artist
HC Gilje
Norway
Norwegian artist HC Gilje (b. 1969) has moved between installation, experimental video, live performance and set design since he graduated from the intermedia department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Trondheim in 1999.
Early in his career Gilje was a key figure in the live cinema scene with 242.pilots and other collaborations, as well as creating experimental real time video set design for theater and dance.
The last 20 years he has combined elements from his earlier practice (exploration of physical spaces in his videos, creation of spaces in his stage work and improvisation from his live work) into a longer term project he has called Conversations with Spaces. He looks at different ways of transforming spaces using light, projection, sound and motion. These ephemeral media create temporary transformations of physical spaces, which in turn influences how we experience these spaces.
Questions of how we live our lives through our bodies; how we place ourselves in time; how we relate to others and our environment; and how technology is deeply entangled in the answers to these questions, are an important context for the creation, and possibly appreciation and understanding, of Gilje’s work.
HC Gilje
The Alby Critters , 2025
Various devices for producing sound (solenoids, relays, vibrators, pumps, coils);Various resonator boxes made of wood, plastic, electronics (microcontrollers, network devices), batteries.
A flock of wind-up birds first appeared in Lillehammer, Norway, in 2008 as part of the UT-21 project. The birds have since been seen in parks and forests across Europe.
For MOMENTUM 13, these mechanical birds are joined by a series of other sound-producing critters exploring the Alby forest. The sounds they make are produced through mechanical motion such as striking on a slit drum, or vibrations, rotations and clicks produced by mechanical switches. This method of sound production contrasts with a loudspeaker, an electro-acoustic shapeshifter that can produce any sound based on the signal fed into it. The artificial ecosystem of The Alby Critters, by contrast, mimics nature, prompting reflections on our relationship with the environment.
The Alby Critters expand into their surroundings, generating focal points of intensity in nature and fostering a heightened awareness of our relation to nature. They function as experimental interventions, infusing digital and material elements into an intricate interplay of living and non-living entities. The Alby Critters invoke a liminal zone where the digital, organic, living, and non-living converge, inviting a horizontal reorientation that heightens our awareness of the forest as an intertwined realm of echoes and transformations.
