CATHARSIS AT THE sERPENTINE gALLERIES

LAUNCH of CONNECT, BTS, January 2020

STEENSEN'S Catharsis launched the global public art project, CONNECT, BTS at The Serpentine Galleries London on Tuesday, January 14th, 2020. The installation featured a new extended version of Catharsis, a virtual forest created by Jakob Kudsk Steensen and his sound collaborator Matt McCorkle. Eliciting themes centered around diversity, love and care for the periphery, the aim is to connect individuals across the globe in oder to rethink their current circumstances, attitudes, and potentials.

The event was launched with a screening of Catharsis at the Chuc's Serpentine Galleries and a live conversation between Jakob Steensen, Ben Vickers, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Tomás Saraceno, Sir Anthony Mark David Gormley, Yiyun Kang and Daehyung Lee in exchange with BTS live in Korea. Simultaneously, global audiences participated through a live stream broadcast of the work which continues to be accessible online.

Catharsis was also presented as a major outdoor installation on the grounds of the Serpentine Galleries' Zaha Hadid-designed extension, set against the beautiful green spaces of Kensington Gardens.

CONNECT, BTS is a global initiative supported by legendary K-pop band, BTS and curator of the Korean Venice Pavilion. Daehyung Lee. The event was developed in with curators from five major cities—London, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Seoul and New York and engaged 22 contemporary artists in total. In addition to Catharsis, other commissions for the event include Thomas Saraceno, Tomás Saraceno, Sir Anthony Mark David Gormley, Ann Veronica Janssens, Boychild, Yiyun Kang.

Catharsis 2019- 2020 at The Serpentine Galleries, outdoor installation view. Photo Credit: Hugo Glendinning — Catharsis 2019- 2020 at The Serpentine Galleries, outdoor installation view. *Photo Credit: Hugo Glendinning*

Catharsis is a large-scale, immersive installation that pulls audiences into a digital simulation of a re-imagined old-growth forest. This imaginary forest has existed undisturbed for hundreds of years, free from human intervention and suffused with birdsong. It was developed through fieldwork conducted by Jakob Kudsk Steensen and his primary collaborator Matt McCorkle, and its virtual ecosystem and synchronized spatial audio were built from 3D textures and sounds collected in a number of North American forests.

Set up as a continuous shot that moves from watery underground roots to the the forest’s canopy, Catharsis draws on Kudsk Steensen’s concept of ‘slow media’. As a philosophy and a practice, ‘slow media’ uses digital technologies to draw attention to the natural world and create new narratives on our ecological futures. Collapsing various ecological timelines, the work operates as a digital portal. It takes viewers on a meditative journey through a holistic new world, slowed down and up close. The hope is that Catharsis creates a temporal space that gives audiences an overwhelming sense of communion and harmony.