{"id":26088,"date":"2023-02-17T11:24:52","date_gmt":"2023-02-17T10:24:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bonnierskonsthall.se\/?post_type=bonnier_exhibition&p=26088"},"modified":"2026-03-07T17:09:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T16:09:10","slug":"in-conversation","status":"publish","type":"bonnier_exhibition","link":"https:\/\/bonnierskonsthall.se\/en\/utstallning\/peter-geschwind-after-image\/in-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"In Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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<\/span>\"Peter
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In Conversation<\/h2>\n\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Excerpt from the publication After Image<\/I>. The conversation between Peter Geschwind (PG), the artist Gunilla Klingberg (GK), and the artist Fia Backstr\u00f6m (FB) took place in Geschwind\u2019s studio on October 31, 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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[…] PETER GESCHWIND<\/strong> Definitely. And that\u2019s really exciting. It\u2019s like what you don\u2019t expect, that\u2019s harder to find, if you don\u2019t already know what you\u2019re looking for. You have to be very observant, if something happens then you have to grab hold of it and not let go and just think \u2018something will appear, perhaps something silly, but it doesn\u2019t matter because the phenomenon itself is the same\u2019. At first you didn\u2019t spot it and then it appears in front of your eyes. And as soon as that happens it exists in the world. It\u2019s nothing strange, it can be like a little dot on a white wall, whatever, that\u2019s not the point, it\u2019s rather that you didn\u2019t see it, because so much has been filtered away.<\/p>\n

FIA BACKSTR\u00d6M<\/strong> It becomes more full on, like a bloody rich experience of different ways of seeing.<\/p>\n

PG<\/strong> That\u2019s been the major driving force behind it. I\u2019m really\u00a0interested in that. One question is how you can see or discover\u00a0something that we don\u2019t already know, if our perception is\u00a0primarily based on personal memories and experiences.<\/p>\n

Here there are sixteen windows. We\u2019re working on a sign\u00a0piece with digital letters, like the ones that used to be on cash\u00a0registers, a really magnified segment, a digital number that\u00a0you can write with and animate. That\u2019ll be the first thing you\u00a0see from the street. Perhaps the title will roll past, which is\u00a0Efterbild<\/em> or After Image<\/em>. You can make simpler animations with\u00a0information. It\u2019s the same principle as with a neon sign. Just on\u00a0and off.<\/p>\n

I want to do something that lowers expectations, but where you still get what it\u2019s about: now something is switched on and now it\u2019s switched off.<\/p>\n

FB<\/strong> It makes me think of an exhibition at the Pompidou by Jean-Luc Godard from 2006. In Godard\u2019s world the flow of reality always feels included in the moment of filming. Inside the exhibition there were models from his films with different point of views, and photos and props. It was on the ground floor and you could see out, so when you were standing there watching a film, seeing how he had done something visually, at the same time you could see a passer-by or someone standing outside looking in, who then became \u2018included\u2019 in the film. The windows turned into frames. The difference between inside and outside was blurred and reality became fictionalized. He succeeded in implicating what was outside the exhibition within it.<\/p>\n

PG<\/strong> I don\u2019t know if you saw the exhibition at F\u00e4rgfabriken,\u00a0Automatic<\/em>. I worked a lot with lighting there. The back\u00a0section was quite dark and spotlights made it so that as\u00a0a visitor your shadow was cast on the wall. Then I mixed\u00a0that up with video projections of other shadows, which\u00a0merged with the real ones, and then I animated those\u00a0shadows until it escalated into a chaos, in a cycle.<\/p>\n

GUNILLA KLINGBERG<\/strong> It was so marvellous. You didn\u2019t know\u00a0what was actually going on.<\/p>\n

PG<\/strong> It felt as if it was difficult to see, who else is here,\u00a0what\u2019s happening? You recognise yourself and you see\u00a0that you\u2019re a part of it. It sounds a bit similar, that you\u2019re\u00a0trying\u2026<\/p>\n

FB<\/strong> Exactly! Mix it up \u2013 there\u2019s a possibility here if you\u2019ve\u00a0seen the animation beforehand that you think you\u2019re\u00a0seeing the outside, but it\u2019s the inside\u2026<\/p>\n

PG<\/strong> \u2026 The cables will come out here. You could keep\u00a0working on making it really clear so that it feels familiar,\u00a0that you\u2019re inside now, and a minute ago you were outside.<\/p>\n

FB<\/strong> Yes, when you\u2019re outside you get to look inside, the whole thing is revealed before you\u2019ve even seen it. Then you\u2019ll also become conscious of your own movements in this fiction, something happens to the brain I think\u2026<\/p>\n

PG<\/strong> That\u2019s exactly what I want to get at. Here you\u2019ll\u00a0enter the corridor again and I\u2019m thinking there\u2019ll be a\u00a0janitor\u2019s closet with some storage shelves and some bits\u00a0of rubbish. And on the shelf there should be a few things\u00a0and at the top a large can with a nozzle, like a petrol\u00a0can, with an animated drip, a bit like with the ping-pong\u00a0ball, except this one \u2018fades in\u2019, and now and again it goes\u00a0pfui-plut-donk<\/em>, and the drop plops down onto the floor.\u00a0And on the floor maybe there could be a number of\u00a0circles, like ty-tada-ty-tada<\/em>, so it becomes like rings on\u00a0the water. You\u2019re supposed to get the feeling of standing\u00a0in something flammable.<\/p>\n

It plays a bit on this computer game thing. It\u2019s something that\u2019s\u00a0going on all the time. Then you get to the window sign but from\u00a0inside. Here a backdrop has been constructed and sectioned\u00a0off, here\u2019s a box. And when you get to this point then there\u2019s\u00a0an earthquake going on in what could be an abandoned office.\u00a0There are tables and chairs and something shaking in there, but\u00a0using just two frames, the sound of an earthquake, a bit of jingle\u00a0jangle and darkness. It\u2019s a looped earthquake, a reference to the\u00a0movie Earthquake<\/em>. You walk past that, a bit like with the drop of\u00a0oil thing. By this stage you\u2019re starting to figure out what\u2019s going\u00a0on, then you\u2019re led back to the room outside where the chairs\u00a0are, and you enter the biggest room with the large tableau.<\/p>\n

FB<\/strong> It has a kind of Fun House-feeling, you get confused and you\u00a0don\u2019t really know where you are.<\/p>\n

PG <\/b>That\u2019s the idea, in part. But, the biggest challenge is to create an environment where there are enough different things backing each other up, so that you get to a level where there isn\u2019t space to question, because so much is going on and it\u2019s hard to pinpoint. You have to find those little \u2018hooks\u2019, without creating further questions.<\/p>\n

FB<\/strong> What do you mean with space for questions?<\/p>\n

PG <\/b>The choice of, for example, a drop or an earthquake \u2013 you have to make it feel like it\u2019s a janitor\u2019s closet in a computer game, right, or an abandoned office at Bonniers. Finding a way into things, so you don\u2019t just think \u2018What the fuck is this, why is this here?\u2019. Bjarne Melgaard is usually pretty good at creating that kind of chaos, so that you can\u2019t \u2026 so it becomes natural. You\u2019re sort of making a cosmos of stuff, it might be totally weird, but eventually it begins to create its own logic. If you can just locate that state, it\u2019s the small details, using the room and the conditions, whatever it is\u2026 if, for example, the chair would be used again\u2026 So that you\u2019re not feeling like you have to think about it, but instead you think, \u2018Okay, aha, sure\u2019. […]<\/p>\n

The conversation in its entirety is published in the artist\u2019s monograph, After Image,\u00a0<\/i>which is produced in connection with the exhibition. The book will be released\u00a0<\/i>at the end of March 2023 and, in addition to extensive visual material, includes\u00a0<\/i>essays by Sara Arrhenius, Fia Backstr\u00f6m\/Gunilla Klingberg, Lars-Erik Hjertstr\u00f6m\u00a0<\/i>Lappalainen, Maria Lind, Theodor Ringborg and Niclas \u00d6stlind. Together, they\u00a0<\/i>illustrate the multifaceted artistry of Peter Geschwind, but also of his person.\u00a0<\/i>Graphic design by Andreas Dor\u00e9.<\/i><\/p>\n

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Image: Peter Geschwind, After Image<\/em>, 2023. Photo: Jean-Baptiste B\u00e9ranger.<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Utst\u00e4llning<\/p>\n\n\n\n