TURE SJOLANDER

 

excerpts from Resume:


TIME

 

"VIDEOART" ELECTRONIC PAINTINGS - TELEVISED 1966 - 1967 - 1969.

 

  1. "The role of Photography" Commissioned by the National Swedish Television year 1964. B/w. Multimedia/electronic experiment. 30 minutes. And an outdoor exhibition on giant bill board in the City of Stockhom plus indoors exhibitions at Lunds Konsthall and Gavle Museeum among other Gallerys. Represented at Moderna Museet Stockholm.
  2. "TIME" - b/w, Commissioned by the National Swedish Television. Electronic paintings televised in September 1966. 30 minutes. A video synthesizer was temporarily built, in spite of the TV-technicians apprehension. (Same technical system was later used to create MONUMENT one year later, 1967.) See letters from RUTT ELECTROPHYSICS, NY, USA dated March 12, 1974, below *. "In principle this process is similar to methods used by Nam June Paik and others, some years later). Rutt&Etra . Nam June Paik visited Elektronmusic Studion in Stockholm July/August 1966 , during the Stockhom Festival; "Visions of the Present". Static pictures from TIME was demonstrated for Paik at this point in time. A rich documentation is available from the main news media in Sweden about "TIME". Parts of "TIME" was planned to be send via satellite to New York, but the American participants, E.A.T. - Billy Kluver and &, pulled out. (See E.A.T.s and Billy Kluver's biased USA history page from Aug. 1966) "TIME" is the very first 'videoart'-work televised as an ultimate exhibition/installation statement, televised at that point in 'time' for the reason to produce an historical record as well as an evidence of 'original' visual free art, made with the electronic medium - manipulation of the electronic signal - and 'exhibited/installed' through the televison, televised. Other important factors for the creation of TIME was our awareness of the fact that the "electron" was, at this Time, the smallest known particle and that all traditional visual art, up to this Time was created with light - material/colour reflecting the light - (lightpainting) and the description of our new concept should be "Electronic painting". Pontus Hulten and his associates launched the term "Machine" art as an attempt to describe the Time movement. Pierre Restany was using the term "Mec Art". The work was commenced early 1966. (Soundtrack by Don Cherry, USA) Paintings on canvass and paper was made from the static material, and in silk-screen prints, for a large numbers of Fine Arts Galleries and Museums 1966, ironically in a 'limited edition', signed and numbered by the artist; Ture Sjolander/Bror Wikstrom. (See National Museeum Stockholm, Sweden).
  3. "MONUMENT" - b/w. Electronic paintings televised in 5 European Nations; France, Italy, Sweden, Germany and Switzerland, 1968. Monument reached an total audience of more than 150 million. The work surpassed the limits of "videoart" - a word first used in the beginning of 1970 - 73 - and was developed into an extended communication project, involving other visual artists, by invitations, multimedia artwork including the creation of tapestries, (Kerstin Olsson) silk/screen prints on canvass and paper - first edition, by Ture Sjolander/Lars Weck, posters, and an LP/Record Music, (Hansson&Karlsson) and some years later paintings on canvass, (Sven-Inge), and a book among other things, exhibited in several international Fine Arts Galleries. Catalogue text for Ture Sjolander by Pierre Restany, Paris Oct.31, 1968.
  4. Gene Youngbloods book "Expanded Cinema". 1970.
  5. "SPACE IN THE BRAIN" - 30 minutes. Televised 1969, in direct connection with the moonlanding project by NASA. in Swedish Television. Soundtrack by Hansson&Karlsson. First colour electronic original painting where the electronic signal where manipulated. Described in media as an Electronic Space Opera. Based on authentic material directly delivered from NASA. Space in the Brain was a creation dealing with the ; "space out there" - the space in our brains and the electronic space, (in television) Contemporary to Clarke's 2001, except that the Picture it self was scrutinized and the subject, and focused, in Space in the Brain. The Static material from the electronic paintings was worked out into other medias and materials; tapestrys made in France among other objects was made in large size, 3 x 2 meter, for Albany Corporation USA and for IBM, Sweden, as in "TIME" and "MONUMENT", see above.
  6. And a serie of bestseller posters was produced, and world wide distributed, by Scan-Décor Upsala, Sweden.

"Man at the Moon". is the name of the LP Record.


 

 

RUTT ELECTROPHYSICS, NY, USA.

 

 

Letter from: RUTT ELECTROPHYSICS, 21-29 West 4th Street, New Yourk,N.Y., 10012. March 12, 1974.

Signed by Sherman Price.

 

To: International Section of Swedish National Television, Stockholm, Sweden.

Extracts;

"I am writing a detailed magazine article about the history of video animation.

From literature avaiable I gather that a videofilm program, "MONUMENT", broadcast in Stockholm in January, 1968, was the first distortion of video scan-line rasters achieved by applying tones from wave form generators.

This is of such great importance - historically - that I would like to obtain more detailed documentation of the program and of the electronic circuitry employed to manipulate the video images.

I understand from your New York office that there may have been a brochure or booklet published about the program.

I will be happy to pay any expense for publications, photcopies or other documents about the program and its production -particulary with regard to the method of modulating the deflection voltage in the flying-spot telecine used.

"Video synthesis" is becoming a prominent technique in TV production here in the United States, and I think it will be interesting to give credit to your broadcasting system and personal for achieving this historic innovation."

Sherman Price

 

( A number of authentic documents/letters from this communications is avaliable)

No "detailed article" or even magazine was never reported or later presented after receiving the vital information from the Swedish Broadcating Company, by Rutt Electrophysics)


 

The largest daily news paper in Sweden
Bonnier AB
 
This article about as below: 
was published in
 
August 29, 1966.
 
By the journalist:
Dick Idestam-Almqvist
 

 
TV  "exposes" the present in electronic pictures
during the Jazz Festival.
 
 
"We want to exhibit, not to inhibit"
 
So the artists Ture Sjolander and Bror Wikstrom say, of current interest as they are for the coming jazz festival within the Festival of Stockholm. Some time during the three days of the jazz festival (Sept 16 - 18) the two picture experimenter's new film is shown on TV. It is ready made for TV with the apparatus of the TV and with the basic function of the TV before one's sight.
 
Some year ago Sjolander and Wikstrom brought about a sensation by exposing pictures on giant billboards outdoor's in Stockholm's City. If you had something to display you shouldn't fence it, neither in the museums nor among the private art galleries, but expose it where people are to be found, they thought. So consequently they have chosen the biggest medium of communication, television, for their latest exhibition.
 
Sjolander - Wikstrom are fully conscious of the topicalness of today, another reason for choosing television. What else can be more actual than to demonstrate the formal possibilities of TV, and what else can be more actual than mirror the present while you are demonstrating these formal possibilities?
 
"Scanner" re-interprets.
"Time" is the name of the exhibition, which is based upon various actualities that Sjolander-Wikstrom have come across during the spring, for instance "Gemini" and foetal-pictures. The main part is taken up by the very much to fore avant-garde jazz-musician Don Cherry and his quintet at the Golden Circle.
The pictures are run through a specially built "scanner", an apparatus that in the ordinary cases is producing "real" pictures, but which in this sensitized state is "re-interpreting" what the camera has seen, and thus is creating new pictures. The technicians and the artists have decided what the apparatus looks like, and the apparatus has decided what the pictures look like.
 
The present is reflected.
Consequently the couple Sjolander-Wikstrom is demonstrating a phenomenon that is very much up to date just now: the electronic "machine" picture.
The Korean Nam June Paik is for the moment sitting at the Swedish Radio and is working with similar things. He will show his result at the festival of Fylkingen "Visions of the Present". But this will take place one week after Sjolander-Wikstrom's demonstration, televised on Swedish National Television.
 
Ture Sjolander and Bror Wikstrom hold that they by "TIME" have accomplished a total reflection of the present. Novelties and actualities have been interpreted by an apparatus that per se is a novelty and an actuality. A vision of the present.
Their Ideas they spread in different quises like rings on the water. "Time" will be shown at ABF (The Worker's Federation of Culture) during the festival, still pictures of the film - made on silk-screen - will be exposed, and an edition of 300 prints have already been sold to MULTIART, the darling of Kristian Romare.
Finally a summary of the film will be edited in book-form very soon. And then, furthermore, Sjolander-Wikstrom are negotiating just now about contributing at the festival which the Americans of "Fylkingen" are planning in New York in October.
 
Possibly parts of "Time" are going to be transmitted by satellite.
 
 
DIA
 
(Journalist: Dick Idestam-Almqvist)