ABOUT

Maren Dagny Juell (Kristensen) is an artist working with moving image, installation and VR/AR.

Maren was born in Oslo, Norway where she currently has a studio. She received her MA from Chelsea College of Art (London) in 2004. The last solo shows have been at Trondheim Center for Electronic Arts (2023), Tenthaus (2021), Atelier Nord Oslo (2019), Trafo Kunsthall (2018), Podium Oslo (2017) and Trøndelag Senter for Samtidskunst (2018).

Work has been included in group shows at Bergen Center for Electronic Arts (2021), Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art (2008) and Stavanger Kunstmuseum (2015) amongst others. Moving image works have been screened internationally like The Australian video Biennial in Melbourne( 2017 and 2019). She has participated in and made new works for various biennials including; Riga Photography Biennial (2020), Meta.Morf Trondheim international biennale for art and Technology (2022) and Art Encounters Biennial, Timisoara Romania (2023).

In 2024 she won the Lumen Prize, Nordic Award. An international award for artists working with technology.

In addition to her art practice she lectures in the history of video art, teaches courses on fine art practice and tutors students at Einar Granum Kunstfagskole, Oslo.

She also co-ran the artist-run gallery She Will Artspace 2018-2022.

 

STATEMENT

I make moving image works, Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), sculpture and installation. With absurdity and humour, the works deal with new technology and language with a focus on human adaptability and agency. I construct scenarios and narratives borrowed from sci-fi literature, computer games, and online informational videos.

I am interested in the borders of subjectivity and individual autonomy. Especially how this is perceived through storytelling, worldbuilding and passing on information in various forms and rituals. The works investigate the reality of appearances, surfaces and definitions of visual space through technology.

I refer to various forms of language used to inform, command and instruct. Some of my work uses video tutorials and online forums with instruction as a disseminator of knowledge for optimisation; especially chances of survival, optimisation and physical fitness. In these, there is an element of pedagogy, a didactic discourse that fails to inform and thereby seeks to examine gaps in our perception and attention.

While experimenting with technology I am interested in the borders of the virtual world and how we place ourselves in the structural domain in between. In VR and AR I investigate embodiment by inviting the viewer to experience how the sensory apparatus can be effective in a virtual and physical space at the same time. This is used as an analogy for how the body is incorporated into economic power structures through a language that praises flexibility and progression.

A couple of reviews can be read here (some only norwegian):

Multisensorisk Innlerning, Art Scene Trondheim 2023

Art Encounters Biennial 2023 Review: ART REVIEW Against Doomism 2023

Milleniumgenerasjonens baksider, Minerava, review by Oda Victoria Reitan 23/08/2019

Den mørke motivasjonen, Tommy Olsson, Review Klassekampen, 02/05/2018

Ornamentering som overlevelsesstrategi, Nora Joung, Kunstkritikk 24/01/2017