The artist Andrea Bakketun works in several genres: text, performance, kinetic sculpture, video and installation. A common denominator for all the works is movement, often with perishable elements that can be experienced over a longer period of time. Natural forces, interactivity, chemical processes, mechanics and living organisms are used as movement triggers. With the help of new forms of observation and connections, established truths and the relationship we have to our surroundings’ constant accumulation of forces are challenged.
In Bakketun’s work, translations are performed from one physical state to another, such as light converted into movement, and movements converted into sound. The study of physical changes around us comes from Bakketun’s fascination with the unfathomable inside us. Using manufactured objects and systems, she builds skeletons for interpretable narratives and moods.
Bakketun’s art goes in cycles and she is happy to return to previous techniques and themes which she can then test out with new approaches. Found objects fit well, such as electronic devices with a new or reusable function. At the same time, she adds an intervention to the repetitive, in that the work is based on the fragile and irregular disturbance in the regular motor circulation. Thus a vulnerability arises regarding how the work can be displayed over a long period of time, and ultimately: to its destruction. For Bakketun, it is almost a magical moment she is looking for in the maturity process itself. To emphasise the error as a human aspect, she also allows the machinery to get stuck, but at the same time adds new ways of showing the work. Bakketun will also periodically correct and restart exhibited works, thus adding a performative interaction with the work.
Text: Grethe Hald
Translation: Glen Farley