Underskog

Utopia Planitia

Lars-Andreas Tovey Kristiansen

Opening: Friday October 19th, 19:00

NB! Holodeck is relocated! We are now to be found at Oslogate 2, read more about this here.

Open: Saturday October 20th – Sunday October 21th, 14:00 – 17:00

A gallery space within a gallery space within an urban city on Earth creates the starting point for the exhibition. Holodeck, in science fiction terms, is a space where you can create anything you want, and is, in this case, situated in the middle of nowhere.

Onboard the starship Enterprise exploring the final frontiers of space in the 1960s science fiction series Star Trek, there is a “holodeck” where you can generate any place you like through computer programs using holographic technology. Here the crew could create and experience environments from Earth or any other place, separated from the otherwise sterile minimal space ship interior.

Utopia Planitia is one such “holodeck” from this science fiction series, named after an actual crater on the surface of the planet Mars, which also serves as the visual backdrop in the holodeck program. The red, entropic and desolate crater makes it a manifested no place, while at the same time holding possibilities of a future colonization and society outside of Earth.

A different kind of entropic environment is the closed off still radioactive Zone of Alienation surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the north of the Ukraine. Encompassing the concrete skeleton ruins of the city of Pripyat, this zone holds the remains of one of the biggest modernist utopian dreams of the last century halted in the midst of continuous expansion and prosperous development to remain in a suspended state of decay.

The works in the exhibition juxtaposes the artist’s exploration of two no places, and plays with the duality of the meaning of utopia as “no place” and “good place”, all of the time within the setting of an art space as a holodeck inside NoPlace.

Lars-Andreas Tovey Kristiansen (1983) holds an MFA from Malmö Art Academy, including exchange studies at Braunschweig University of Art. Past exhibitions include group shows at Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo; Lunds Konsthall, Lund; Hannover Kunstverein, Hannover; One Night Only, Oslo; Wolfsburg Kunstverein, Wolfsburg; Galleri 21, Malmö; Botnik Studios, Gerlesborg and others, as well as solo presentations at Grünerløkka Kunsthall, Oslo; Galleri Lilith Waltenberg, Malmö; KHM, Malmö and Lumiar Cité, Lisbon. Kristiansen is co-director of Landings project space in Vesfossen, Norway.