Škuc Gallery 6 May - 12 June 1999

Škuc Gallery presents three artists from Stockholm: Leif Elggren (born 1950, in Linköping), Peter Hagdahl (born 1956, in Stockholm) and Carl Michael von Hausswolff (born 1956, in Linköping). Carl Michael von Hausswolff - he exhibited on the Manifesta I in Rotterdam (1996) and on the Dokumenta X in Kassel (1997), e.g. - treads the ground between visual arts and electronic music. His work can be described in terms of an encroachment onto existing (control) systems and search for as yet unclaimed areas. At the Ljubljana exhibition, he will present a sound-and-visual project or "device" entitled The Ljubljana Electronic Seance. By means of numerous microphones, the LES device detects electronic activity in the exhibition area, including that caused by the electronic equipment of Leif Elggren and Peter Hagdahl, and transfers it into the visual and aural sphere. Von Hausswolff describes the Ljubljana Electronic Seance: ťThe form is abstract, but beyond the abstraction there's the concept of possibilities as well as of flux and endless continuity - the concept of the world beyond at large.Ť One of Leif Elggren's most successful project, conducted in co-operation with Carl Michael von Hausswolff, is the Elgaland-Vargaland state founded in 1992. The Elgaland-Vargaland kingdom occupies the mental and intra-border territory of all countries in the world, has established diplomatic ties with the NSK state and abolished death. In Ljubljana, Leif Elggren will present a work entitled Arranging for an Opening of a Teleport to Shangri-La. Consisting of sound recordings and photographs, the project is in many ways connected with a film entitled Lost Horizon (1937), directed by Frank Capra. Elggren's display speaks about ťescape, an exit for anguish and a focal point for the contradiction of fear.Ť Connecting objects with various media, the work of Peter Hagdahl is an expression of a resistance towards hierarchical control or normative definitions. Hagdahl makes us part of both personal and general stories. Accordingly, he describes the entire Ljubljana project: ťParasites Influences and Transformations. Nervousness. Allergy. Dependence. A hypersensitive environment transforms images, videos, and sounds to a reactive system which parasites on it's surroundings, circumstances, observers. The system behaves like an instable network, a mutating virus, an overloaded nervous system. An image which literally is dependent and has lost it's sovereign inaccessibility. The sensors, the computers, the projectors are a system which reacts, records and represents a situation (changes in the environment, the observers activity, information from Internet, communication with other art works, feedback on the systems own transformation.Ť An lecture by Leif Elggren, Peter Hagdahl and Carl Michael von Hausswollf was held in the Škuc Gallery (May 5).

The exhibition was organised in co-operation with the Slovene-Swedish Society, Ljubljana. We kindly thank all individuals, institutions and companies who made the project possible: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, City of Ljubljana - Department for Culture, IASPIS - Stockholm, Swedish Embassy in Vienna, ERICSSON, IKEA d.o.o., IPS - SHARP, Club of Idrija Students, PCX Computers, REVOZ VOLVO, Teater Gromki.