COVID-19 ‘LOCKDOWN’ ARTIST RESIDENCY
Whilst filming in the melting Arctic, borders suddenly snapped shut: behind me in Svalbard and ahead of me in Greenland. On 9 March 2020 I found myself marooned en route, on a small, rocky, windswept island in the Norwegian North Sea called Utsira. Locals let me quarantine in the isolated lighthouse keeper’s quarters which seemed an archaically apt safe harbour to ride out the coronavirus storm.
From 14-28 May 2020 I posted photos and small video vignettes for an online “lockdown artist residency” funded by Art Arcadia from my solitary existence in the lighthouse station. A cultural signifier of rugged isolation, the lighthouse has offered a rich mythology ever since Pharos but as the isolation wore on, I was reminded that the mesmeric qualities of a lantern’s beams rely on darkness & light in unequal measure.
Or PDF version here.
Or PDF version here.
Or PDF version here.
Blog posts about the works:
Art Arcadia Lockdown Residency
Miscellaneous interviews etc:
South Sydney Herald article
TVH Norway report
NRK1 (in Norwegian)
ZDF documentary “Covid-19: The Ripple Effect” (free in D-A-CH countries)
Winds gusting 45 knots (83kmph) and #hail. Another day (nº69) in the #NorthSea.
Video is accompanied by a blog post: http://artarcadia.org/wind-to-light/
"...what delights me almost as much as its aesthetics is that the lighthouse is powered by two wind turbines installed on the other coast of Utsira. There’s something very poetic about the island’s tallest structures being so-linked. Particularly as the modern lensed-lighthouse is an emblem of the Industrial Revolution that rode on the back of fossil fuels (even though its actual lenses were rotated by clockwork until mid-last century)..."
Ahoy. Week 10. Which means it’s been 5 weeks since we checked in on Id, Ego & Superego, still marooned by travel restrictions in Utsira lighthouse. Hasten thee to ye olde Blog post to find out more: http://artarcadia.org/id-ego-superego-do-social-distancing-part-ii/
”Looking out from within, the landscape appears inverted; a curiously apt metaphor for a world turned upside-down in coronavirus times… This diamond’s optical properties hadn’t changed since the day it came out of the furnaces in Paris in 1890. It looked how it was intended. I had never seen a more beautiful machine in my wildest dreams.”
Unfortunately we seem to have a problem with juvenile delinquents hanging out under the lighthouse causing trouble, breaking stuff and using grass. In Australia, shopping malls have weaponised classical music by playing it loudly where youth would otherwise congregate. So I have added Shostakovich’s youthful Op.31, Hypothetically Murdered (1931) to this surveillance footage of the troublemakers.
76th night marooned in Utsira Lighthouse due to Covid-19. With apologies and full credit to "The Lighthouse" (2019) for borrowing a bit of their extraordinary soundtrack.
After 11 weeks #marooned, #Superego decides to #FollowTheLight. #Id & #Ego must follow. Final post by @AdamSebire for #ArtArcadia #LockdownResidencies from #utsiralighthouse
(The lantern footage in this circular film is sped up 800% so I’ve compensated by slowing down Mozart 800% for the soundtrack.)
Lighthouse literature (from Poe to Pettman, Verne to Woolf) is a subgenre that persists well past these objects' technological obsolescence. Among male authors the archetypal plot recipe calls for a keeper with troubled past, despatched to the ends of the Earth where he lives a rugged but honourable existence, albeit beguiled by the lantern’s mesmerising light. The turning point is typically pirate-based, though madness can be substituted if you have no buccaneers to hand. (Garnish your narrative with mermaids or a woman for extra spice before publication.) But the metaphorical beauty of the lighthouse goes beyond themes of isolation, phallocentrism, sense of duty, or even Rousseauian philosophy (lighthouses exemplify ‘the Common Good’ as a free service to all): for visual artists and writers alike it's lighthouses’ essence of darkness and light (in unequal measure) that reflects a psychological shadow-play of Id, Ego and Superego in a lone, tortured soul.
This Covid-19 “lockdown” artist residency” was initiated by Art Arcadia in Derry, Northern Island (with thanks to Paola Bernardelli) and made possible by Utsira Commune and the accommodation service Utsira Overnatting (with grateful thanks to Torstein Hansen & Tove Grimsby) who also run a street art residency program on this remarkable island. (A 360º aerial panorama of Utsira is above.)
I made this video back in week 5. In those days #Id, #Ego and #Superego were still on good terms, each having found their niche. There’s a blog post to be had about it all: http://artarcadia.org/self-portraiture-split-screen-some-coronavirus-aesthetics/
”When artists ‘do’ social distancing, they often of necessity become their own models or subjects. This resurgence of self-portraiture dovetails with the flourishing portrait-format (9:16 tall-screen) framing in video” and a renaissance for split-screen aesthetics in the era of Zoom video conferencing.
It’s perhaps an odd time to be living that childhood dream of keeping a #lighthouse. (And truth be told, lighthouses keep themselves perfectly well these days.) But #Covid19 has doubtless #stranded people in stranger places. Tonight is my 67th #marooned here at #UtsiraLighthouse on a small rocky island in Norway’s #NorthSea. For the next fortnight I’m emerging (virtually) from enforced #solitude to undertake one of #ArtArcadia’s splendid #lockdownresidencies. Till tomorrow, #UtsiraFyr over and out.
Do not look directly into the light. (No audio.)
Filmed in Utsira fyr (Utsira lighthouse), North Sea, Norway, spring 2020.
Music: Miss Lantern by Moby courtesy of https://mobygratis.com
Solely for non-commercial use only.
Film made by Adam Sébire with gratitude to the people of Utsira for sheltering me at their lighthouse station during the Covid-19 pandemic, March - May 2020.
Postscript
Following my months in the lighthouse I was offered land-based accommodation in Norway, north of the Arctic Circle. Below, short videos I have made for my waffle-loving fjord-neighbours: