Katarina Löfström presents three new videos that were first shown in Berlin last summer. Like her previous work, these works move between reality and abstraction. All three are animations based on filmed material. This method is the artist’s way of concentrating the motif to come closer to what she perceives to be the essence of the picture.
Löfström avoids language, understanding and meaning to leave us room for associations and dreams. The films have no beginning or end and the only clues we are given are their titles. These are not to be seen as keys to interpreting the works but rather as the first link in a possible chain of associations- like a piece of music with a title but no lyrics.
An Island (DVD loop, 4,30 min,2004). A glittering Shangri-La appears like a vision in the night. The film footage behind this mirage is of a Stockholm amusement park, surrounded by boats with lanterns lit, filmed on a summer night in 2002. The soundtrack is a collage of sounds created by Katarina Löfström in collaboration with sound artist Sean Reynard. Tower (DVD loop, 9 min, 2004). The film is an animation of Berlin by night filmed during a thunderstorm the summer of 2004. The city is seen from the rotating restaurant at the top of Berlin’s tv-tower. During the rotation, Berlin’s principal boulevards; Kastanjen Allée, Schönhauser Allée, Karl Marx Allée, can be seen, like glittering snakes winding through the night. The music, by Bernhard Günther creates a muted soundscape, underscoring the slow majestic rotation of the tower. Score (DVD loop, 4,30 min,2004). This one of few works by Löfström that is without sound but gives the more reason for the term “visual music”. An animated score of black dots pours down the white picture-surface, changing size and creating rhythms in a pumping musical flow. If Löfström’s technique in An Island and Tower can be described as taking a step back from the motif, Score represents a leap into it. The animation is based on a photograph of the far reaches of the universe, taken through NASA’s Hubble telescope. Katarina Löfström has zoomed into this picture, which represents the limits of human knowledge, extremely closely and used the Benday dots that compose it for her animation.
Text: Helena Selder
Katarina Löfström was born in 1970 and graduated from Konstfack in Stockholm in 1997. Her work has frequently been shown internationally. She has spent the last two years working and living in Berlin. Katarina Löfström’s work appears courtesy of Jan Winkelmann / Berlin.
