Pia MYrvoLD: The Future Today

In discussions with internationally renowned Norwegian artist Pia MYrvoLD, a resident artist in this year’s R.o.R residency program, the conversation turned to Christine de Pizan and her famous work of prose The Book of the City of Ladies (1405), which is considered by many to be ground-breaking, as it laid the foundations for contemporary feminism. In her work, the first professional female writer of literary renown openly confronts the misogynistic views of late medieval society of her time: she uses three allegorical figures to create a fictional literary city, which houses the stories of brave and virtuous women we know from history and mythology. Although not directly related to the work of Christine de Pizan, Pia Myrvold’s work can be taken as the mental starting point for her visual expression, which draws inspiration from the past, but is forward-looking and constantly pushing the boundaries of contemporary visual art.

Pia MYrvoLD began her career as a painter in her native Norway, and after moving to Paris in the early 1990s, she gradually introduced new media of expression and disciplines into her artistic practice. She gained the public’s attention in 1992, when she put up a textile installation in the Parc de la Villette in Paris, designed by the architect Bernard Tschumi as an interplay of architecture, landscape design and social interaction: it is a space where people themselves can choose how it is used.[1] She was also involved in the Paris fashion scene for over a decade, creating a series of collections of innovative clothing – a sort of “wearable” art, combining fashion design and digital technologies. In fact, she believes that by taking an interdisciplinary approach, such as by combining art and fashion or art and architecture, she can spread her ideas in a way that is more accessible to people.[2] Reading the reviews of her work, critics also point out that she was a pioneer in the field of intermedia art and the use of computer tools in the sphere of visual arts, because, by her own account, the art world was initially reluctant to accept the combining of old and new media. She herself has used digital technologies to create innovative projects in which she combines classical media – in particular painting and printmaking, video, installation, music, performance, digital technologies and fashion design. She advocates the role of the visionary artist – a proactive force that can make a significant contribution to social change and evolution of culture and society at large.

Among her standout projects of the last decade, at the very least, one should mention the installation ART AVATAR, which she presented for the first time in 2014 at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.[3] In collaboration with Parisian masters of digital art, she created an interactive virtual landscape in which visitors created their own avatars with a special app, and not only interacted directly with her artworks in a virtual mirror, but also became the performers and co-creators of the project. On the one hand, the interactive installation facilitated an immersive experience of the artist's creative world, and on the other hand it bridged the viewer's virtual experience with their own inner world. The artist believes that digital tools, which create interaction between the virtual and the physical environment, can not only augment reality, but also fully activate our imagination.

The fact that Pia MYrvoLD's artworks invite one to reflect on the impact of technology on our understanding and experience of the world is also reflected in the smart sculptures she has been creating since 2015 in different variations in terms of form and content. Initially, she designed hanging interactive sculptures in the form of rods (WANDS), crafted from a variety of materials and lighting elements. Later, she transformed the linear sculptures into branching spatial installations composed of discarded digital gadgets, power cables and video projections that react to human proximity.[4]

The series of smart sculptures also includes the lighting installation #LightHackSculptures, Rivers, which she designed as part of the R.o.R. residency program and is thematically related to the Soča River. The artist also adjusted the form and spatial layout of the sculptures to fit the context of the project, which is now no longer a conglomeration of pre-used objects, but rather a composition of free-standing and wall-mounted sculptures, hand-assembled from laser-cut two- and three-dimensional shapes. The installation is complemented by a video projection, which is a computer animation of the water flowing in the river’s turquoise colors (Cube Waves, Turquoise). The light bodies integrated into the sculptures are also aglow in the Soča river’s characteristic color scale, which acts as the underlying theme for the entire project. The spatial layout, based on alternating vertical and horizontal elements, also plays an important role, illustrating the power of the river's flow, together with shifting light dynamics.

The spatial installation embodies all the characteristics of the artist's artistic approach, which is based on the hybridization of different media and technologies: in fact, one can recognize the colorful and formal characteristics of her painting works in her artwork, as well as a clear reference to fashion design. The freestanding sculptures, which she wittily imbues with anthropomorphic features, are an embodiment of her idea of an unbroken thread connecting the past and the future: they are reminiscent of totems, but can also be linked to something otherworldly. The link between ancient times and the future is also featured in a performance from The Sumerians on Holiday series, which, although a singular event, adds significantly to the message of the installation.[5] Dressed in the artist's creation, the performer represents Neptune - (originally) the Roman god of freshwaters - and wears a special mask that seems to convey a particular virtual experience.[6] However, as the artist points out, there are no virtual images in the mask, and so the performer must imagine them for themselves. Thus, the artist aims to emphasize that we are ourselves the creators of virtual content and virtual reality, and that virtuality is connected not only to art, but also to our civilization, and religion in particular, which, in the author's opinion, only becomes real as a virtual construct in our mind.

In a series of interviews, the artist underlines that one of the aims of her work is to introduce a new aesthetic that is formed at the intersection between the real and the virtual, the physical and the digital. Her works offer viewers a new way of perceiving digital images and installations with integrated software/hardware. On the other hand, her projects illuminate a number of pressing issues of the contemporary world,[7] which in the present project can be linked in particular to the relationship between nature and technology, or ecology.

Pia MYrvoLD's art can be thought of as an innovative fusion of classic/traditional media and digital/new media, showcasing the infinite potential of contemporary technologies – but always in relation to the human being and the history of humankind. Her work offers a glimpse into a future that is uncertain for us, but which, as the artist suggests, we can have a significant role in the shaping of.

Nataša Kovšca