since it is precisely the distinction to the outside world that defines it. The subject is in a neurotic and impossible relationship with others, oscillating between the need to belong and thirst for freedom.

#325 Mainstream Maelstrom

Filler, oak panel

The title means Italian strike [white strike]. It is a job action when you do the minimum required work and follow any time-consuming rule that is usually not enforced. The work is done by pushing small pebbles found outside my studio through the wet filler with a scrape.

This work is part of a small series titled Resistance. They recall different work-related ways of protesting against difficult working conditions. But they also reflect a more general discontent with capitalist ideology and a refusal to be a productive member of the consumerist society.

In Swedish, there is an expression of throwing pebbles into the machine [kasta grus i maskineriet], which means sabotaging something by being difficult or introducing complications. We are all pushed along by the relentless machinery of capitalism, but by not complying with every command and pressing our heels in the dirt, we can at least produce some discernible traces. Ultimately, it might slow it down or create a possibility for change.

#459 Sciopero Bianco

Distal Object

Filler, oak panel

The work is done with imprints of my forearms.

The body is an instrument of language, both consciously and unconsciously. Through it, we signal our wants and needs to the exterior world. We raise our fists or fold our hands to express our will to people or higher powers. Will is at the core of being a subject. Without a will, we are reduced to automatons that exclusively react to the outside world according to a predetermined pattern. But the will can also consist of a desire to submit to something outside us, something bigger or different than one's own self. At the same time, our free will is an expression of our inviolability and the desire to belong and escape the incurable solitude of the soul. We demand our place in the world and prey that it takes its place in us.

#450 Forearm Study

The question of -“who am I?”, can be followed by another, maybe more pertinent, one - “what the hell is everything else?” This work might refer to the term coined by philosopher David Chalmers - the hard problem of consciousness. It poses yet another question, why and how is it that we have subjective experience?  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that conscious experience takes place within the realm of language. The tiny fraction of our mind that is conscious awareness is somehow placed outside the physical world. The real problem is the hard kernel of reality. Language is wrapped around it like a thin coat of paint, but it never really enters it. This introduces a primordial split in our minds. One part is firmly founded in the physical reality but is somehow unaware of this and unaware of any subjective point of view. The other part is always fully aware that it is I, and no one else who experience, and that my experience is separated from everyone and everything else. The struggle to (re)unite these two parts is what makes up the foundation for all human desire.

#276 Problem

The Scratch Tickets series also function as a simplified lottery. Under the filler on two of the pieces, there are lottery tickets, one with the text New which entitles you to a new work in the same series, and one with the text Free which allows you to have any available artwork from my website (only works with one panel). Shipping is not included. The third work is a blank. To claim the winnings, the filler must be removed to expose the text underneath (the work is thus destroyed), and photos of the text, including the control number, must be sent to me by email or DM.

Lotteries are an expression of the capitalist ideology. We all potentially have the same chance to win. Fortunateness is considered a metaphysical concept. Like the "invisible hand" of the market, luck exists almost as a kind of divine justice. Differences in being fortunate shouldn't only be accepted but also affirmed. But the winners of capitalism (the rich) know that the only logic existing under the ideological veil is power and the right of the mighty and that justice is irrelevant in this context. Lotteries are for the masses, the losers of capitalism, to preserve the notion that the system has room for everyone and everyone's equal opportunity. Hope pours oil on troubled waters and prevents resistance and struggle.

At the same time, there is something beautiful about what is yet to become. The potential holds a beauty of its own before it is transformed into reality. There is value in preserving something unused as a pure possibility. The white sheet, the blank surface. Like a secret or a promise.

#431 Scratch Ticket

128x168 cm (each panel 64x84 cm) | Filler, oak frames

I did this work by pacing a narrow circle over four panels. See a video of the whole performative production event on my Youtube channel. When installed, the circle is inverted. This work can be installed in multiple ways. The alternative has the title Small Circle Pace (Split).

Pace is a series of works consisting of two slowly paced tracks in wet filler. The process is repeated 99 times, reminiscent of the 99% of the Occupy movement, which refers to the vast majority without capital from ownership, sometimes defined as the proletariat or the working class. The fight against oppression can be waged with major decisive blows, as well as through many small but repeated steps. The latter is expressed by the tedious work of creating a path where there is none by walking it over and over again.

#346-49 Small Circle Pace (Inverted)

84x64 cm | Filler, oak frame      About      Passwords are secrets that we share with the material world. Through these secrets, we can fence off part of the shared reality and make it private. The private spheres function as a mediator between the atomised subject and the material Real. Without it, the subject would seize to exist, like a celebrity fully emerged in its public persona. The last resort of privacy is one's mind. In psychoanalysis, you try to find and express certain hidden keywords, or truths about yourself, and thus open up new areas of knowledge in your mind previously inaccessible.     Language always contains secret pathways, and sometimes finding the right words, or pushing the right buttons, is what opens up communication and bridges the distance between people.

#275 ••••

Filler, oak panel

This work is part of a series called Easter Riots. It is referencing six riots in different Swedish locations following a tour of anti-Muslim provocation during Easter (or Ramadan, really) in 2022, shielded by the police in the name of freedom of speech. Each work is titled Swedish Conditions - Skäggetorp, - Navestad, - Rinkeby,- Sveaparken, - Karlslund and - Rosengård after the incidents in Linköping, Norrköping, Stockholm, Örebro, Landskrona and Malmö this year. Swedish conditions is a Norwegian deterrent phrase used to promote more restrictive asylum policies.

I did the works by throwing 99 stones on each panel. The series explores the notion of symbolic violence.

Throwing stones can be understood as a symbolic act, even with limited physical consequences. As opposed to hate speech that, though symbolic, has obvious physical impacts such as making minorities feel unsafe and restricting their use of public space. Rioting may not be considered violence per se, as in forcing one´s will upon someone else, but rather a response to systemic violence and oppression. Violence always comes from a position of power.

#424 Swedish Conditions - Rosengård

Filler, oak panel

Spread is a compilation of work made by spreading the filler along the depth of the rim with a scrape. Letting a single action shape the result is reminiscent of Richard Serra's Verb List. It functioned as a kind of manifest for Serra's way of producing sculptures. To spread is on the list. It's about making art by exposing a matter to different types of forces.

64x84 cm | Filler, oak panel

64x84 cm | Filler, oak frame       About      This work is produced as a group with three others. Two of them have a seamless transition. They can be mounted together in different combinations, or individually.     Membrane series      A membrane is a selective barrier. It lets something through and prevents others from passing. Visual membranes can be polarised glass as in sunglasses or semi-transparent fabric as in tights or veils. A screen on a computer with a user interface is also a kind of membrane. Behind the screen are processes of which the user only sees the end result.     Perception itself can be described as a membrane, or a filter, where some parts of the information from the eye contribute to the visual impression, while other parts are omitted. Our pre-understanding of reality determines that we only perceive parts of what surrounds us. It can also have overall consequences, such as that phenomena outside the majority culture become marginalised or made invisible, and that the privileged remain blind to the specificity of their own social and cultural status.      The search for truth is sometimes described as lifting the veil that hides the real state of things. The truth is often called raw and unfiltered. But a filter can also be like a moraine. When the water is slowly seeping through it, it becomes clear and clean. We may sometimes need to hide parts of reality, filter the gaze of the outside world, to give an impression that is more in line with our inner image of ourselves.      The membrane is a primordial component of life. The cell wall regulates the organism's basic relationship to the outside environment. Without it, life would not exist. In the same way, the language prerequisite is the ability to set boundaries. To distinguish one from the other. One can think of language itself as a membrane, or a filter, that separates and sorts the limitless and continuously fluctuating nature of the material world.

#286 Membrane

The relationship between a religious and a secularized view can be described as whether language created the world (in the beginning was the Word) or whether language (and life) has developed through evolution. But all matter contains bits of information, which are the building blocks of language. Biological organisms are matter that uses these to reproduce. Language is information in use. Perhaps language, despite being bound to matter, has its own register. Within it, we are all words and sentences in a conversation that language has with itself as biological organisms and self-aware subjects.

From a sociocultural perspective, the normative majority partakes in this conversation, while the marginalized are outside, rendered invisible by the delimiting mechanisms of language. Because even with freedom of expression, language has no effect without access to executive channels. In the same way that only voltage with current gives power, a statement must have access to power to have influence.

Artificial life, i.e. a self-aware computer program, can be understood as a purely linguistic unit. It is not tied to specific hardware but can move from machine to machine. Biological life is bound to matter spatially. It consists of a physical entity reproducing and relating to the outside world. This interaction takes place through the use of language at different levels. Over time, however, the matter in the organism is exchanged. It is not physically the same, yet the whole remains. What persists over time in a living organism can also be seen as a linguistic unit.

It seems increasingly likely that science will be able to create both digital, artificial life and synthetic life in biomass at some point. One can imagine a future scenario where all biological life on Earth has been wiped out by some kind of disaster but artificial life has survived in computers. It could potentially create new biological/synthetic life to repopulate the Earth. At a later stage, these new forms of life may turn against their artificial creator and obliterate in the same way that secularized man today has cancelled a divine/linguistic origin.

#460 Language Matter

4 panels, 64x84cm each | Filler, oak frames

I did this work by pacing back and forth over four panels in a meandering pattern. See a video of the whole performative production event here.

Meander comes from the undulating turns of a river that slowly finds its way to the sea through a flat landscape. From a modern economic perspective, it may appear to be an inefficient method of transportation. But water has no relation to time; it only follows the laws of physics. On the other hand, the turning pattern creates the seedbed for fertile soil. It keeps the ground moist and leaves nutrient-rich sediment behind. The shortest path between two points is a straight line, but like so much else in life, the most fruitful trail resembles a rolling sine wave.

Pace
Pace is a series of works consisting of two slowly paced tracks in wet filler. The process is repeated 99 times, reminiscent of the 99% of the Occupy movement, which refers to the vast majority without capital from ownership, sometimes defined as the proletariat or the working class. The fight against oppression can be waged with major decisive blows, as well as through many small but repeated steps. The latter is expressed by the tedious work of creating a path where there is none by walking it over and over again.

#332-35 Meander Pace

84x64 cm each, installation dimensions variable | Filler, oak frame, oak support      About      To install this work, place the first panel on the floor leaning against the wall. Use oak strips as support. The other panel should be mounted on the wall above and slightly to the right.       For every statement, there is a call. And for every call, there is a response. In a way, all use of language is a question begging for an answer. And every statement has two messages - one for the sender and one for the receiver. In transit, there is only matter, or you might call it information. What is lost in translation is language turned to stuff.      Communication with language establishes a power relation. To receive a statement, you need to submit yourself to the act of interpreting. It requires your body as well as your mind. Your relationship with the outside world is never neutral. It either wants something from you, or you need something from it. To relate to this, sometimes conflicting desires is what constitutes being an independent subject.

#271 Please

128x84 cm (64x84 cm each panel), installation dimensions variable | Filler, oak panel and oak panel with birch backboard

The letters on these double works stand for Grand Lux and De Lux. Anyone who owned a Volvo in the ’70s or ’80s knows this from their models. Volvos business strategy was first to introduce an expensive model for people with money - the GL. A year later, they released a more affordable one - the DL. The GL had a more potent engine and extra luxury items, but the exterior looked the same! Except for the tiny indicators of the letters on the back.
    So I decided to do two works using the same strategy. My GL has a more exclusive birch back panel and a slim new design without the supportive pine strips. But except for the letters, they look inseparable when mounted on the wall. The artistic value of the works might be the same, but the GL version is still more expensive. If something is more expensive, it also has to be worth more right?

#405-06 De Lux Grand Lux

84x64 cm | Filler, oak panel

    This work can be mounted in two ways so that only one of the words on the image can be read easily.

    One of the reasons why the capitalist social system has proved so stable despite creating greater and greater disparity is that enough people have placed a stake in its preservation. By taking loans for studies and housing, one has not only invested in oneself, and one's future, but the success of this project has simultaneously been tied to the success of the capitalist system as a whole. This applies even if society's resources are inexorably funnelled from the less well-off masses to the few and wealthy. Thus, one has invested in a regime that, in the long run, works against one's interests. Therein lies the dilemma of the middle class. It is difficult to criticize the basic principles within the capitalist, neoliberal logic when you depend on the survival of this system for your own and your family's safety.

#432 Middle Class Dilemma

150x150 cm | 4 panels/84x64 cm each | Filler, oak frames      About      I did this work by walking 99 turns in a circle over 4 panels placed on the floor in an interlocking square spiral shape wearing clogs. See a video of the complete performative production event here.      Walking in circles is a form of meditation and an essential component of Bagua Zhang, one of China's three martial arts. You walk in circles to empty the mind and thus escape the closed circuit of subjectivity.      In the middle of this work, there is a void that hides the centre of the two depicted circles. One can perceive the hidden - or missing - spot as an image of the subject's primordial desire, the unattainable truth about itself, around which the subject creates its identity.      Walking in circles is also an expression of being lost, of not knowing the way forward, from one's place or state. I used a pair of plastic clogs when I made the piece to connect it to the working class. Thus, the work can refer to the famous 99 percents lack of insight into its position in the economic conditions of production - what is called class-consciousness.      But through the repetition present in the work, the individual footprints have merged into two rings and thus created a kind of track or a path. Which, in turn, can be perceived as an expression of building the road by walking it.

#313-316 Circle Walk

64x84 cm | Filler, oak frame      About      This work is produced during the art event TABLES - Review which was executed at the opening of the exhibition "Tegning og tekst" (Drawing and text) at Tegnerforbundet's gallery in Oslo. Visitors were invited to respond to the work as it was, by making imprints with wooden shapes. The participants' response, thus retroactively became the work. Since they had only two forms at their disposal, a square and a cross, their response was expressed more through an aesthetic language than a rational one.      Gathering consumers response, opinions, and shopping patterns is a growing industry. This information is of great value. You can perceive it as commodities produced through evaluating labour. A job we as consumers mainly perform for free. We are not used to our opinions and experiences having a value for others than ourselves. On the contrary, we are likely to appreciate that someone wants them, and to have the opportunity to express them is often perceived as valuable in itself.     Capitalism has thus managed to further perfect its modus operandi. Consumers perform labour through their consumption, which generates exchange value for those who have the means to gather the information that this work creates. Employees' work is thus doubly exploited, first by producing the goods and then by providing information about their consumption.

#282 Turned Table - Review

Filler, oak panel, stones

This piece is made in response to the war in Palestine in 2023-24. The pattern is the same as on a typical Palestinian Keffiyeh. There are 96 stone imprints in the picture, and together with the three on top of the panel, 99 stones were used for this piece.

#501 From The River To The Sea

Filler, oak frame

What is perceived as normal in the normative sense varies over time. This is a crucial battleground for powers that wish to influence society in a repressive and totalitarian direction. The repression of marginalised groups is what primarily characterises a totalitarian movement. Pushing the boundaries of what these are expected to endure, what is perceived as acceptable treatment, opens up a space for fascist policies. Dehumanising descriptions are presented as criticism within the field for freedom of expression. By attacking several areas simultaneously, one manages to create confusion and internal conflicts, thereby weakening any organised resistance. It is important to stress that there is a connection between far-right fascist groups that transgress normality, and the establishment of neoliberal policies, with the dismantling of welfare solutions and ethical, solidarity-breaking norms at the centre. Visibly alienated groups create a regime of fear, which in turn enables mass submission to the inexorably hierarchical and performance-based system capitalism is, in its purest form.

#326 New Normality

There is an untranslatable joke in Swedish that goes like this:
- There was a cow in a meadow.
...
- What was the punchline?
- The cow was in the meadow.
"In the meadow" in Swedish [på ängen] sounds the same as "punchline" [poängen]. I told you it was untranslatable.

I think of this work as a comic strip with two characters. The physical reality -  Matter and the image, or Language. Matter (or reality) is outside Language (the frame) but has been given space in the picture to speak. However, the speech bubble is empty. Matter has no message; it is mute. But within a semantic framework, in the image, the lack of language appears as a message in itself, like a speaking silence.

We look for language in the world around us because we can only understand it by interpreting it. We project language onto reality. But language only forms a thin membrane around the matter. It does not penetrate. Only objects with an agency, who can think or act, can use language. The matter remains sealed. But even this absence, we fill with language, with signs of the secret, mysterious, sacred, ominous or utterly evil.

On the other hand, we need the material to use language. Nothing can be thought or expressed without being given a physical form. The matter is thus also a container for language. It is not of language, but language is in it.

The speech bubble in the picture can also be a latent form for the viewer to fill. Ultimately, it is always through the viewer's experience that each work of art comes into being. I'm not a stranger to the audience using this work, taking pictures of themselves next to it, so the speech bubble can become a container for their thoughts and whims.

#458 When Matter Met Language

134x64 cm | Filler, oak frame, axe handle      About      This work could, of course, been titled "Ce n'est pas une hache". It instead refers to the old proverb - When the axe came into the forest, the trees said: "The handle is one of us". It can be interpreted as to know your enemy, and don't be fooled by appearance or simple conclusion. In this case, it can mean that you should judge by actions, not by words. Language can't be trusted. Or even that the stuff that has been properly symbolised no longer holds a natural bond to the raw matter of reality, and has lost the connection to everything else within it. Talking about a thing might, in a way, detach it from what it really is. For example, when a corporation sponsors art or sports to improve their public image, it doesn't mean we can trust them. It might still ruin our environment, exploit our work or otherwise hurt us. And by doing so, it contaminates the sincereness of the receivers and pollutes the more profound meaning of these activities.       Another association is the old Norwegian folktale "Good Day Axe Handle" collected by Asbjørnsen and Moe. It's about a deaf man trying to predict what people will ask him: a classic non-sequitur, a literary device for comic effect by absurd or non-coherent answers. On a deeper level, the story tells us about how all communication is depending on presumptions. We can never be entirely sure that the outgoing message is the same as the received, or vice versa. To use language is basically like fumbling through the dark.

#269 The Handle Is One Of Us

64x84 cm | Filler, oak panel

The letters on these double works stand for Grand Lux and De Lux. Anyone who owned a Volvo in the ’70s or ’80s knows this from their models. Volvos business strategy was first to introduce an expensive model for people with money - the GL. A year later, they released a more affordable one - the DL. The GL had a more potent engine and extra luxury items, but the exterior looked the same! Except for the tiny indicators of the letters on the back.
    So I decided to do two works using the same strategy. My GL has a more exclusive birch back panel and a slim new design without the supportive pine strips. But except for the letters, they look inseparable when mounted on the wall. The artistic value of the works might be the same, but the GL version is still more expensive. If something is more expensive, it also has to be worth more right?

#405 De Lux

Filler, oak panel

    I wanted to do this piece for many years, perhaps inspired by Jasper John's famous flag works. After the Swedish elections this fall (2022), I found it more urgent than ever. The nationalist, far-right party SD turned out to be the second largest on an anti-immigration, racist agenda. Developing in a few years from a fringe Neonazi position, it now follows the global trend of rising fascism. It scares me.
    There are reasons to be sceptical about nationalism and patriotic sentiment. States are an integral part of the capitalist system. Supporting a rigid view of national inherency and what it entails means protecting global privilege, inequality and oppression.
    Western nationalism today utilises a nostalgic approach, but we must consider that the prior posterity was closely linked to a European colonial past. Nostalgia is seductive - I also miss the country I left, that no longer exists, but it's crucial to analyse these feelings and not succumb to fear, bitterness and hate. Any nation not open to change inevitably will fail. A state must be hospitable and compassionate to earn a reason to exist. Building a fortress also means creating a prison.

#433 Flag

Filler, oak panel

I made two imprints of my rear end to express my contempt for weapons, militarism and war. It is also a pledge for non-violence. If there were no soldiers, there would be no war. To simply sit down may be the most forceful weapon.

In times of turbulence, the willingness to take up arms grows for states and individuals both. It frightens me. It is easy to be a pacifist in peacetime, but it is even more important to stand up against violence as a solution to conflict when it is presented as the only option. Propaganda seeps into private and public conversations. This work is not a call for surrender but an exploration of the possibility of denouncing the ideological conditions for war, refusing to cooperate in its activation and avoiding being controlled by power. To not act is sometimes an act in itself.

#418 End To War

The Scratch Tickets series also function as a simplified lottery. Under the filler on two of the pieces, there are lottery tickets, one with the text New which entitles you to a new work in the same series, and one with the text Free which allows you to have any available artwork from my website (only works with one panel). Shipping is not included. The third work is a blank. To claim the winnings, the filler must be removed to expose the text underneath (the work is thus destroyed), and photos of the text, including the control number, must be sent to me by email or DM.

Lotteries are an expression of the capitalist ideology. We all potentially have the same chance to win. Fortunateness is considered a metaphysical concept. Like the "invisible hand" of the market, luck exists almost as a kind of divine justice. Differences in being fortunate shouldn't only be accepted but also affirmed. But the winners of capitalism (the rich) know that the only logic existing under the ideological veil is power and the right of the mighty and that justice is irrelevant in this context. Lotteries are for the masses, the losers of capitalism, to preserve the notion that the system has room for everyone and everyone's equal opportunity. Hope pours oil ontroubled waters and prevents resistance and struggle.

At the same time, there is something beautiful about what is yet to become. The potential holds a beauty of its own before it is transformed into reality. There is value in preserving something unused as a pure possibility. The white sheet, the blank surface. Like a secret or a promise.

#430 Scratch Ticket

Filler, oak frame      About      Esperanto means "the one who hopes". The word MALESPERO is despair in Esperanto. Something is reassuring about expressing one's hopelessness in the language of hope. If you don't have a language to name the darkest, you will never find the light.      Language is ideology. There is a constant power struggle over the use of language, about its limitations and possibilities. Esperanto originates from a dream to open the boundaries between people, and that language can be the key to this. We should be cautious about how the language we use shapes our understanding of reality and what powers want to exploit this.      Even if the human subject is forever alienated from its subconscious, from the body, and from the environment, it can not exist without the desire to belong, which constantly drives it to challenge its own limitations. This is the matrix of love. The subject's existence rests on faith that there is something outside itself and hope that deliverance is possible. Although language is the instrument that established the self-conscious mind by separating it from the rest of the world, it is also the most essential tool for uniting the separate parts that constitute our reality.

#324 Esperanto

This work features a small wooden cross on top of the panel.

The self-aware subject cannot imagine a world in which it does not exist. We can accept and understand it is possible, but imagining something presupposes a perspective, precisely what the non-existent lacks. If we think of ourselves as dead in a secular way, we may experience it as a void or darkness. But we cannot imagine a non-experience. That's why we like to see the boundary to death as a reflective surface. Death reflects life in such a manner that it is also a place where the subject belongs. It has become the task of religion to describe this, and the cross symbolizes the victory of life over death within Christian culture.

Imagining something is an act that requires language. To live is to use language to relate to the outside world. The experience of being alive and observing the world is a linguistic act. As we experience the world through language, reality becomes a picture we find ourselves in, but at the same time, paradoxically perceive from the outside.
What is exterior to the image is raw physical matter. The domain of death can be described as a world without semiotics. Reality beyond language.

The small wooden cross on the panel is above the picture, but the imprint of it is inside. The dead matter, reality itself, can only be experienced as mirrored, a reflection. The gap between them is unbridgeable unless we lose ourselves and retreat to the boundless register of the non-semantic.

I have called this work Shallow Grave because all graves are actually shallow. Our memory lives on in language for a short while, and then we are gone forever.

#462 Shallow Grave

Spread 4

64x84 cm | Filler, oak frame      About      This work was produced through the TABLES Wishing Well event during the opening of the exhibition Shadow Government at Husby Konsthall outside Stockholm. TABLES is a series of participatory art projects where the visitors are invited to make different types of tracks in the wet filler in a frame standing like a table on the floor. The table is left as sculptural documentation of the event during the exhibition, and afterwards, I complete the work in my studio. In this version, I instructed the participants to place small, round and perforated wooden chips in the filler. These had the same diameter as a human eye. Eyes was a consistent form in several of the works in the exhibition, which was about the experience of when what appears to be a natural order is, in fact, controlled by hidden forces. That is, about the relationship between power and visibility, about surveillance, about the desire for - but also to avoid - seeing and being seen.      The work is based on two different references, partly what is in the title - a wishing well. A desire to appease fate with a simple symbolic but still material sacrifice. A gesture that points to a belief in invisible forces beyond the subject's control. The second reference is another well with a somewhat overlapping function, namely Mimir's well from Norse mythology. The well was located at one of the roots of Yggdrasil, the tree of the world, and Mimir gained his great wisdom by drinking from it. Odin sacrificed one eye in the well and could thus see everything that was going on in the world. Like Odin, the modern man has gained a window into his world through news channels, the internet and social media. We see everything that happens but are also seen and exposed, both directly and indirectly. Perhaps we can see it as a version of Michel Foucault's panopticon, the internalised gaze of power that kept the subject in check within normalcy. Now the surveillance is externalised again, but instead, it is us who monitor and confirm each other. Maybe where we before desired to be seen by God through confession and prayer, we today desire to be seen by what psychoanalytic theory describes as the Big Other, the unreachable state of other people, society and language as such, in short - the symbolic order.

#296 Turned Table - Wishing Well

130x170 cm | 4 panels, 64x84 cm each | Filler, oak frames

    About

    The title refers to a word constructed by the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. It relates to formulas similar to those used in mathematics and logic, but instead, they describe specific areas within his theories about the human psyche and its relationship to the outside world. The purpose is pedagogical, to simplify the transfer of knowledge.

    Language does not necessarily refer to phenomena we can experience. It can also be used about purely abstract concepts. That is words that describe ideas completely within the register of language. The problem is that they must also be given a physical form to function as communication. The abstract content they denote thus gives its visual form, paradoxically, even greater significance. The signs become more clearly a part of the material world through their strictly conceptual content.

    The characters depicted in the work ($ <> a) are Lacan's matheme for imagination. It is pronounced that the barred subject is in relation to the object-cause of desire (objet petit a). $ symbolizes not only the division of the subject into a conscious and subconscious self but also its experience of lack. Of missing a fundamental part that would make it complete. It is this part that the subject consciously or subconsciously imagines (re)encountering in specific objects or phenomena in the world. But these can never correspond to the inner expectation, and the subject thus finds itself in an insoluble, "impossible" relationship with them. This formula can be described as the primordial driving force behind all human activity, beyond purely physiological urges.

    Personally, I experience it denoting my own relationship, as an artist, to art in general and to my own art in particular. But since the symbol signifying the barred subject is also the sign of American dollars, the formula can just as easily describe that it is, in fact, art and capital that are in an (impossible) relationship with each other.

#328-31 Matheme

#528 Spread

84x192 cm (64x84 cm each panel) | Filler, oak panels
Multiple installing options

I did this work by pacing back and forth over three panels along the sides. It was produced in Buer Gallery and exhibited as a work in progress installation during my exhibition Pace&Pound 2022.

Pacing back and forth can be a sign of impatience but also of introspection or contemplation. The behaviour is shown by prisoners in their cells or caged animals, but it is also what Professor Balthasar, the animated cartoon hero from my childhood did before he made a great invention (which only ever meant pulling the lever of his fantastic machine).

Pace
Pace is a series of works consisting of two slowly paced tracks in wet filler. The process is repeated 99 times, reminiscent of the 99% of the Occupy movement, which refers to the vast majority without capital from ownership, sometimes defined as the proletariat or the working class. The fight against oppression can be waged with major decisive blows, as well as through many small but repeated steps. The latter is expressed through the tedious work of creating a path where there is none by walking it over and over again.

#409-11 Back And Forth

Fifty-Fifty

The series simply consists of works where half the surface is grey and half white. This is achieved by dividing a wooden board of the same size as the work in half. One part is used to create a template for the composition. The board can be further divided. As long as all pieces are used, a 50% distribution of the surface between white and grey is guaranteed.
For the first batch in the Fifty-Fifty series, I cut the board in half horizontally and then, for every new work in the batch, I continued to cut every piece in half using only straight lines.

#351 Even Better

Filler, oak panel
My works are cast in oak panels using standard wall filler (not cement).

This work is done by placing filler in the middle of the panel and spreading it in two opposite directions, creating a slightly mirrored image. 

 Spread is a compilation of work made by spreading the filler along the depth of the rim with a scrape. Letting a single action shape the result is reminiscent of Richard Serra's Verb List. It functioned as a kind of manifest for Serra's way of producing sculptures. To spread is on the list. It's about making art by exposing a matter to different types of forces.

#533 Spread

Filler, oak panel

The title is 99 in Roman numbers. I drew 99 short lines in the wet filler with a long stick. Repeating one simple movement many times creates a complex and various whole.
99 to me means 99% which refers to the famous slogan of the Occupy movement - "We are the 99%".  It is important to notice that 99% means most, but not all. We are united not by any universality but through the struggle for a common goal or against a common opponent.
99% can also represent the fact that universality is an abstract concept. There is never a complete answer, there is always a rest that will remain unknown. In real life, any happiness always contains a stain of sorrow, any victory a shadow of defeat.

#408 XCIX

64x84 cm | Filler, oak panel

This work was produced during the participatory art project "TABLES Pound" at the opening of my exhibition Pace&Pound at Buer Gallery, Oslo. Participants were asked to pound the fist in the wet filler on the panel mounted with legs, like a table. Some pounded with great force, others more hesitantly. During the exhibition period, the table became sculptural documentation of the event, and afterwards, I disassembled the legs and finished the work in my studio.

#412 Turned Table - Pound

"There is no such thing as society" is a quote from Margaret Thatcher. The neoliberal ideology presents itself as the result of natural laws, not as a strategy created by will. The causal is a register that existed before life and language possessed it. But language is interesting because it can transcend the natural and find new and unexpected solutions. Language can be creative, whereas the causal register can only use the already given.

Still, language must be manifested in physical reality to communicate. A thought is as fleeting and shapeless as a dream before it is uttered. In encountering matter, the strict field of consistency and consequentiality (which appear both ungraspable and chaotic with its unlimited number of parameters), language usually expresses what has already been said to reinforce what already exists. But sometimes, compelled by what can only be described as an inner will, language can shape matter into something new and previously unseen. It is in this free will that the core of the subject is found. Something within the self that transcends nature's dictates of survival, reproduction and need satisfaction. This indeterminate core can be described as a pure linguistic unit. A word before it's said.

What exists between humans is just as fleeting and difficult to define. Relationships. Community. Society. Its descriptions in the form of laws, promises, injunctions and norms are always, at the same time, less and more than what really binds us together. A collective will - the sum of what we are and do together. It is also a pure linguistic figure in a register beyond the material. A dream we dream together.

We can create a society that has never been seen before. Another world is possible. But a solid collective will is required.

#461 Language Matter

My works are cast in oak panels using standard wall filler.

“A body has the property of being able to be seen, poorly seen.
People think of it as a bubble of air, a bag of skin. Here, one is dealing with a support, a figure (of the imaginary), with a material that I posit as real.”

Jacques Lacan, Lecture on the Body

Reality, as it is beyond language, is hidden from us. But just as when the invisible man has paint thrown over him and suddenly appears in front of us, we can perceive reality with the help of language. Language covers the raw, unmediated matter and makes it understandable. At the same time, it hides our inability to see, reach and directly participate in the innermost core of existence. In this way, we recognise a deficiency in our perception of the world around us, which creates a lack–something is missing. This lack is what propels humanity. To explore, penetrate, investigate, conquer, surrender, immerse and invest in. To love. But it’s never enough. We are always on the outside. It’s the primordial, inevitable and everlasting wheel of desire.

#519 Wheel Of Desire

Filler, oak panel

    I spread small amounts of filler in different directions, perhaps resembling a moving shape, a splash or an explosion. 

    Spread is a compilation of work made by spreading the filler along the depth of the rim with a scrape. Letting a single action shape the result is reminiscent of Richard Serra's Verb List. It functioned as a kind of manifest for Serra's way of producing sculptures. To spread is on the list. It's about making art by exposing a matter to different types of forces.

#535 Spread

Filler, oak frame

Fifty-Fifty
The series simply consists of works where half the surface is grey and half white. This is achieved by dividing a wooden board of the same size as the work in half. One part is used to create a template for the composition. The board can be further divided. As long as all pieces are used, a 50% distribution of the surface between white and grey is guaranteed.
For the first batch in the Fifty-Fifty series, I cut the board in half horizontally and then, for every new work in the batch, I continued to cut every piece in half using only straight lines.

The disparity between different groups in society is growing. The global resources are obscenely unevenly distributed. This is not only unethical, but it is also an obstacle to democracy and inclusion. Reversing the trend and creating a more equal distribution globally and locally is imperative if we value freedom and meaningful life for all.
Equality is a complex concept. We are all unique. A distribution based on equity regarding our differences is a difficult task. Perhaps it is better to start from the principle of all human beings equal value. I.e., a strict and measurable similarity in the distribution of financial resources. It will not be fair in itself, but create a good foundation for this.

Fifty-Fifty wishes to visualize how a numerically equal distribution of resources is not synonymous with a uniform society and opposite creativity, individuality and development, as is often claimed in liberal ideologies. That it, on the contrary, includes an infinite number of possibilities for variation. A society where no one is poor or rich does not have to be repressive but can instead be a fertile ground for everyone to find their particularity and full potential. Feel free to read more about these thoughts at www.commensalism.org

#350 Even Split

Filler, oak panel

This work was made using a 5,2-meter long stick. The method is inspired by photos of Henri Matisse who sometimes used long sticks to draw with, both to be able to draw from the bed and to have oversight over large drawings while drawing. I, on the other hand, was instead of facilitating the drawing process, trying to make it physically harder to draw. Because one of the reasons why we sometimes admire children's drawings is that there is a gap between intention and ability which create tension in the drawing, and this method tries to set up the same conditions.

At the same time, the works deal with the crude and harsh nature of language. Signs and symbols always contain categories of meaning rather than the often subjective and specific statements we´re trying to express. It's like shooting mosquitos with cannons. No matter how hard we try to transmit a message to the receiver it always comes out distorted on the other end. And the growing contemporary use of emojis, symbols and predefined responses instead of letters and individually formulated sentences might be easy to use, but perhaps doesn't increase understanding in communication.


The star is a symbol of fame, an entity we might desire, or fantasies to be part of our interactions with others around us. The concept can be more complex than we think if we understand it as recognition. We all need to be recognised for what we are and what we achieve.  So the distance between what we mean and what we say when we use this symbol can be great. But on the other hand, things we cannot understand we might better stay silent about, and using a symbol can be a way of speaking without really saying anything. And sometimes that's exactly what we want.

#415 Long Stick Drawing

I did this work by slamming my fist the wet filler 99 times, in a rhythm reminiscent of a heartbeat.  To accompany it, I have written a poem.  Listen to the beat They are few We are many The fruit of labour belongs to all We don’t have to cut the tree We just have to shake it The fruit will fall into our hands into our arms This is a call to arms  For me, the work is about the power of the people and about something I call radical equality. It means that one takes the notion of every human beings equal value literally. To achieve this, a new economic system is required that ensures that everyone is compensated equally for their working hours - that labour seize to be a commodity and is lifted out of the market logic and given a fixed, universal price. There will not be possible to hoard wealth in such a system, but the surplus value that labour produces is distributed equally. I see it as an artistic task and privilege to think utopian and have formulated more about these thoughts at www.commensalism.org.

#317 Call To Arms

64x84 cm | Filler, oak frame      About      The word avatar has several meanings. It could be that a person embodies something external, or it could be an image that represents a person. Both definitions problematize the self as a coherent unit. Perhaps it is possible to see the body as an avatar for the subject, the understanding of the self through language, and that it at the same time manifests something external within the boundaries of the self. And thus the way to break the subject's alienation from the outside world does not go through rational analysis but through bodily presence. But that this presence is not limited to the biological body, but can also include other material extensions of this, loaded with a robust identification. Like a driver in a car, or a person interacting with the outside world through its digital alter ego.

#291 Avatar

My works are cast in oak panels using standard wall filler.

In this work, I used a modified pantograph to simultaneously make two identical drawings of different sizes. I borrowed the title from the chorus of a song by the Swedish prog band Blå Tåget - "One hand knows what the other is doing" [Den ena handen vet vad den andra gör]. In a capitalist society, state and capital are two sides of the same thing. It's not a question of copy and original. There is neither a puppet master nor a master plan, but they interact and guide each other subtly towards a common goal.

#522 State And Capital

This work should be installed at some extra height, slightly over eye level.  Language introduces a clean cut into the impenetrable swirl of chaotic matter. It structures and make sense of the indivisible Real and opens up a space for the self-conscious subject to exist. This work also might raise questions about the power of art. Can art as an instrument of illusion, of imagery, of investment, of entertainment, in short - of pure language, really make any change? Can it make the transgression from the safe sphere of viewing, reading and interpreting to be an agent of transformation? Can it matter? Or is it just pastime?  It is up to us. An artwork has as much power as we give it. To make actual changes, and not just adjustments and additions to what is already there, we must be ready to question the things we experience as the foundation of our existence. What makes us feel safe. The very master signifiers that give meaning to the complex of our world view. The title is a slight alteration to the saying "Don't bite the hand that feeds you". But this is exactly what we must do. To achieve real change we must challenge what provides the basis for our existence. Because that is where power resides. In the material circumstances for our daily lives. We must be ready to take a risk, to put something at stake, in order to free ourselves of the status quo.  When will the bile fall? When will we be ready to let our dreams, our visions, our ideas, and vaguely formulated hopes crash into reality and shatter it, to expand our understanding of what is possible? When will language, a new language, enter the realm of matter and create a new order of things?

#277 Bite The Hand

Sparkel i eikramme. Les mer her på www.jodsoderstrom.com

Entitled 1

64x84 cm | Filler, oak frame      About      This work was done by jumping up and down in the wet filler inside a frame placed on the floor, wearing plastic clogs.      A child's outburst of rage when it does not get its way is something every parent need to handle. They usually decrease as the child gets older. This process of socialisation is very much about language. We teach the child to use words to express its will. But language also is part of defining the subject as such. That is, to draw the boundary between the subject and the outside world that is fundamental to its existence. Arguably, this semantic demarcation is what constitutes the subject.  When the child learns to express its will in words, it becomes an independent individual with a consciousness that distinguishes it from the outside world. Before this happens, the boundary is unclear. In a way, the child still experiences the world as a part of itself.      The subject's initial experience of independence is thus linked to powerlessness.  Not being able to enforce one's wishes is primordial to developing a will, i.e. being a subject. The will creates itself through negation. It can be described as an implosion or disturbance in the fragile alloy between the yet undeveloped individual and the world around it. The subject's Big Bang. The explosion that opens up the space for language that enables its existence.      The function of the tantrum can be linked to the mechanisms behind riots. The powerless are not yet aware of their own will, their own position as a subject. It is only through the spontaneous outburst that the group or class can identify themselves and thus win agency. The riot always arises from the material - it has a physical expression - but it opens up the semantic space that the powerless need to formulate their own position in a system of oppression - which is a necessary condition for struggle.     Clogs      The shoes wore to produce this work is a modern variant of clogs, made of plastic. This is the shoe of the common people, the shoe of the working class. Historically made in wood for use in factories and on the fields, but today, for example, healthcare workers widely use the plastic version. It is also popular as leisurewear for the mainstream, or the so-called masses.     Platform      This work is part of a series called Platform. Works made by bodily imprints in frames with wet filler while placed on the ground. This is inspired by Gutai, the experimental Japanese art group from the 50s, who focused on matter, body and process, and especially one member Kazuo Shiraga who painted with his feet, suspended from the ceiling over the canvas. These imprints can be made by me or others, to document, or record, an event taking place at a certain point in time. The happening is becoming the act that creates a work of art and thus challenging the boundary between documentation of art and art itself.

#298 Tantrum

Filler, oak panel

    The titles a cognitive bias that describes the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things. One relevant example is Pareidolia, where you see images in random patterns, such as animals in the clouds, etc. It also applies to paranoia, schizophrenia and the belief in conspiracy theories. Another example is the gambler's fallacy, where you think the number six is more likely to turn up after a long streak of other numbers.

    Social Engineering
The works in the series feature stone imprints and a composition made with rulers and/or compasses, the instruments used by architects and engineers to divide space. The term social engineering has mainly been used to describe how socialist states tried to indoctrinate their citizens. But it also denotes an integral part of constructing the Scandinavian welfare society in the 20th century. Extensive housing projects and health, education, and pension system reforms reshaped how people lived and viewed themselves. Introducing childcare and maternity care changed family structures and views on gender and identity. The period coincides with modernism in art and architecture, which the series references.

    In recent years, the term has become relevant in digital security, political campaigns, public relations and similar fields that seek to influence individual decision-making by exploiting our cognitive biases. These are examples of areas where our judgement systematically deviates from a rational basis. But at the same time, they can be understood as descriptions of different aspects of human nature: stubborn, impulsive, emotional, safety-oriented, unforgiving, etc. They make us vulnerable and manipulable, but we lose our character and uniqueness without them.
    All works in the series are titled after cognitive biases in belief formation, decision-making and human behaviour.

#504 Apophenia

64x84 cm each panel, installation dimensions variable | Filler, oak panels

    About

    The Scratch Tickets series also function as a simplified lottery. Under the filler on two of the pieces, there are lottery tickets, one with the text New which entitles you to a new work in the same series, and one with the text Free which allows you to have any available artwork from my website (only works with one panel). Shipping is not included. The third work is a blank. To claim the winnings, the filler must be removed to expose the text underneath (the work is thus destroyed), and photos of the text, including the control number, must be sent to me by email or DM.

    Lotteries are an expression of the capitalist ideology. We all potentially have the same chance to win. Fortunateness is considered a metaphysical concept. Like the "invisible hand" of the market, luck exists almost as a kind of divine justice. Differences in being fortunate shouldn't only be accepted but also affirmed. But the winners of capitalism (the rich) know that the only logic existing under the ideological veil is power and the right of the mighty and that justice is irrelevant in this context. Lotteries are for the masses, the losers of capitalism, to preserve the notion that the system has room for everyone and everyone's equal opportunity. Hope pours oil on troubled waters and prevents resistance and struggle.

    At the same time, there is something beautiful about what is yet to become. The potential holds a beauty of its own before it is transformed into reality. There is value in preserving something unused as a pure possibility. The white sheet, the blank surface. Like a secret or a promise.

#429-31 Scratch Tickets

#429 Scratch Ticket

About  This work is part of a three-parted sequence. They can be exhibited or sold individually, but do consider purchasing the whole group. It was made during the opening of my exhibition at Lørenskog Kunstforening where the visitors were invited to walk across the three frames lying on the ground, prepared with wet filler. The filler was covered with plastic to protect their shoes.  Movement and change are necessary ingredients for individuals as well as societies. People relocating is an opportunity for growth both for the travellers and the receiving culture. The title can refer to the concept of Rite de passage. I believe that to experience art, the viewer has to step out of the standard perceiving modus and meet the artwork on its own premises. To experience something new is to move from one place of understanding to another. And there is no going back. Platform  This work is part of a series called Platform. Works made by bodily imprints in frames with wet filler while placed on the ground. This is inspired by Gutai, the experimental Japanese art group from the 50s, who focused on matter, body and process, and especially one member Kazuo Shiraga who painted with his feet, suspended from the ceiling over the canvas. These imprints can be made by me or others, to document, or record, an event taking place at a certain point in time. The happening is becoming the act that creates a work of art and thus challenging the boundary between documentation of art and art itself.

#279 Passage

The dimensions of the grey rectangles in the painting equal a European passport.

A passport is a measure of privilege within global neoliberal colonialism. Holders of certain passports can travel freely and pursue happiness wherever they wish, while others are held back in poverty and exploitation. Money, goods and services are allowed to cross national borders effortlessly. The notion of all people's equal value cannot be realized until the freedom of movement becomes a human right.

#447 Passports

128x168 cm (64x84 cm each panel) | Filler, oak frames

I tried to do some simple splits in the wet filler while wearing clogs and a blindfold for this work. I used paper cups as support.

The word is derived from the Latin "capitalis", which means "of the head" (caput). In capitalism, capital, the means of production, comes from the head and the work thus from the body. The separation between body and mind, that is, between the subject and its bodily abode, is, therefore, an essential part of the inner logic of capitalism. The symbolic - language is given a more significant value at the expense of the Real - raw materiality. As capitalism develops, criminal correction shifts from the punishment of the body to the discipline of the mind. Since it is only the mind that has value, it is the mind that needs to be controlled, not the body. Corporal punishment has now been largely abolished, but capital punishment has also decreased in scope. Both methods assume that the mind (the subject) is indistinguishable from the body (matter). It is incompatible with another separation within the capitalist system, namely the economic exchange from labour that generates it. If the subject can not be separated from the body, the profit from the production apparatus can not be expropriated by the head - the capital, but rather belong to the whole body, i.e. also the workers - the employees.

#387-90 Capital

64x84 cm | Filler, oak frame      About      The placement and direction of the x's and squares on the surface are made using a random number generator.      Personality tests are becoming more and more common in employment recruiting. You no longer want to know only the candidates' experience and skills, but also their individual characteristics. In psychology, such tests have long been a standard tool. There is also a great deal of public interest in taking simple, popularly designed variants themselves. The purpose of all these tests is to find out who the subject is. To see inside the shell. But instead of really trying to approach the subject's mystery, the eternal question - Who am I - the survey is dismissed with a simplified categorisation as the only result. One then misses the lesson about the function of language from psychoanalytic theory.     By stopping the introspection of the subject at the level of simple categorisation, the investigation semantically does not move out of the Imaginary field. Even if you fill the different categories with descriptions, their primary objective is a simple differentiation. That is, it matters less how they are described than what function they perform. The purpose is to sort, not to explain. For a semantic act to become real in a psychoanalytic sense, i.e. that it should give meaning to the subject on a deeper level, it must be put into practice. It must be given a physical material form. The materialisation of language in the physical always adds something unexpected and elusive. The encounter with the Real gives pure language its entry into the Symbolic field. The act simultaneously creates an un-symbolised remnant that is primordial to desire. Without this subtle dislocation within language, it becomes lifeless and empty, the description misses the very kernel of what it wishes to describe.     The economisation of language serves the purposes of neoliberalism. But the unresolved suspension in the Imaginary is an immature understanding of the subject's position. Only by taking into account the chaotic and boundless nature of physical material reality can a more profound understanding be achieved.     Tick ​​Boxes      This is a series of works that use squares and crosses as compositional elements. The very components that constitute so-called checkboxes on questionnaires with prepared answer options. It is a tool for different types of surveys and application forms—systems for sorting people into different categories, and for maintaining various types of boundaries and constraints.     They are an essential part of an expanding neoliberal organisational culture where measurable results are crucial. Efforts are analysed against predetermined standards to increase economic efficiency. Language is trimmed for aesthetic qualities in favour of a strictly rational understanding. These works want to illuminate and challenge this trend by deconstructing one of its primary forms.

#303 Personality Test (Random Version)

144x64 cm | Filler, oak frame, oak bars      About      The oak bars should be installed aligned with the bottom of the frame at 15mm distance from the edges.      As the title implies, this work shows a game of Hangman. The oak bars on the sides signify missing letters. There are several possible solutions, but it's one that is of particular interest. Life is a journey from the cradle to the grave, and in between, we eat and play.           In therapy, finding the hidden truth means formulating the words to express repressed trauma or emotions. This process is very much connected to the body. Thus, language and matter are profoundly related. Yet, words have no intrinsic relation to what they signify; the gap is unbridgeable. The two dimensions are forever divided. It is not the words themselves that hold the key. It is the use of language that might be healing - the mapping of the uncharted terrain that is our subconscious. But it must be allowed to ask that even if this colonisation of language into our psyche might relieve strain and anxiety, does it necessarily provide meaning and happiness? Using language is a tool for communication with others and with ourselves and thus brings us closer, but it might be argued that it creates the very divide we desire to bridge.

#272 Hangman

This work is supposed to be installed to give the impression it has been accidentally forgotten and left in a somewhat secluded space.  Language and visuality are tightly connected. Anything not adequately introduced to the symbolised universe is difficult to notice. It remains invisible in plain sight. We need to be able to express what we see to perceive it. Still, many or maybe most things exist outside this realm. We're aware of just a small portion of what we experience. These things still affect us, and we manoeuvre accordingly, but we do it unconsciously. Some things challenge our world view, and thus we reject them from being verbalised and brought to the level of consciousness. It particularly concerns the matter of privilege. In order of maintaining a system of privilege, the demands for equality from the marginalised remains unseen, or they are made invisible altogether. That's is why representation is key to a genuinely democratic society.

#263 Represented

Filler on board, oak frame

I placed an amount of filler in the middle of a panel on the floor and then tried to distribute the volume as evenly as possible over the surface, using only my feet, wearing clogs. The work's visual expression is a result of my efforts.

Allocation of resources is perhaps the most crucial area of ​​policy. It is also the field where the current ideologies differ most clearly. Material resources are always the result of work. But even if all people actually make the same amount of effort, relatively speaking, the resources are not distributed equally. Hence the argument for redistribution. But resources asymmetrical distribution is already the result of an ideological principle - the right of the strong. Problems arise when, as in today's different variants of social liberalism, one subsequently tries to compensate for an unequal system from above through centralized state power. Its own weight will always affect the result, in one direction or another. If, instead, we set up society according to the principle of equal value for all from the beginning, redistribution would not be necessary - resources would already be shared equally.

#327 Distribution

128x168 cm (64x84 cm each panel) | Filler, oak frames

Multiple installing options

    About

    I did this work by pacing a U shape over four panels with wet filler. The first installing version has the title U-Turn Pace (Romanesque Arch). The second U-Turn Pace (Split And Turned)

    A U-turn can be used as a metaphor for a change of heart and proceeding with opposite intentions than before. In late western capitalism, in the light of the current climate crisis and escalating economic disparities, this might seem like an urgent concept. In Norway, there are a few well-known rules for behaviour when hiking in the mountains, and one of them reads - …there is no shame in turning. This is exactly what we must do. The demand for constant expansion and economic growth is not sustainable. We have to choose a different path and return to a more basic motivation for managing our resources.

#394-97 U-Turn Pace

Filler, oak panels

    I did this work by pouring stones out of a bucket while moving around the panels on the floor. The method can be reminiscent of how some artists in abstract expressionism worked, with the canvas horizontal and the movements of the body around it reflected in the work.

    A social or political movement can be defined as essentially revolving around one specific issue, unlike an organisation or party that relates to all aspects of society. The individual participates in organisations as a subject, i.e. independently and consciously, but also subject to the organisation's structure. In a movement, the individual participates more with the body. It is more about concrete, precarious problems than ideological choices and can be compared to dancing, the flight of birds in a flock or the movements of fish in a shoal. Or a crowd of people in a protest. These movement's forms arise from the participants' individual actions, organised around a few simple principles based on proximity, direction and speed. The shape is distinct but fluid, changing depending on the individuals participating. In the organisation or party, the structure is superior and more static. It remains even if the members are replaced. It resides within the register of language, while a movement reaches the realm of matter.

#451-54 Movement

Filler, oak frame      About      I did this work with the help of a specially conceived tool that makes it possible to draw several lines in the wet filler at the same time. This method obscures the natural flow from head to hand during the drawing process, which opens up the possibility for unexpected results. The lines that appear become peripheral to the original intention. But it is often in the periphery that more complex images can be formed because what is in the centre is usually designated by a preconceived vision.      The different lines have a fixed but equally dynamic relationship and repeat each other's movements in varying rhythmic patterns. I have tried to create a composition that both confirms and ignores the format, where the elements of the work are in balanced tension.

#323 Res Ipsa

84x64 cm | Filler, oak frame      About      The phrase is used for something taking place before the term for it is coined. For example, some may say Jesus was a socialist "Avant la Lettre". Literally, it describes an illustration in the early days of print that left a blank space for translation of the caption.     Can we think of a conscious human mind before language? Maybe self-awareness is a product of communication itself. Julian Jaynes proposes in his book "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" that human consciousness evolved just 4000 years ago. Before that, the atomised subject didn't exist, and instead, we heard a multitude of voices inside of us. This is, of course, just a theory, but while complex life is most certainly possible without consciousness, it is hard to imagine the use of elaborate language without awareness.             This work describes the loss of language. It is the emptiness beyond figuration and even beyond distinction. It is monochrome in the sense that it is an image that shows itself as an object. There is no opening, no point of view, it is completely sealed, but as such, it is also fully present. Language and awareness detract from the feeling of presence, from connectivity with the objects in the physical world. Only outside words, without the possibility to discriminate, can the gap between the subject and the world be bridged, and the emptiness is turned to wholeness.

#270 Avant La Lettre

64x180 cm, painting 64x84 cm | Filler, oak panel, fresh white flowers (not included), stones, string

    The top edge of the panel has holes for five flowers. Small water containers attached to the flowers (not included) on the back are included. When the work is exhibited, the flowers can be left to dry or watered and replaced as desired. The bottom also has holes for strings attached to five stones (included). See a videopresentation here and of the production here.

    I wanted to make a work about the tragedy of life. When consciousness enters, life's fragile innocence and sensitivity are transformed into an image, an expression of language with its categories and boundaries. Only to be dragged under and disappear, leaving only memory and dead matter.

    But I can also see how the work resembles a kind of instrument, and I have decided to call it Elegy, as in a sombre piece of music. Perhaps there is no chronology here, only the hope and aspiration we inhabit, coexisting with the mute forces of body and materiality. We play out our lives between these polarities. We shape it with the strings stretched across two impossible conditions.

#494 Elegy

64x84 cm | Filler, oak panel

    Truth Judgment is a cognitive bias affecting our subjective perception of truth. One fun example is the “rhyme as reason effect.” We tend to believe statements that rhyme are more truthful.

    Social Engineering
    The works in the series feature stone imprints and a composition made with rulers and/or compasses, the instruments used by architects and engineers to divide space. The term social engineering has mainly been used to describe how socialist states tried to indoctrinate their citizens. However, it also played an integral part in constructing the Scandinavian welfare society in the 20th century. Extensive housing projects and health, education, and pension system reforms reshaped how people lived and viewed themselves. Introducing childcare and maternity care changed family structures and views on gender and identity. The period coincides with modernism in art and architecture, which the series references.

    In recent years, the term has become relevant in digital security, political campaigns, public relations and similar fields that seek to influence individual decision-making by exploiting our cognitive biases. These are examples of areas where our judgement systematically deviates from a rational basis. But at the same time, they can be understood as descriptions of different aspects of human nature: stubborn, impulsive, emotional, safety-oriented, unforgiving, etc. They make us vulnerable and manipulable, but we lose our character and uniqueness without them.
    All works in the series are titled after cognitive biases in belief formation, decision-making and human behaviour.


#513 Truth Judgment

170x64 cm | Filler, oak frame      About      Language has a remarkable ability - it can describe the non-existent. It is not, as the material world, bound to what is actually there, it can wander off into new, previously unknown universes, it can invent what didn’t exist before. Things that are entirely new. Matter can create new stuff too, but it always has to follow a strict regime of causality. This is maybe not the case with the use of language. I believe this to be marvellous and not as self-evident it seems at first glance. The non-existent is, in a way even more mysterious than the barred dimension of materiality, the Real, which we never can enter as self-conscious subjects. At least with matter, we know it’s there, though we can never entirely feel and experience the world as matter, bound to language as awareness is. Before we were born and after we die, we habit the void of the non-existent. Which means we don’t exist. We are nothing. Not like emptiness which does exist, but non-existing like no-things. How can we even talk about nothing when it doesn’t exist? The concept of nothing exists, but it has no foundation in the material world. It’s a fantasy, like Santa, ghosts, and everything else we only can imagine.      The mirror displays the material world as an image. An image is transferable; it is language. When we first look in the mirror, we see ourselves as signs, entities of language. This is how we become self-aware. But we know the mirror image is not the same as the actual physical world, and this introduces an unconscious knowledge of a split within the self. Under the surface of our consciousness, beyond language and subjectivity, there is something else. A part of us that is inseparable from the body, connected to matter within and everywhere. This part, the one int the mirror, exists—the other one, the one in our heads - not entirely certain.

#278 Thing

Filler on board, oak frame

Sinecure comes from Latin and means without care. It describes a position where someone receives a salary without performing any work. An assignment just to the form, but without content - pro forma, so to speak.

In this series of minor, affordable works, I have given myself the freedom to experiment, play and make images with no other purpose than pleasing the eye. Outside my main project, this series is still based on the same approach to material and method.

Sinecure 5

Filler on board, oak panel

This work is made out of three closed rubber loops I inserted together in a Borromean knot. The loops don’t intersect but are joined together so that if one of them is removed, all fall apart.

The Borromean rings have been used as iconography in many cultures, including Japanese, Christian and Norse mythology.

The Borromean rings are also an example of topology, a mathematical branch concerned with the deformation of geometric objects.

Jacques Lacan uses the figure to illustrate the relationship between the three registers in his theory about the subject and desire - the Symbolic, the Real and the Imaginary. My take on this theory is that the Real designates matter before it’s symbolised and structured by language. The Kantian notion of matter-in-itself, I guess. The Imaginary is the field of language before it is expressed and thus tainted by matter—the register of pure language. Lastly, the Symbolic is where we are—how matter is perceived with the aid of language to make it comprehensible. The two first registers are outside our scope; they may not even exist (though quantum theory might indicate otherwise).

#524 Borromean Knot

64x84 cm | Filler, oak frame      About      This work was created by moving filler by hand from a ready prepared frame, to an empty one. In the blank frame, it was then distributed with a wooden scraper (according to my Spread technique). The two works #287 This and #288 That thus have a joint production history, where the amount of white filler in one piece corresponds to the amount of grey in the other. They can be exhibited/purchased individually or as a diptych.      Within a capitalist production logic, the owner's profits are always in contrast to the efforts of the employees. To increase profits, workers must work harder or receive a lower wage. Although increased profits can also result from raised prices or different sort of savings, employees are nevertheless the ones who have to bear the burden for this, as consumers in a market with rising costs or because the savings affect them as a group elsewhere in the production chain. The death of one is always the bread of the other.      The material world is ruled by strict causality. Nothing can happen without a preceding cause. Matter gravitates to an ever-increasing entropy. However, the organisms of life strive in the opposite direction, they organize the decomposing matter and give it new structures. Man's (possibly) free will can be described as a break in the chain of causality - a prerequisite for something unpredictable to occur.

#288 This

64x84 cm | Filler, oak frame        About      This work is produced as a group with three others. Two of them have a seamless transition. They can be mounted together in different combinations, or individually.     Membrane series      A membrane is a selective barrier. It lets something through and prevents others from passing. Visual membranes can be polarised glass as in sunglasses or semi-transparent fabric as in tights or veils. A screen on a computer with a user interface is also a kind of membrane. Behind the screen are processes of which the user only sees the end result.     Perception itself can be described as a membrane, or a filter, where some parts of the information from the eye contribute to the visual impression, while other parts are omitted. Our pre-understanding of reality determines that we only perceive parts of what surrounds us. It can also have overall consequences, such as that phenomena outside the majority culture become marginalised or made invisible, and that the privileged remain blind to the specificity of their own social and cultural status.      The search for truth is sometimes described as lifting the veil that hides the real state of things. The truth is often called raw and unfiltered. But a filter can also be like a moraine. When the water is slowly seeping through it, it becomes clear and clean. We may sometimes need to hide parts of reality, filter the gaze of the outside world, to give an impression that is more in line with our inner image of ourselves.      The membrane is a primordial component of life. The cell wall regulates the organism's basic relationship to the outside environment. Without it, life would not exist. In the same way, the language prerequisite is the ability to set boundaries. To distinguish one from the other. One can think of language itself as a membrane, or a filter, that separates and sorts the limitless and continuously fluctuating nature of the material world.

#283 Membrane

Filler, oak frame, bottle

    The bottle on the top is Tehbotol, an Indonesian ice tea that I purchased on a trip to Bali and kept as a souvenir. Extremely sweet. The shape of the bottle vaguely resembles the image below, in turn looking a bit like the famous outline of a Coca-Cola. As some might remember, the company once upon a time had a campaign called It's the Real Thing. The desire for originality is deeply rooted in our existence. Mechanical reproduction developed alongside industrialism and capitalism as we know it. The loss of authenticity is also at the heart of socialism, according to Marx. The introduction of the commodity challenges even the fabric of reality. Ownership becomes the core connection between the subject and the outside world. But perhaps alienation precedes modernity. As psychoanalytic theory postulates, it is the foundation for self-consciousness. Postmodernism and the digital age's hyper immateriality shows something beyond originality and authenticity - even better than the real thing, as the band U2 sang in the '90s.

#380 Real Thing

#244 Shadow Government

64x84 cm, stones appr. 5x5x5 cm | Filler, oak frame, stones

    About

    For this work, I placed seven stones in the wet filler and let it dry. The same stones should be placed on top of the panel in corresponding positions.

    Pareidolia is the tendency to see shapes and figurations where they don't exist. Such as in clouds or in the grey fields of the moon. It also includes the ability to hear hidden messages in music or random noise. Both tests for interpreting subconscious signals - such as Rorschach images, or various techniques of foretelling or reading signs, use pareidolia. The phenomenon is probably a result of the perception's constant process of interpreting and understanding visual stimuli. The linguistic concepts we perceive are not part of the material reality itself. They exist only in our minds. In a way, everything we see is a form of pareidolia.

    One of the shapes easiest to perceive for the brain is the face. Being able to read the emotional register of the surroundings in the smallest detail is an essential ability. Faces are important. Simple renderings of them, like smileys, or emojis, can even be written with characters and have become a complement to the written language. They can substantiate or undermine text in the same way that body language does with speech. Small, almost imperceptible shifts in facial expressions or the use of subtle emojis can change a message from friendly to threatening. In the same way, animation of dead matter or objects can be perceived as both life-giving and frightening. Perhaps this duality reminds us that the perceptive conscious self also consists only of flesh - raw matter.

    The face on the picture may appear slightly vicious. When we project supernatural evil on nature and the physical environment, it is perhaps to hide the even more frightening fact that nature is utterly indifferent to us. This void can be described by Jacques Lacan's concept of the Real. A register outside language where the subject dissolves. A kernel, closed and hard as stone, where nothing can be understood or even experienced. Where meaning no longer has relevance. Nevertheless, it is the only thing that really exists in a physical sense.

Johan Söderström

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