artist
Christian Skjødt Hasselstrøm
Denmark
Christian Skjødt Hasselstrøm (b. 1980, Denmark) operates at the convergence of sound, visual practice, and scientific inquiry. With a deep interest in the (limited) sensory and cognitive capacities of the human being, particularly in the imperceptible, which constitutes an essential part of our relation to the world, Skjødt Hasselstrøm utilizes technology as a tool for an extended perception or cognition, with the artworks as facilitating thresholds between our sensory apparatus and phenomena. Hence the works investigate alternative environments of sensing and relating to the surroundings, proposing situations and spaces for reflection and contemplation.
Skjødt Hasselstrøm’s work has been presented at art institutions, venues, and festivals worldwide, and he has been awarded by Japan Media Arts Festival, Prix Ars Electronica, Edigma Semibreve, and the Carl Nielsen and Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen’s Foundation, among others. Skjødt Hasselstrøm holds a Master’s degree from the Royal Academy of Music in Denmark and is currently based in Copenhagen.
Christian Skjødt Hasselstrøm
μ, 2022/2025
Materials: brass hemispheres (ø: 250mm), scintillator detectors, custom electronic circuitry, audio amplifiers, transducers, wire.
On the front lawn outside Galleri F 15, 120 brass hemispheres form a meticulous grid. From within each, traces of distant cosmic events surface—directly detected and subtly amplified.
The artwork uses advanced experimental particle detector technology to extend and explore human sensory and cognitive capacities, conducting a sensory exploration of a ubiquitous cosmic phenomenon. Cosmic rays, high-energy particles originating from space, constantly bombard the Earth. Although the atmosphere blocks most of them, the few that make it through create showers of secondary particles (among them muons) that reach the planet’s surface. This shower produces an invisible flow that continuously surrounds and bathes us and our environment. The artwork μ can therefore be seen as a live cosmic listening station, inviting us to enter a grid that hints at hidden worlds far beyond the boundaries of the world we inhabit.
Created in collaboration with the Niels Bohr Institute of Copenhagen University.
Supported by Danish Arts Foundation.
