Henrik Håkansson’s works show fragments of cycles of nature that he records or reconstructs in different places. The works focus on the observation of plants, birds, insects, or other creatures and their surroundings, and on the question of possible forms of dialogue between human beings and nature. For his observations, Håkansson uses various recording apparatuses—surveillance cameras, high-speed films—and visualization media—computer programs for acoustic and motoric analyses, such as those used in scientific experiments and research projects.

Whereas these elements formally allude to the inclusion of science in art, conceptually they stand for methods of abstraction and objectification. Håkansson combines these (scientific) systems of communication with a language of subjectivity, with pop, film, and music history.

In this way, his installations integrate the reconstruction of the recording situation in analogy to film settings; the title of a three-hour film of a sleeping anaconda, for instance, is borrowed from Warhol, Sleep (Eunectes murinus) (1998) or birdsongs are published in LP format, (The Blackbird – Song for a new breed and Nightingale – Love two times, both 2001). His observational settings are not intended as a reflection on supposedly contradictory systems—such as nature and culture, science, and art—but rather to increase sensitivity for natural phenomena in the already fragmented spaces of life and perception.

Henrik Håkansson’s exhibition in the Secession, from which this publication originates, is based on two new projects, which both deal with the theme of birds. The film installation The Skylark (Alauda arvensis). The optimal flight between nowhere and somewhere shows the flight of a skylark. The pictures were filmed in high-speed 16mm in the open air in the south of Sweden to register movements and patterns of flight. The film loop is intended to visualize an “optimal” flight between “nowhere” and “somewhere”.

Author: Henrik Håkansson

Title: Henrik Håkansson

Publisher: Secession

Year: 2002

Language: English

Specifications: softcover