Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
Sheffield Hallam University
Looking for Hyperborea
‘Looking for Hyperborea’, a paper delivered at ‘Sensuous Knowledge Conference: Ta(l)king Place’, Bergen, Norway, 2013.
The paper drew together a body of work by Brown, which arose from research that considers notions of ‘northerness’, specifically that found in the most northern parts of Norway above the Arctic Circle, and revolves around Hyperborea, a place in Greek mythology behind the north wind, where the sun never sets. The paper developed approaches to the representation of imagined places and of ‘the unknown’, citing references from Caspar David Friedrich, Mary Shelley’s 'Frankenstein', Glenn Gould’s 'The Idea of North', Peter Davidson’s book 'The Idea of North,' Armundsen’s flights to the North Pole, and Michael Palin’s 'Pole to Pole'. Brown uses the staging of performative events and filmmaking as a methodology to critically explore this area of research and has made two films, both shown as part of the presentation.
‘The Hyperborean’ (2009) was filmed in a wind farm in northern Norway at midnight in summer. Building on Brown’s research (outputs 1 and 2), the film employs a non-linear narrative and a ‘part human, part animal’ character to talk directly around issues of ‘animal/human’, ‘place’ and transformation in relation to ‘Hyperborea’. This film was exhibited at 11th Istanbul Biennial in 2009, Cross-Cutting, Sierra Metro Gallery, Edinburgh and Aller à Ouessant: Vidéo sur L’Île # 2, festival of video art on the island of Ouessant, France in 2010.
‘To Hyperborea’ (2012), filmed during a residency in Vadsø, northern Norway, explores the romanticism of flight, of uncharted territories, of adventurers, and ends with images of a tower in Vadsø used to tether Zeppelins before attempted flights to the North Pole by Armundsen. The film was shown at Kino Babylon, Berlin, 2012, as part of the project ‘Tegel: Flights of Fancy’.
