Testing the Membranous Boundaries is a cross-Atlantic audio visual collaboration that explores the embodiment and translation of peatland knowledge through blending physical engagement with digital interpretations.

The project combines sensory, bodily readings with technological processes to uncover new ways of understanding these culturally and environmentally significant ecosystems. As part of their collaboration Bjørnaali, Simmons and Lanzmaier have visited peat bogs in Finland, Estonia, Norway and Canada, using lens-based practices (photography and photogrammetry) they find and interpret naturally created monuments like dead, twisted trees held in place by the mires, and portals that connect past and present, the bubbles on the surface, and the subterranean world.

Other recordings that have been done on-site include sound recordings and analog photos. Together with off-site synthesized sounds and through layers of digitally translated matter, the depicted sites form new virtual spaces. As a natural part of all technology, glitches, in line with Legacy Russell’s Glitch Feminism, can testify to a possible resistance [from the diversity that is a biotope] against being reduced to binary codes. The exhibition juxtaposes sound, image and sculpture into various combinations, offering alternative perspectives of the translated sites.

INGRID BJØRNAALI
Ingrid Bjørnaali is a multidisciplinary artist based in Oslo who records specific biotopes in various states of their ongoing world-building processes. Her works explore the omnipresence of the digital in our experience of the world as well as the inability of technology to articulate matter’s complexity.

FABIAN LANZMAIER
Fabian Lanzmaier is a sound artist based in Vienna. In his practice he explores perception and ideas of natural/artificial sounds, fluid and ambiguous environments. He works with real-time audio synthesis utilizing digital/analog physical modeling techniques and feedback networks to explore aspects of texture as well as its presence within space.

MARIA SIMMONS
Maria Simmons is a symbiontic artist who investigates potentialised environments through the creation of hybrid sculptures and installations. Her work embraces contamination as an act of collaboration. She collects garbage, grows yeast, ferments plants, and nurtures fruit flies. She makes art that eats itself.

Supported by Arts Council Norway, Canada Council for the Arts and UKAI Projects.
Part of New Perspectives for Action – a project by Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the European Union.