Talk the talk with… Bjørn Gunnar Staal
A few weeks ago COLLECTIVE OSLO arranged a talk between Dr Tyson Yunkaporta, Melbourne-based senior lecturer and writer behind ‘Sand Talks: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World’ and the founder of VOID Bjørn Gunnar Staal. Subsequently, Staal did a talk with the LA based tattoo artist and founder of Sang Bleu, Maxime Plescia-Büchi.
The two went on to present their joint art work ‘Cathedral of Ego’ in Ekebergparken in Oslo.
Now we’re picking Staal’s brain once again via five quick questions. Read his thoughts about what escapism looks like, what role art should play for the under privileged and very privileged and what’s his hopes are for 2021.
What are you working on at the moment? (Internally, externally)
– These days I’m working on at least a couple of different interesting projects with my friends and colleagues at Void. We are in the finishing phases of a couple of large scale installation projects that we have been working on for a couple of years now; one of them being a permanent light-installation at Tullin in Oslo that I’m very excited about. In relation to that we are also working on a facade-project where we are talking to a very talented local artist about doing something together. We love collaborating with other artists on finding new and interesting ways of expanding our work.
– Besides the work I do at Void I’m also constantly trying to find the time time to do more experimental projects, typically exploring techniques and themes that I don’t get to explore within a more commercial context. These days I’m trying to merge my interest of meditative techniques, philosophy of mind and mysticism with my own artistic practice, working on ideas that exploit as many modalities as possible in the pursuit of creating novel experiences that transcend normal conscious experiences.
What does escapism look like for you?
– Haha. Well, we all have our ways of distracting ourselves from the drudgery of contemporary life I guess, though I try not to over-indulge in mindless activities on a day to day basis. I guess some will view my meditation-practice as a way of escaping from consensus reality, though I see it as the practice of actually getting closer to what is really happening in my experience from one moment to the next. That being said, I still have a habit of indulging in pleasurable states of consciousness from time to time though, however you want to interpret that.
What group or individual would you suggest that people got to know more about and why?
– These days I’m personally really interested in the work of a group of writers/thinkers that I would classify as metamodernist/post-rational. I really like Ken Wilbers attempts to unify all domains of human knowledge with his four quadrants model. The writings of Hanzi Freinacht on metamodernist politics is also very interesting. What they both have in common is their pragmatic attempts of merging rational, scientific thinking with psycho-spiritual modalities in a way that avoids crossing the uncanny valley into woo woo land.
What role should or could art play for the vastly underprivileged? And, what role should or could it play for those on the opposite end of the spectrum?
– I’m hoping it can play a much bigger role than what is generally doing today. I think both artists and the consumers of contemporary art generally belong to a group of very privileged individuals which renders the whole industry utterly irrelevant outside it’s narrow light cone. I think to increase it’s relevance artists should dare to step outside the traditional structures of galleries and art institutions to create projects that reach people where they live there lives. For that reason I think public art projects are more interesting than over-valued objects sitting in peoples homes as relics of their own inflated sense of self-worth.
What are your hopes for 2021?
– I’m hoping humanity has learned it’s lesson from the symptoms of our failure to create a sustainable culture that became evident this year and use that we use that insight to change instead of falling back into bad habits. On a more personal note I’m hoping to spend considerable less time video-conferencing and more time hugging my friends and dancing with strangers.
Watch the talk with Bjørn Gunnar Staal and Tyson Yunkaporta here.
Watch the talk with Bjørn Gunnar Staal and Maxime Plescia-Büchi here.