THE BEAST
16 mm film and audio installation, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Contemporary Art (2008)
Film and audio installation first shown at the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art as part of the exhibition Lights On: Norwegian Art Now.
The piece portrays an undefinable, constantly changing creature. The audience enters a small black box and meets the beast. Inside the box, alone and in an almost complete darkness, surrounded by sound, the perception of the audience is altered. The limited and cramped darkness of the small cubicle turns into an illusion of a spaceless, unlimited black void.
The beast is an indescribable, ever changing nature, a creature both enchanting and incomprehensible. As Faust encounters the devil in the shape of a black dog, offering beauty, wealth and eternal life in change for his soul, so it seems the search for material luxury has substituted religious ecstasy and meaning. The beast is yourself, when the soul is lost.
16 mm film transferred to dvd, 5.1 surround audio
Special made black box, dimensions 3.40 x 3.40 x. 3.20m
Duration: 3.33 min loop
DIRECTED & EDITED BY Ingvild Langgård
CINEMATOGRAPHER Petter Holmern Halvorsen
LIGHT DESIGN Morten Forsberg
GRADING Sement&Betong
SOUND RECORDING & EDITING Ingvild Langgård
PRODUCED BY Ingvild Langgård
PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS Ruben Thorkildsen & Ruben Steinum
SUPPORTED BY Norsk Kulturråd