The Audio Visual Exhibition

Introduction

The visuals for the two hour long ambient album composed by Kasper Bjørke Quartet: The Fifty Eleven Project (released on Kompakt Records in October 2018), is written & directed by the acclaimed LA based director and visual artist Justin Tyler Close.

Justin and his team have created 11 films for the album’s 11 compositions; as a feature length audio visual installation, which was exhibited in both Copenhagen and Milano, in connection with the official album release. While the exhibition will continue to travel, showing in various galleries/spaces, all 11 films are now available on this website.

Synopsis

Reflecting on Bjørke’s own experiences, the 11 chapters visualizes one man’s journey through a dream state, where he is confronted with the uncertainty and anxiety of a cancer diagnosis. Feeling betrayed by his own body, our lead (played by Danish performance artist Kristján Ingimarsson) builds a machine as an attempt to heal himself. Whilst in the machine, we navigate through time; visiting both his 5-year-old self, his 75-year-old-self, and his lover who plays the integral role of “Mother Nature” (performed by Batsheva Dance Company Alumni, Bobbi Jene Smith).

Through the visually striking series of films, we explore love, death, rebirth and a passion for re-connection with our planet. All films screen simultaneously as a multi-screen video installation; 11 films on 11 screens with the 11 compositions from The Fifty Eleven Project album as the soundtrack. In a deeper sense, on a surreal and metaphoric level, Close explores a not so unrealistic thought; “That mankind is the cancer of Earth; we’re on the brink of destroying our only home, and in order to save ourselves we need to reconnect to our true Mother”

Close visually dissects our own mortality, with the darkly beautiful but ultimately empowering and autobiographical compositions by Bjørke & his Quartet. Exquisitely recorded, arranged and produced, it twinkles like stars in the cosmos and is expansively infinite, but also vaporous like phosphorescent cosmic dust. In other places it’s dramatic and pensive, like an impending one-way exile into a black hole. There’s a transition from tension and anxiety to a celestial release through the soundtrack and the captivating images by Justin Tyler Close and cinematographer Snorre Ruhe.

The 11 films are produced by the Danish culture laboratory Prxjects, Kasper Notlev and Institute of Weather.

About

Justin Tyler Close (Visual Artist, b.1984)
Canadian photographer, director & writer.
Currently located in Los Angeles, CA
jaeclose.com

Kasper Bjørke (Producer & Composer, b. 1975)
Danish music producer and composer.
Kasper lives and works in Copenhagen.
kasperbjorke.com