DK (b.1972)
You are invited to get involved in the new installation by the Danish artist Mille Kalsmose, created specifically for Work it Out. A gentle meditative soundscape flows from the total installation’s bicoloured walls. The blood-red colour relates to the human body while the black grid recalls the digital network everyone has become part of.
The work directs focus at our dual existence in the physical and digital world, respectively. Viewers can take part by thinking about their life and which aspects of it they would repeat if given the opportunity. Reflections by the audience will, during the course of the exhibition, be held in the work’s physical archive housed in the two filing cabinets as well as projected on the digital screens. Viewers step into a situation where they no longer just have to consider their own choices, but also those of others plus the contexts they enter into. The work offers both a breathing space and a reflection zone, far removed from the pace of everyday life, a space for deceleration.
The two large, semi-circular bronze filing cabinets can be seen as fairly permanent symbols of human reminiscence, memory, and understanding in contrast to the fleeting quality and pace associated with screens. In her artistic practice, Mille Kalsmose addresses communal activities, family relations, and personal identity. She does this from a deeply personal conviction and experience, placing her experience in a more universal, person-to-person context. She uses historical narrative as an important tool to create meaning and cohesion, here drawing on ancient rituals and brand new digital means to address some of the structures which bring about the excessive pace of our times which can be difficult to keep up with.
What does digitalisation mean to our working lives and general well-being? The ubiquitous presence of screens is very significant for our identity and our behaviour on the Internet says a lot about us both as working and private persons.
Mille Kalsmose addresses how we are driven, in the analogue as well as the digital world, by contentment, meaning, humanity, and solidarity. Moreover, the artwork raises a series of pertinent questions about social media and the boundary between private and public spaces which are undergoing huge transformation today.