FJERNSYNSBRO – NEW ERA
Barents Spektakel presents: Fjernsynsbro – New Era, a retro-futuristic contemplation on the present moment.
In 1988 a group of Norwegians and Russians communicated via satellite for the first time on live TV. In 2022, in a moment of pandemic separation and increasing political tension, they reach out to each other again.
“FJERNSYNSBRO – NEW ERA” is an experimental, hybrid short film and a performance that transcends the boundaries of documentary and fiction in an effort to explore how borders define and shape human contact.
Norwegian director, producer and artist Carl Christian Lein Størmer and Russian artist 1999Q and producers collective Fridaymilk have a long history of bilateral cultural exploration During the pandemic, they wanted to create something that would explore how COVID-19 has created a new means of isolation between the two adjacent countries. By chance they stumbled upon the historic joint Norwegian/Russian broadcast from 1988 – entitled “Fjernsynsbro” – the idea of using this unique archival work as a starting point to create a piece of art that would comment and reflect on our joint past, present and future.
As an ongoing film project, the artists will extend the work into the performative arena under Barents Spektakel 2022, recreating the film set of the chat show and performing the satellite transmission within the space.
The talk show will happen physically in Kirkenes and Nikel and will include a live performance by Not My Time to Die from Norway and Isonation Orchestra from Russia.
Isonation Orchestra
A self-organized group of Murmansk academic and electronic musicians which started as a collaborative project on the base of Isonation.info project, curated by Fridaymilk. Occasionally, the project was synchronized with the beginning of the epidemiological global crisis: “patient zero”, the first coronavirus measures and restrictions, a rapid lockdown. The three-part release of Isotape incorporates intimate pandemic experiences — fear, uncertainty, hope that occasionally appears and disappears — in global context. The result is a series of projects interpreting events within the city, region, country and the World.
