Cognitive EMP

Ignas Krunglevičius

Soft Screen Alien imagines future aesthetics for technologically augmented post-human perception. It is conceived as an active installation work, a dynamic composition using sculpture, architecture, audible sound and visible light. But Soft Screen Alien also operates in an extended region of the spectrum, from infrasound to ultrasonics, from radio frequency electromagnetic waves to ultraviolet light; a radical update and expansion of Robert Barry’s seminal 90mc Carrier Wave (FM) (1968, now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York). Cognitive EMP Blast is a new composition performed within the installation using its elements as instruments, a full-spectrum sensory assault designed to induce what the artist calls a “cognitive reset”.

This text is based on the material prepared by Kunsthall Oslo for Krunglevičius’ 2016 exhibition, that featured the sculptural installation Soft Screen Alien and performance work Cognitive EMP Blast.

Ignas Krunglevičius (b. in Kaunas, Lithuania), is visual artist living and working in Oslo, Norway. His installations, videos, and sculpture often combine sound, and text, where he explores the intermix between the agency of power, economy, nature and existential realities generated by global technological development.

Since 2001, Krunglevičius has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions. In 2010 he was nominated for the Nam June Paik Award. Recently, he has been invited to participate in many major international art venues, such as Sydney Biennale, Australia (2011), Aichi Triennale (2016) in Nagoya, Japan, ICA Philadelphia in USA (2017), the 6th Moscow International Biennale for Young Artists (2018), Nam June Paik Art Center in South Korea (2018).