TURE
SJOLANDER
excerpts from
Resume:
TIME
"VIDEOART" ELECTRONIC PAINTINGS
- TELEVISED 1966 - 1967 - 1969.
- "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.
- "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).
- "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.
- Gene
Youngbloods book "Expanded Cinema". 1970.
- "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.
- 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
"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)