© Tony Oursler / BONO. Photo: © Ivar Kvaal
Spectral power. Φeλ
- Date 2013
- Unveiled 2013
- Material Lamp, sound, light
- Dimensions 250 x 50 cm (diameter, lyktestolpens base)
«I always say you have to look for things in places you wouldn’t expect to find them.»
Photo: © Ivar Kvaal
Tony Oursler
(b. New York, United States, 1957)
Tony Oursler is particularly known for combining light, sound and movement in his art. He studied at CalArts, alongside among others Mike Kelley and John Baldessari, with Laurie Andersson among the teachers. During the 1990's, Oursler became known for his Talking Lights, and The Influence Machine (2000), using light projections on trees, smoke and buildings in New York City's Madison Park and London's Soho Square. His works have been shown at, among many institutions, The Kitchen, New York, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Documenta (1987, 1992, 1997), Kassel, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris and Tate Modern, London.
During the 1990's, Oursler began working on his Talking Lights. The talking light in Ekeberg Park is named Φeλ. The symbols Φeλ in the title are ancient rune symbols for the sun and also modern mathematical symbols for spectral power used for the measurement of structures like wavelengths and illumination. The blinking light undulates in the rhythm of the sound of the installation. Φeλ helps us consider how to interpret the past, and highlight what is lost as we try to decipher the information.
American artist Tony Oursler has created three site-specific works for the Ekeberg Park. While Oursler's three installations in the park can stand on their own, they are part of a unity concerned with communication throughout the ages.
This is the second work in Tony Oursler’s site-specific commission for the Ekeberg Sculpture Park. Spectral Power is a lamp post that looks like an old gaslight, with a thick base and fluted column. At the top there is a large glowing glass dome that flickers on and off. A male voice whispers and hisses at the passers-by. His words are only fragments of logical sentencesand code-like. Just like the sounds in the two other artworks by Oursler, Klang and Cognitive & Dissonance, it’s difficult to understand the fragmented sentences. But if you listen carefully, you can hear a few cohesive sentences such as “Get back in touch with nature, back in touch with yourself”. Every time the voice speaks, the light blinks in the dome. The blinks form a pattern, short and long, reminiscent of morse code or a binary code system.
The connection between sound and light in Spectral Power is a statement on how the information carried by media technology, is first visible after different types of decoding. For example, the way the information from sound, light and pictures on a TV screen work: from light to electrical impulses and then points of light again.
Tony Oursler places his works in the historical context of Ekeberg: rock carvings, cup marks, and burial mounds are also expressions of interhuman communication. How do we interpret these in our time and how do we relate to the amount of information that is produced by media technology today?
Guided tours
Experience Spectral Power and many of the other artworks in the collection with our art mediators. We offer guided tours for private groups all year round.