Ballast – Two new exhibitions
is a collaborative work between artists Steinar Haga Kristensen and Karen Elliot
“Combining Boris Groys´s notion of difference beyond difference and Sheldrake´s concept of morphic resonance we might catch a glimpse a new heroic art. A heroism of similarity”.1

Kirkegaard states that the figure of Jesus Christ indeed looked like any other ordinary human being at that historical time. And that Christianity is based on the impossibility to recognize Christ from God – the impossibility to recognize Christ as difference. Further this implies that Christ is really new and not merely different – And that Christianity is a manifestation of difference beyond difference. We can then say that Duchamp´s Fountain is a kind of Christ among things – because here we are also dealing with the difference beyond difference – but here the difference between the artwork and the ordinary, profane object. Accordingly, the art of the readymade is a kind of Christianity of the art world. We put Christ and the Fountain in the context of the divine without recognizing them as divine – they are the same – but yet genuinely new.

At Kunstnerforbundet, Karen Elliot and Steinar Haga Kristensen will attempt to connect Boris Groys´s idea of the difference beyond difference (the sameness leading to a new) to Rupert Sheldrake´s concepts of “morphic fields” that constantly produces the new through “morphic resonance”.

Sheldrake explained the unified formation of immigrating bird in the sky as holons (something that is simultaneously a whole and a part). The biological and mental similarity between the individual birds constitutes a “morphic field” generated by “morphic resonance”. The hypothesis suggest that a particular form belonging to a certain group can read the collective information through the process of “morphic resonance” and tune into the same “morphic field”, using it to guide its own development. This development of the particular form will then provide, a feedback to the morphic field strengthening it with its own experience. Sheldrake argues that such “morphic field” can be set up by repetition of similar acts and thoughts.

For the Ballast – Two new exhibitions project Elliot and Haga Kristensen has collaborated on sculptural interventions and imagery that investigates similarity, repetition and difference. By repeating similar forms, acts and thoughts these new works could be seen as gestalts of Groys´s difference beyond difference, defining an exuberant and context driven culture. Elliot and Haga Kristensen will attempt to take advantage of this exuberant situation of repetitions and similarities.

Treating the vernissage at Kunstnerforbundet as a ground for scientific research, and its inherent cultural memory and the homogeneous choreographed biological masses visiting these places as artistic medium Elliot and Haga Kristensen tests out the concepts of “morphic fields” and “morphic resonance”. Through telepathic techniques they intend to create a strong mental resonance that – they claim – will envision a common future, a heroic body, a political and mental know-how for the coming community.

Karen Elliot
The multiple artist identity Karen Elliot was developed in order to counter the male domination of the Neoist movement. Since then Elliot has been utilized to perform various radical artistic project. Influenced by Sheldrake´s work, Elliot´s recent artistic practice is characterized by a telepathic sensibility. When at work she radiates a strong field intended for biological and metaphysical unification between brains and bodies. Elliot claims to demonstrate that – when experiencing strong fields of similarities – she is able to conduct and manipulate collective memory to such a degree that it consecrates evolutionary development in the human brain / or any brain.

Steinar Haga Kristensen
Haga Kristensen´s montages contains diverse artistic gestures ranging from event-scores, sculpture and painting to video, performance and telepathic investigation. After publishing his “catalogue raisonné” – a dedication to Karen Elliot – Retrospective – on the un-subjectified persona.2 Haga Kristensen has developed staged theatrical readings of his assemblages. These “ideal readings” devote an uncanny occupation of the potentially communicative elements of the exhibits. Recently Haga Kristensen has been working closely with Karen Elliot: “I´m struck by Karen´s intelligence and creative sensibility, it has been a great privilege to collaborate with her on the Ballast project” Haga Kristensen states in a conversation at Gallery D.O.R. Brussels, Jan 2011

1 Marc Ribot – Heroic guitars – resonance of difference and similarity,
Das Braun Press, 2011
2 Steinar Haga Kristensen – Retrospective – on the un-subjectified persona,
Torpedo press, 2009

David Oliver Rinchler, Brussels April 2011