Meta.Morf X – FAEN ONLINE EXHIBITION: FY FAEN SÅ DIGITAL! / digital.faen.today / October 17 – 31, 2020 / Curator: Zane Cerpina / Online vernissage: Saturday, October 17 @ 19:00
Anne Cecilie Lie [no]
Intersected Waterbodies
Digital ecologies are inextricably linked to the extraction of the Earth, human and non-human bodies. Anne Cecilie Lie’s Intersected Waterbodies is an online continuation of her artistic research project that reflects on the ethical and ecological consequences of the deep-sea mining industry.
Intersected Waterbodies exhibited at Meta.Morf took Trondheim as its reference point with its long history of digging deep into the landscape. Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and other actors are presently exploring potential extraction below the Norwegian seabed to, allegedly, create an ethical and sustainable technological future. But can a truly just future rise from excavating the place from which all life on Earth most likely originated?
The online iteration of Intersected Waterbodies takes a critical look at the work’s own physical and digital manifestation. Digital ecologies pose new ways of worlding worlds beyond the confines of physical restraints. But what real-life consequences does the material and energy used to create this online artwork have on the already painfully excavated earth surfaces, seafloor, and exploited labour?
The Internet, the energy to run it, and its resulting economic and power structures could be perceived as intangible materials, existing out of periphery, out of mind. Yet they have profound impact on humans and non-humans alike. Waterbodies Intersected is chipping away at the medium of which the artwork itself is made of.
Anne Cecilie Lie
Through her work, Anne Cecilie Lie (b. 1983) examines how to create in the Anthropocene, with its accompanying philosophical and ethical questions, as well as for possible futures. She points out blind spots in social and built structures and proposes new alternatives for co-existence to the human-centric/exceptional. Site-specificity and cross-pollination are intrinsic to her work, inspired by Donna Haraway’s theories of tentacular thinking, based on feministic, post-colonial, scientific and science fabulating approaches to collaborative futures with humans and non-humans alike. Object-Oriented Ontology and Timothy Morton’s concept of Dark Ecology are also significant influences, where ecology includes all life and “non-life” such as technologies.
Through multisensory experiences, Lie seek to skew the human-centric view by highlighting marginalized other worlds that are interwoven with ours and enable us to exist. Lie works with sound, performance, installations, and text, alone and in collaboration with others in the creative field, as well as partners within fields of scientific research and life sciences, knowledge producers such as educational institutions, libraries, and local communities. Anne Cecilie holds an MA in scenography from the Norwegian Theatre Academy and a BA in Fine Arts from the Trondheim Academy of Fine Arts.