Catalogue > Un extrait vidéo au hasard

Abyss portrays an urban reality characterised by migration and change ? the movement of people, the movement of money and power, and the drift of the imagination. Filmed in East London, including the 2012 Olympic construction site the film is set within spaces of the modern city ? markets, gyms, parking lots, parks, squares, streets and stores. The main character, O, negotiates her material world but the city?s economical, political and social demands appear to have been absorbed into her movements, speech and psychology. The film drifts between a material world and its psychological effects.

Knut Åsdam was born in Trondheim (1968). He currently lives and works in Oslo. Åsdam established his international work as an artist through the New York context where he lived from 94-04 and attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, NYC (94-95). Previously he studied at the Jan van Eyck Akademie (92-94), Goldsmiths College, London (89-92) and Wimbledon School of Art, London (88-89) after preparatory studies in Psychology, Philosophy and Linguistics at the University of Oslo and Maui Community College, University of Hawaii (86-89). Though expressed in very diverse forms, the main interest of Åsdam?s work remains a consistent concern for the manner in which each individual constructs and negotiates his or her identity in relation to the change and organizations of contemporary society. This sensitivity to the instability of the self often expands on the merits of queer theory and feminism, as well as psychology of language and (lacanian) psychoanalysis. His investigation of the relationship between language, the body and the usage and perception of public urban spaces, includes a look at structures of political power and authority, and has taken the diverse form of audio, film, video, photography and installation. The themes in Åsdam?s work can be seen through four categories; ?Speech?, ?Living?, ?Sexualities? and ?Struggle?. These concerns are often related to themes of deviation or crisis and to analysis of space in terms of desire, usage and history. The idiosyncracy of Åsdam?s approach to the cinematic field is created by transposing the resources of the discussions of place and subjectivity and the keen attention to the politics of language from the Fine Arts context into film. Åsdam has been active with exhibitions, publications and broadcast internationally for the last 15 years at i.e. Tate Britain and Tate Modern, London; Venice Biennial; Künsthalle Bern; Istanbul Biennial; Bergen Kunsthall; MACRO, Rome; The Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo; Manifesta7; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; P.S.1 MOMA, NYC; FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon and Musee d?Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, among others.