Temporary Truth
Milliken Gallery, Stockholm
21.01—06.03.2010

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For the exhibition at Milliken Gallery, Bigert & Bergström created an elaborate three part divided room installation that deals with the elusiveness of scientific truth. The exhibition uses the weather as a vantage point, Especially directed towards the discussion around prognosis and forecasting of our climatic future and how these future scenarios tend to change over time.

The main work of the exhibition is titled Tomorrow’s Weather Stockholm. It consists of a cluster of atmospheric molecules radiating different lights and colors depending on tomorrows weather forecast. Connected to the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI), the work updates every hour and through different light scenarios depicts that very special weather – i.e. overcast, sun or snow. A single globe, centrally placed among the molecules, signals the temperature through moving up and down and changing color between blue and red.

As the work is postponed one day into the future and constantly self-transform, it reaches beyond the contemporary and manifest itself as a futurespective piece.

In the central room a series of glass sketches depicts future weather scenarios and remarkable weather moments, which had an impact on history. The sculpture Prognosis, displayed on the floor, form a time-line into the obscure future where the weather and the climate have changed unimaginably much. A snowman like figure has melted into a lump of flesh that indicate that the altering climate also affected the culture and humanity, as we know it, beyond recognition.

The final work of the exhibition was two Inverted Space Molecules, which document a classic Botanical Garden and the more extreme Tropical Island, an artificial resort pleasure dome just outside Berlin. The spherical photographs depict different rooms connected into molecular structures giving the viewer possibility to encompass the places depicted in their entirety. In both works the clash between the artificially constructed nature and the real one is essential.

INSTALLATION VIEW

Photos: Jean-Baptiste Béranger
"Tomorrow's Weather, Stockholm," Partly Cloudy, 2010. Acrylic globes, RGB-LED's, weather computer, cables, 6 x 6 x 5 m. Photo: Jean-Baptiste Béranger
"Scenario I, -10°, Sunny with Clear Skies," 2010. UV print on layered glass, 40 x 60 cm. Photo: Jean-Baptiste Béranger
"Scenario II, 25°, Cloudy," 2010. UV print on layered glass, 40 x 60 cm. Photo: Jean-Baptiste Béranger
"Scenario III, 5°, Partly Cloudy," 2010. UV print on layered glass, 40 x 60 cm. Photo: Jean-Baptiste Béranger
"16 July 1969, Launching of Apollo 11," 2010. Embossed paper, UV print on glass, 40 x 60 cm. Photo: Jean-Baptiste Béranger
"29 September 1959, the first Indian woman to swim across the English Channel," 2010. Embossed paper, UV print on glass, 40 x 60 cm. Photo: Jean-Baptiste Béranger
"Prognosis," 2010. Yesmonite, 45 x 45 x 80 cm. Photo: Jean-Baptiste Béranger
"Botanic Garden," 2010. Photo on vinyl foil, acrylic globes, low energy bulbs, cable, 83 x 35 x 90 cm. Photo: Jean-Baptiste Béranger
"Botanic Garden." 2010. Photos, stickers, glass, 60 x 80 cm. Photo: Jean-Baptiste Béranger
"Tropical Island," 2010. Photos, stickers, glass, 60 x 80 cm. Photo: Jean-Baptiste Béranger
"Tropical Island," 2010. Photo on vinyl foil, acrylic globes, low energy bulbs, cable, 140 x 50 x 80 cm. Photo: Jean-Baptiste Béranger