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ANN LISLEGAARD
By Jesper Jørgensen
Published in Catalogue for HZ Frequenzes exhibition, 2003
Ann Lislegaard is concerned with the notion of time, space and place and utilise sound and light in spatial/architectural constructions to reflect on how we orientate in, and perceive, the physical as well as the psycological environments we inhabit. As a visual artist she works with video, photography and sculptural installations that manipulate the reception of spatial location and time.
The works of Ann Lislegaard could be received as both engaging and alienating. At the same time they invite the viewer/listener to enter and be enveloped in the space they construct, both architectural and mentally, and distance the visitor from the work by the confusing and discomforting soundscape it presents as well as by the defamiliarizing physical construction of the space. Orientation, both through the audible and the visual senses, is disrupted, and especially in Lislegaards architectural installations, the use of constantly changes between light and dark, is undermining any sense of direction and stability of the space the work and the visitor inhabits. Though the elements of the installations - architecture, light, sound and visuality - usually are what we navigate and orientate by, the artist deliberately uses them to show us that these constructs are exactly that; constructions, and thus not always reliable. The soundscapes or narratives in the works are constructed in the same way whitout direction and structure, constantly changing also in the sense of time and duration of the stories the voice mediates. This disrupts our structuring of the reception of the information communicated and the works in a way articulate an experience inbetween perception and cognition: "Upon entering the space the viewer is immediately challenged to unify their sensory perceptions which the work continually divides and subdivides. Logical connections of sight to sound are replaced with aggressive shifts between light and dark. Impossibly synchronous events present themselves within the recorded layers of sound and are further refracted through the overlapping words of the narrator. Contingency overwhelms conventions of time - time seems to have folded in on itself. This atmosphere of atemporality resonates with and reveals the fabricated nature of time, exploring it not as an empty container, but rather as an experience in itself, which is a conscious product of human thought. Time is not a perceptual dimension, but instead, a construction based on the dynamic structure of the perceptual field." 1
The core of Ann Lislegaards works could thus be described as "temporal rearrangements and spatial dislocations", addressing the psycological and cognitive experience and how we perceive space through the body and the intellect. The installations, though they are minimal and clean in their character, are highly physical tangible and it is through positioning of the physical body of the visitor in relation to the space and the mind in relation to the temporal duration of the work, that she puts the visitor in a state of constant expectation and creates the quiet suspense that characterises her works.
1 Matthew Buckingham: Other Rooms - The work of Ann Lilegaard, exh. cat. NORTH, Kunsthalle Wien 2000
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