Victoria Skogsberg

‘Some believe that death is annihilation of consciousness; others believe with equal confidence that death is the passage of the soul or mind into another dimension of reality.’ (Roger Penrose, The Large, the Small and the Human Mind, p.98)

An investigation into the unknown runs through Victoria Skogsberg’s art. Based on research and issues surrounding the paranormal, her art takes the form of drawings, photographs, video and sound, to create atmospheric installations.

In her recent installations Skogsberg has used the appearance and disappearance of the human figure in wall drawings and video works, to suggest a phenomenal presence in the space. Through examining ideas associated with spirituality and belief, science and experience, her intention is to alter the viewer’s comprehension of the world and concepts of reality, by looking beyond the ordinary, through presenting suggestions of the unknown.

In her first solo exhibition, A short-cut between disconnected spaces, (Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, May-June 2005), Skogsberg showed a new body of installation work consisting of video, sound and sculpture, the result of a collaboration with the parapsychology unit (KPU) at Edinburgh University. Recent group exhibitions include Why we run with the feeling, Intermedia Gallery, Glasgow, 2005, Sample, Galleri Wetterling, Stockholm, Sweden and No-how, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, 2004.  She lives and works in Glasgow.

Within the dimly lit confines of a grey room, the ‘Headbang’ installation holds four video screens. Three screens show some kind of constant stream of jagged parallel lines, representing some kind of measured activity. The loud electronic buzz from the monitors builds up a tension and the austere gallery environment implies that the audience is also involved in conducting and recording this test.

Then comes the sound of movement from behind, the fourth screen shows the artist wired up to an EEG machine, wide-eyed and strapped up, she wrenches her whole body forward, like a headbanger at a rock concert. The three monitors register the corresponding violence in a mountain like outburst on these sensitive lines. Like a minimal experiment this installation uses our curiosity with the unknown, to create a tension of something strange taking place by playing with the ability of the human mind to want to believe in the extraordinary. (Skogsberg)

In ‘White Light’ a huge screen shows what looks like a hospital bed, empty and alone. As the camera zooms in, a high-pitched whine builds, and flashes of light jar you into blinking. As the bed approaches, the screen fades to white, at which point you are presented with the opposite view, of a ceiling, in a film-like quality. Again the camera moves, this time ascending towards the ceiling-towards the light. The experience is once again back to the perspective of looking down onto the bed.

The work suggests a presence of a sudden departure from the room, or perhaps even a presence in a halted moment in the process of departure. The room is physically empty except from a shadow of a chair in the form of a pencil drawing on the wall down on the floor. There is no chair in the room. Skogsberg is interested in the paranormal. Led by instinct and feeling her practice can be defined through an intrigue of the other side, a preoccupation with the inexplicable oddities of life and experience.

Skogsberg does not concentrate on the sensationalist aspects of the paranormal, (although she is addicted to anything weird on TV). Instead she has found her own path – one which might have seemed fated from the beginning. Born in Sweden, Skogsberg moved to Glasgow to study at Glasgow School of Art, and whilst on the Internet researching out of body experiences and telepathy, she discovered to her surprise that some of the answers, or at least a few more questions, lay an hour’s journey away in Edinburgh.

The Koestler Parapsychology Unit of the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences at the University of Edinburgh was established in 1984. The Unit’s aim is to ‘conduct systematic and responsible research into the capacity attributed to some individuals to interact with their environment by means other than those currently understood by the scientific community’. They investigate ‘PSI’, the neutral term given to a variety of ‘paranormal’ phenomena. The term encompasses a number of phenomena including extra-sensory perception (ESP), telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition and psychokinesis.

Skogsberg met with Dr Robert Morris, the first chair of parapsychology in a British University, on her first visit to the parapsychology unit and since his death has since built an on-going relationship with other members of the department, in particular Ian Baker, a postgraduate research student.

Skogsberg’s work has continued to relate to experiments that take place at the Koestler Unit. She has entered into its world both academically by using its terminology, recreating its experiments actively by participating and becoming the subject in investigations. She has also become a participator and performer in her own practice, allowing audiences to view her own states of being and consciousness.

In ‘Connecting’ (2002), a small colour photograph, she recreates her position as ‘receiver’ in a popular ‘psi’ experiment which tests the possibility of receiving messages from the subconscious. Through her concrete presence in the image there lies the suggestion that Skogsberg has the ability to connect to this ‘other’ world.

In the two installations, ‘Are you there?’ (2003) and ‘On/Off’ (2003) the viewer assumes the position of the ‘receiver’. The first piece utilises Morse code, an early form of digital communication. In the video a shadowy figure holds a bright light which relays the message. Only those who understand this marginalised form of language are able to read the code but quite simply it says Are You There?

In ‘On/Off’ the viewer enters a room and sits on a large leather arm chair opposite a monitor. The monitor is an image of the room they entered, the arm chair facing them - empty. After a few seconds the light goes off, plunging the room into darkness. As the eyes adjust to the darkness a shadowy figure appears in the arm chair, then the lights go back on. Participating in both these works we become aware of something just on the edge of our sensory perceptions.

Skogsberg seems to have created a third space in between our perceptions of reality and the stage of her installations - one which perhaps holds the key to our comprehension of these strange phenomena.