Olafur on Northwest Passage at MIT

Olafur on Northwest Passage at MIT.

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Europa Endlos, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen – part of CPH:DOX. Work by Daniil Galkin, Tourniquet, 2013

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The Rest – a film by Ai Wei Wei, part of the programme at CPH:DOX.

Kitchen: Smoky Days

The kitchen has joined forces with the wood shop to work on a series of test tastes, experimenting with different woods and diverse ingredients to create a palette of smoky flavours – check out some of the experiments here: soe_kitchen

Little Sun; Rwanda

Can you imagine managing your daily tasks without electricity? For school children like Cecile, this is everyday reality. Go to the Little Sun Foundation and make a donation now to empower a new solar generation of school children and teachers in Kamonyi, Rwanda, with portable solar lamps and chargers.

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Tidal Museum, designed by our collaborators Studio Other Spaces, is a proposal for a new art museum on the west coast of Denmark, which would be situated between the dunes and the sea. It uses the movement of the tides to shape both the boundaries of the museum and the spaces within it. High tide floods some of the spaces, while at low tide the museum expands into the landscape. Visitors experience a highly flexible building that continually changes depending on the weather, time of day, season, and level of the sea. Visit Studio Other Spaces for more information.

Mirror tunnel test, studio, 2019
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Sourdough reunion: Last year, the kitchen team gave a jar of sourdough starter to everyone in the studio. Now they were asked to bring back a loaf of bread made from that same dough – incredible how the same starting point can yield such diversity. More here: soe_kitchen

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Revisiting and testing 'Eine Beschreibung einer Reflexion, oder aber eine angenehme Übung zu deren Eigenschaften' from 1995. When I moved to Berlin over 20 years ago, this was the work I exhibited at my very first solo exhibition at neugerriemschneider (with whom I still work), and it was also the first exhibition in their space. The work will be part of 'In real life', opening at Tate Modern this summer. via Instagram

We're looking for an architectural visualisation specialist and a geometries specialist to join our studio team. Read more here: olafureliasson.net/jobs

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In real life - Olafur's first major survey in the UK, opens 11 July, Tate Modern, London

Spiral tunnel

Olafur and Einar Thorsteinn testing the geometric structures for Your spiral view (see previous post) with the studio team in 2001. The tunnel is based on rhombic plates that are bent along one axis and assembled into two sets of spirals coiling in opposite directions. Studio tests for Your spiral view, studio, 2001.

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Your solidified flare, 2018

Surtsey eruption, by Stefán Gunnbjörn Egilsson technology specialist and geologist Thorleifur Einarsson, University of Iceland.

Surtsey eruption, 1963, by technology specialist Stefán Gunnbjörn Egilsson and geologist Thorleifur Einarsson, University of Iceland.

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How do we measure the world? Does the possession of huge quantities of information and representations bring us closer to our world or lead us further into unearthly abstraction? A puddle, photographed near Cabo de Roca in Portugal, the westernmost point of continental Europe, was drawn and measured at 1-to-1 scale as a preliminary study for the subsequent, larger-scale research and performance project ‘The Coastline Paradox: Measuring a Nameless Island’ by artist Elizabeth McTernan. According to Lewis Fry Richardson’s coastline paradox, one could wind the world’s most precise ruler around every single pebble, grain of sand, and molecule on an island’s perimeter so thoroughly that its seemingly finite length could actually unfurl into millions upon millions of kilometres. The smaller the unit of measure, the higher the resolution and the larger the totality of the measurement. Our small, isolated world could, in fact, go on forever.

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‘Northwest Passage’ is a site-specific installation on the ceiling of an outdoor passageway at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Olafur’s installation spans 90 feet and is comprised of seven LED rings hanging from and reflected in thirty polished stainless-steel panels. The seven semi-circular rings, each lined with an LED light and diffuser, are reflected in the mirror panels, creating the appearance of complete circles of light. This project draws inspiration from the dramatic thinning of the ice coverage of a historically impassable frozen route through the Arctic Ocean linking the Pacific to the Atlantic. As of the summer of 2007, the effects of climate change have allowed vessels to sail the passage without requiring an icebreaker, an event that scientists predict will become more and more common with the continued effects of global warming. This development is both a byproduct of global industry and at the same time encourages the growth of trans-global freight shipping that will only further impact the climate.

Ice Watch: Time-lapse Bankside, outside Tate Modern

Ice Watch, Tate Modern, London, 2018. Timelapse produced by Bloomberg Philanthropies

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Now that Ice Watch in London has come to a close, we have received the final carbon-footprint report commissioned from Julie’s Bicycle, a London-based charity that supports the creative community to act on climate change and environmental sustainability. According to Julie’s Bicycle, ‘The carbon footprint resulting from the exhibition of Ice Watch London was a total 39 tonnes CO2e, or 1.3 tonnes CO2e per block of ice. The carbon cost for bringing each block of ice is approximately equal to one person flying from London to Greenland to witness the ice melting of the Greenland ice sheet (1.2 tonnes CO2e per return flight).’ The full report is available on icewatchlondon.com (scroll down to the press section).

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The island series, 1997

Surtsey eruption, by Stefán Gunnbjörn Egilsson technology specialist and geologist Thorleifur Einarsson, University of Iceland.

Surtsey eruption, Iceland, 1963 by Stefán Gunnbjörn Egilsson technology specialist and geologist Thorleifur Einarsson, University of Iceland

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What goes up, 2018

Ice Watch: Time-lapse

On the scale of deep time, the human experience is a blink of an eye. Our actions, however, have consequences on a geological and planetary scale. Ice Watch, Tate Modern, London, December 2018

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‘On the second day of walking, we let the topography, the rolling hills and mountains, guide us as we embarked on a journey without a trail. Distance had to be estimated and negotiated. Navigation became a concern. We set out in the morning across the obsidian fields called Hrafntinnusker, west of the volcano Hekla. The black volcanic glass reflected our bodies, movement, and the sky like mirrors scattered all over the ground. It generated a sense of fragility in us when we walked, causing every little step to be tentative rather than confident. To walk is to produce an instant future. Here the future was rich with uncertainty. As we walked through the fields of shiny surfaces, the obsidian deflected our gaze from what lay ahead, constructing a sense of the space we had just left behind. Like a rear-view mirror, the black stones gave a “then” to our “now” and “soon”. Time was given space. Immediate futures were produced through fragmented images of the past.’ From ‘Rear view time’, written by Olafur after a two-day hike in Iceland with his then students from the Institut für Raumexperimente in 2010. You can read the full essay here.

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