KAFA ULAYA (2024)

Electro-acoustic installation and performance for textiles, clay sculptures and feedback systems.

Created in collaboration with visual artist Susanne Paluszewski-Hau, Kafa Ulaya takes its title from a Ghanaian expression meaning “Dead White Man’s Clothes,” referring to the global circulation of discarded garments. The work consisted of a sculptural installation of clay objects and textile waste suspended within a network of strings connected to an abstract portrait of a beach in Accra, Ghana—one of many sites profoundly affected by the accumulation of second-hand clothing and textile waste.

The composition centred on establishing an electro-acoustically animated relationship between the geographies of consumption and disposal. Through feedback-based sound systems, the changing mass and distribution of garments directly influenced the sonic behaviour of the installation. As textiles were added, removed or repositioned, the balance of the system shifted, requiring continuous negotiation between stability and instability. The performance unfolded as a ritualized engagement with these interconnected material flows, exploring the tension between equilibrium and transformation, stasis and chaos, within the global ecology of textile waste.

Developed as a process-based exhibition, the work evolved through a week-long period of public co-creation before culminating in a 15-minute performance for a general audience.

LUKSUS (2023)

Multichannel sound installation for voice, AI and ecological poetry.

Commissioned by Ærø Literature Festival and created in collaboration with composer Eyvind Gulbrandsen, Luksus transformed the entrance gate of Søbygaard into an immersive zone of sound. The work unfolded as a speculative listening environment situated between stillness and chaos, imagining the remnants of a vanished civilization suspended within a planetary nebula.

At the centre of the installation, an artificial intelligence explored fragments of the collective poem Luxury Is a French Kiss, created by the climate-literature collective Forfattere Ser Grønt in response to the latest UN climate report. Emerging intermittently from the surrounding soundscape, poetic traces appeared as partially decoded messages drifting through cosmic dust—eco-existential testimonies from another time.

Through a 4.1-channel composition, the work investigated AI as a medium of translation, misinterpretation and remembrance, while reflecting on humanity's relationship to ecological crisis, planetary futures and the fragile persistence of hope.

Luksus was also setup as a performance version in the lounge of the local ferry ÆrøXpressen as part of the culture event Lys I Mørket (2023)

Extended description (danish) via this link

OSMOSIS (2022)

Live performance for painting, sound and responsive material interaction.

Created in collaboration with visual artists Susanne Paluszewski-Hau and Niels Rahbek, Osmosis explored permeability as both a physical phenomenon and a compositional method. The performance centred on a shared canvas environment functioning simultaneously as painting surface, resonant membrane and performative interface. Through the continuous exchange of gestures, marks, vibrations and sonic responses, the performers developed a collective work in real time.

Drawing on the principle of osmosis—the movement of substances across semi-permeable boundaries—the work investigated how visual and sonic materials might pass through, influence and transform one another without dissolving their individual identities.

Rather than pursuing control or authorship, Osmosis unfolded as a process of mutual adaptation, where composition emerged through resonance, responsiveness and negotiation within a shared material system.

(undocumented, please contact me for further info)

Investigations on the Theory of Brownian Movement (2021)

Live performance for painting, sound and responsive scenography.

Performed at Økant performance festival, Marstal.

Created in collaboration with visual artist Susanne Paluszewski-Hau, Investigations on the Theory of Brownian Movement, (originally coined [+]) explored the relationship between movement, sound and image through a shared performative environment.

The work centred on a reinforced canvas structure functioning simultaneously as painting surface, sound membrane and site-specific scenography. Acting on opposite sides of the membrane, the performers engaged in an osmotic choreography in which actions continuously influenced and responded to one another through the material properties of the canvas.

The performance investigated emergence, responsiveness and mutual adaptation within a shared system, allowing visual and sonic expressions to develop through continuous negotiation rather than predetermined composition.

Cmaj

Site-specific sound installation and performance for sine waves and architectural resonance.

Cmaj was created for the exhibition Look at Me at Det Røde Pakhus in Marstal. The work consisted of a series of sine tones derived from a C major chord, distributed throughout the exhibition space and tuned in relation to the acoustic properties of the room.

Rather than functioning as a fixed musical composition, the tones formed an invisible resonant architecture that visitors could move through and experience from changing positions within the space. As the harmonic relationships shifted with movement and location, the work invited audiences to engage with sound as a spatial and physical phenomenon.

Cmaj marked an early exploration of harmonic presence, listening and sonic embodiment, anticipating later investigations of voice, resonance and acoustic agency in Lydspøgelset and the larger project Ljud/Lyd som Sprog/Språk.

(undocumented, please contact me for further details)

INSOMNIA (2017)

Interactive installation for acoustic animation, resonance and feedback.

INSOMNIA explored acoustic animation as a method for externalizing and interacting with psychological states. Developed in collaboration with visual artist Mie Hørlyck Mogensen, the project transformed recurring categories of insomnia into three responsive feedback sculptures: Arguments, Association Shells and Revenge Tower.

Through resonance, amplification and physical intervention, participants could alter the behaviour of the sculptures and engage in speculative forms of self-therapy. The work investigated feedback as both a sonic phenomenon and a metaphorical model for relationships between human behaviour, material objects and complex systems.

A full lecture-format slideshow can be viewed via this link

A presentational video of the cooperative project can be seen via this link

(unpublished)

FERA_ID (2016-2017)

Artistic research project investigating abandoned industrial sites through acousto-archaeological interventions and animistically inspired listening practices. Developed through fieldwork in Estonia and Sweden, the project approached former production facilities as dormant systems whose material and acoustic traces could be reactivated through sound.

Using tactile feedback systems and acoustic excitation techniques, resonant profiles were extracted from industrial structures and transformed into audio-visual material for ritual-like performance environments combining live feedback, multichannel sound and projected documentation.

Excerpt from extraction #1 (Estonian seedmill) and #2 (Swedish shipyard). Please follow this link

FERA_ID has been supported by Nordic Culture Point and the Nordic Baltic Mobility Programme

For a full project despription, click here

RAINFOREST (2011–2017)

Reinterpretation and workshop-based development of David Tudor's Rainforest IV, presented in contexts including Club Transmediale (Berlin) and Artefacts (Belgium).

The project explored how everyday objects may function as resonant bodies within distributed electroacoustic systems. Sound was transmitted through physical materials whose acoustic properties continuously shaped and transformed the sonic environment.

The project unfolds as a several day workshop-format with participating artists, building up a sound-sculpture installation out of found objects/trash and using this as a system that the participants adapts to their individual expression methods and learn to play in cooperation with each other as a final performance.

The project builds upon ideas on indeterminancy and schematics-as-score, as well as the metaphorical notion of bioacoustics as seen in i.e. the living environment of an actual rainforest.

Rainforest is done in cooperation with American artist and Ph.D. Derek Holzer (please follow link for further info/material)

Meanwhile at Mount Sisu (2016)

Developed in collaboration with visual artist Mie Hørlyck Mogensen, Meanwhile at Mount Sisu investigated a series of mysterious remains discovered during a fictional polar expedition to Mount Sisu in the Ellsworth Mountains, Antarctica. Presented at Kunstnernes Påskeudstilling 2016, the project combined sound, installation and speculative archaeology to explore relationships between place, memory and material traces.

Through acoustic experiments, environmental storytelling and the staging of archaeological evidence, the work sought to reenact possible events connected to the expedition while leaving their interpretation unresolved.

A presentational video can be viewed via this link

Shell-Phones (2016)

Interactive electro-acoustic installation and participatory exhibition.

Shell-Phones is an interactive electro-acoustic installation situated within a speculative fictional universe. Visitors are invited to participate in crustaceo-sonic experiments involving mysterious shells that have apparently migrated from Polynesian waters to the shallow coastal regions of southern Sweden. Blending sound art, participation and world-building, the work unfolds through narratives involving 2020 Höllviken, the Swedish Security Service (SÄPO), alternative Viking migration histories, fragile geopolitical balances and a secretive Nordic–Polynesian society.

Developed in collaboration with James Brewster and Peter Tomilla, the project explores how sound can activate fiction, collective imagination and alternative forms of cultural memory.

BEACH ROBOTS (2015)

Site-specific sound sculptures for found objects and environmental sound.

Beach Robots is a series of site-specific sound sculptures combining trash art and experimental field recording. Constructed from materials collected at the shoreline and animated through manipulated sounds recorded in the surrounding environment, each sculpture is developed as a distinct sonic character. Beach Robots #1 featured Pipas Saladas, Raze, Trilene and Osram—a temporary community of sonic beings assembled from beach debris and local soundscapes.

Created in collaboration with visual artist Susanne Paluszewski-Hau, the work was presented as part of the Copenhagen Art Run at ARKEN Museum of Contemporary Art, exploring how discarded materials can be transformed into animated entities situated between sculpture, instrument and speculative narrative.

SOUND BUS (2012–2015)

Site-responsive composition developed for a moving bus operating simultaneously as vehicle, listening environment and performative space. Presented in public contexts including the 50th anniversary of the Danish Arts Foundation and the Danish People's Gathering.

The work explored mobility, mechanics and infrastructure as compositional forces. Engine sounds, movement and changing landscapes became integral parts of the sonic environment, transforming the journey itself into a shared listening situation.

Interview from Danish National Radio, P1. Click here

Videotrailer from LAK-festival. Click here

Full project description. Click here

Animate!!! (2014)

Performance for discarded objects, sound and live animation ritual.

Animate!!! explores the hidden acoustic and expressive potential of discarded objects and materials considered aesthetically or economically worthless. Through listening, testing and rehearsal, found objects are assembled into a sculptural organism whose individual and collective resonances form the basis of a live performance. The work investigates how sound can animate overlooked materials and establish responsive relationships between objects, transforming waste into instruments of expression, agency and presence.

Video from performance (2014) at Nikolaj Kunsthal. Follow this link

Short-edit sound recording of live performance (2014) at Homegrown Choppers garage in Helsinki. Follow this link