Lovisa Johansson
I am an interdisciplinary artist combining performance, sound art, video and stage design in new ways. My main focus is performance art.
WOL performanceduo.The artist Wenche Tankred and I have created a performance team called WOL. Our idea is to go for a freedom that enlarges norms and somehow turns the world upside down. We use the simple and low instead of the refined and elevated. With humour as a means we take sides for the small people in the society and the imperfect and childish within all of us. WOL tries frantically to do the right thing but always fails. The following Fluxux quotation could be seen as a description also of the work of WOL: : “Fluxus …is the fusion of Spike Jones, Vaudeville, gag, children´s games and Duchamp” (Maciunas Fluxus manifesto, Klintberg, 2006)
I work with performance also in other constellations.
Living installations is the term I use when I mix installation and performance. In this case the sculptural space is the principal character and the artist assists the transformation of the material. One example: In Spröda skurar threads hang down and are then linked together with the help of hands to a net structure. From varying points in the white net, colour is spread by means of the capillary force. When the whole net is multi-coloured the excess colour drips down on the floor and is transformed into a pattern in an interactive part where the public manoeuvres radio-controlled cars. To me this installation is about happiness.
Installations. I am interested in space as a language, space to enter and be surrounded by, space that communicates with you and transforms you to a specific state of mind. Exsaltorium is such an installation. The starting point for the project was the sound of a summer rain. I sat under an umbrella, listening to the rain and suddenly the sound gave me a strong feeling of “coming home”. Trying to convey this feeling across using a specific space guided my work with Exsaltorium.
Sound art. When working with sound art I am interested in the inner space that is being created within the listener. In that way also sound art becomes a kind of performance where acts and processes happen in the imagination of the listener, the artist is only present with voice or other sounds. Do listen to the sound creation Ensam -an inner monologue exposed twice.
Video art. My way of working with video is often closely related to my performance art. To perform in front of a camera can be seen as a specific case of performance, where the meeting with the public is postponed and the only person you meet at the moment is yourself. Here come two widely different examples: Hägring – a surrealistic and erotic travel through an inner landscape. White Black – an existential piece of art about my experiences of fertility and infertility.
Stage design. I work with stage design for theatre and dance. I am thrilled by the option to use the stage design as a means of interpreting the text, the concept or the choreography. This interpretation may either go with or against what the actors convey. My language of design is sculptural and follows an obvious visual concept. A creative exchange takes place between my own artistic works and my stage design tasks. This was for instance the case with my installation Exsaltorium which was used as the stage design for Virpi Pahkinen in her choreography Sal Mirabile (in which she on her part was inspired by my installation).
Form/structure. I am interested in structures that change over time, space that contains an activity. Rhythm and movement are important components in this course of events. I name it “visual musicality”. Presence is also an important quality- the experience of sharing a mutual moment.
Theme/ idea base. I am interested in how people are looked upon within our society, and how that changes over time. We seem to become more and more competitive, some win, many loose. Perhaps we are all losers. According to modern happiness research the wellbeing of a person depends on how the rest of the people in the group feel. Happiness at the cost of others is a chimera. I am interested in how we connect to one another. My way of investigating this, by means of a performance, is to expose my own human pitiableness, to be the one who is not a winner.