THOUGHTS
Gustav Hellberg
Practice
Since 2015-16, my work has shifted towards lens-based and digital media. Around that time, I came to some conclusions that hampered the development of my artistic practice. Early in my career, I had set up some rules about still photography, video, and digitally created images as artworks. These practices were considered solely for presenting ideas or documentation, and if I intended to use video as art, a narrative approach was not allowed. I think this came from a need to distinguish my work from being time-bound. Anything performative was also to be avoided, as I thought it would divert focus from the viewer-artwork interaction that formed my work’s core aspect. By 2015, those ideas had become obsolete. During 2013, I had broken most of those rules and found great liberation in doing what needed to be done and using whatever media pushed a work to its ultimate completion. Maybe this was the time when I finally felt that I was an artist.
This transition period involved a new form of collaborative projects where I placed myself more in the background. I started interviewing people and allowed this material to take a larger part in the finished work. Additionally, I allowed the people I worked with greater independence. I started to trust their craft and creative skills more than I had before. In prior collaborations, I conducted a more controlled creative environment, appreciating collaborators' technical skills rather than their artistic versatility. Allowing other people’s ideas to flow more freely, I gained much more than what tighter intellectual control bestowed. It was a refreshing feeling. I think work became more fun.
These days I consider my primary media to be still photography and video. The photographic activity tends to be analytical. I use the camera to focus and emphasise details in my surroundings to create images that show traces of human activity. I am interested in how ignorance and memory loss alter the world and our perceptions of it. A central theme in most of my work is how human concepts of land and property debase our common existence. My lens-based work is mostly shot outdoors in environments that do not have a clearly defined status as being used and abused by human endeavours. To some, the footage will be appreciated as “nature.” Nature is a concept with too many contradicting definitions to be used as a location description, but as a commonly abused idea, it makes it a valid and important element in my various projects.
Thoughts on my Working Process
How it starts
It is impossible to pin down when and how an idea for an artwork appears. When it happens, it arrives in a flash. It is a recognisable situation, and I know that I have to put it on paper as fast as possible. For many years, I have been using mobile phones and smartphones voice memos as a tool. Ideas seem to pop up when I am on a longer walk. In Berlin, I had a daily 40-minute walk from my house to my studio. On a regular basis, ideas popped up in series, a sudden gush of thoughts that needed to be embraced quickly. I think the walk back home was the most frequent idea-boosting situation. Maybe the flow of ideas was let free when the brain was winding down from an active day in the studio. The city’s tempo slowing down could also have been a thought-triggering ambiance.
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Walking has always been a way for me to think. When I get stuck with something, a long walk is an almost certain way to get my brain ticking. It has been a vital method in my art-making.
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When the embryo for an artwork has made its sudden entry, I write as much as I can to figure out what the idea is about. It can be perceived as a discharge of ill-defined thoughts. At this stage, it is important for me not to stop and think too much. The next stage is to make sense of this cerebral as well as abstract outburst. A slower process now takes place, and here is where I usually find thought traces that triggered the flash. I like to think of this sequence as forensic. I need to connect the traces and see if they lead towards the idea or ideas that seemingly suddenly emerged on a blank screen. When or if I find thought patterns that link up, I know I have something that I need to pursue.
After this first quality check, I think I have reached the point in time when an artwork is born. From now on, it is all about raising it until it becomes mature enough to exist on its own. Much like raising a baby, I need to feed the artwork to help it grow and develop. Instead of nutrition, an artwork needs suitable ingredients, such as checking facts, finding shape, trying out media, and all those elements that eventually will engender a complete work of art.
Ending
As most of my works, especially the more complex ones, are about social, environmental, and political issues, I run extensive research to be assured that I base the work on correct facts. In this process, it happens that I discover overlooked factual predicaments. Then I have to see if the project can incorporate such findings without compromising my initial intention. Sometimes it might lead to scrapping a project. A scrapped project might later be revised or turn into something different. An altered project needs careful attention to ensure that I am not just taking an easy way out. It’s a combination of moral responsibility as well as a quality check. If a project carries forward defection, it might lead to an increased risk of producing a completely flawed work. In the end, it is my artistic integrity that demands a studious surveillance.
Everything I do is about images. Images are complex and very difficult to define. I approach images from both an intellectual and academic angle as well as from an emotionally driven, abstract position. The latter is a practice where feelings play the larger role. If something feels good, I will go with it. I need to trust my experiences. It is unclear to me how much I check this intellectually. It differs from case to case. Some works lend themselves to a more academic perspective and thus get scrutinized accordingly. It doesn’t mean that emotions are set aside. As much as I tend to check everything intellectually, I need to rely on my feelings. In the end, every image or artwork produced will be proofed emotionally.
If a work becomes academically complete, I will instantly drop it. Then I have lost all interest in it. The work has reached a conclusion, and as such, it has lost its necessity to be put forward to others too. It has become obsolete and dull. That’s why emotional scrutiny is vitally important. It is where art can differ from other human ventures. To me, there are no other reasons to engage in making art.
Worries
With photography, my working process is rather straightforward. If I have a camera available when I see something that falls into the lines of what I am currently engaged in, I just start making photographs. The selective procedure is where the quality check starts, followed by an editing session. The editing is to ensure that the image matches the emotion I want it to have. I alter contrast and colors. Sometimes I clean the image from dust spots, if necessary. The overall process is mainly instinctive. If I allow the images to rest before selecting and editing, the process is quick. Bringing ready-edited photographs together for a show is where I bring more conscious thought into the process. Then I create a visual context with chosen images. This can be combined with text. Together, text and image create a unity. It is a natural cerebral undertaking.
When I work with three-dimensional works and video, I tend to get stuck with details. I am sometimes so eager to see a detail at its finished appearance that I lose time and perspective. It can slow down progress and, in the worst case, lead to losing the overview of an entire project. When editing video or audio, this slip occurs in every project. I am fully aware of how it slows things down, but the force to edit some details can be too powerful to resist. Not seldom would I later discard the result of those sessions. I hope it is a sign of healthy project handling or that the detailed navel-gazing brings forth a mental concentration that could benefit the entire project. I am afraid it is a shortcoming that I seem doomed to live with.
Being Advised
I don’t like getting advice. I feel it is intrusive. My reaction is always defensive and sometimes aggressive. If advised by someone I respect, advice is foremost meant as a helpful and positive action. I wish I could meet that with the open mind it deserves. With time, I can sometimes re-evaluate and act on advice. Most often, I will let advice fall unattended to the ground. When I seek advice, I am completely open to critique. Progress needs advice.
A sound collaboration harbours a sanctuary for sharing knowledge. When I am engaged in technical collaborations, I know I am the one who needs advice. I am usually the person with the least knowledge and experience. When I am engaged in a collaboration on artistic grounds, I become very protective, insular, and easy to offend.
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During my transition to more social and artistic collaborations, a method to avoid my irrational behavior was to physically take one or two steps backward, to allow my partners to bring forth and act on their craft and thoughts. It creates a time interval that allows me to take in what others say and do. It allows me to consider and re-consider.
Collaboration
So far, I haven’t been in a collaboration where there has been a conflict about who is the author and who owns the copyright. When I worked as an assistant to other artists, I accepted that my artistic engagement didn’t belong to me. I got paid to do that. The issue that finally made me quit those jobs was that I wasted my creativity and aesthetic experience on others. No need to explain that I have an ego to nurture. It is also a driving force. Depending on the nature of collaboration, I would
today actively engage in a split partnership. It cannot decrease the stature of authorship. I think it increases the quality of an authorship. It definitely evolves me as a person, which I strongly believe has the same effect on my artist self.
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Jakarta, February 22, 2023
Waking up a Dormant Art Project
On Off Shore revisited
On Off Shore is an ongoing video project where I am revisiting a four year old video film project that never was shot. Using research material and location video footage I am recreating the essence of my original visions and intentions.
At the end of 2018, I started planning a video project about the careless exploitation of land in South Korea. Since I began working in South Korea in 2016, I have been fascinated by the massive tidal mudflats surrounding the country's west and south coasts. When you fly into Incheon Airport, you have a grand view of this muddy topography. From the air, it looks like a submerged empty landscape with meandering valleys and rivers. At high tide, it becomes a vast desolate flatland of mud stretching out towards the horizon.
In my outlines for the project, I wanted to create a narrative video with actors. I envisioned a story where two groups of people viewed the mudflats with opposing understandings, perspectives, and prospects. One group would represent the Korean economic elite, whose sole goal is to make as much profit as possible through the traditions of Korean finance, industry, and politics. The other contingent would have a more scientific and observational approach. All protagonists were to be anonymous and maybe even faceless. The idea was to create a collage of scenes mixing landscape footage of typical Korean mudflats with staged and theatrical scenes of actors playing out stereotyped situations, such as executive board meetings and an activist hacker den.
My intention was to capture conflicting interpretations of a specific land area and simultaneously show the indifference to the land itself that either approach would generate. The mudflats are what they are due to many factors. Human activities certainly have an immense impact, usually in a complex and unfathomable constellation.
What is it really that we can know about something like the South Korean mudflats? Nature is not stable; conditions change over time. What or who is causing change? What is positive and negative change? Nature is oblivious to what change it is subjected to; it just changes. Change can be devastating for certain elements of nature.
I find the tidal mudflats interesting as a metaphor for the dilemma that people's understanding of their environment engenders. These mudflats are only pieces of land half of the time. The other half of their existence, they are submerged underwater. This establishes a dualistic continuance of being. Not only does the tidal mudflat avoid an unambiguous definition, but its physical constitution further evades distinct apprehension. The emerged plane can have any consistency from solid to viscous to fluid. Its continuously changing character is so confusing that most people avoid ideas to exploit these transient land areas.
The mudflat doesn't lend itself compliantly to the industrial expansion mindset of most Koreans. The expansionist ideas of industrial development are, of course, not just a Korean circumstance. The capitalist paradigm is ruthless in its endeavor of constant economic profit and financial growth everywhere. The tidal mudflats off the coasts of Baegmihang, Buan, Chebudo, Ganghwado, and Julpo have been through relentless and thoughtless campaigns to be altered into suitable land for industrial and sometimes agricultural development projects. Korean industry, finance, and politicians form a tight and impenetrable power conglomerate focusing entirely on financial control and economic growth. The results of their activities are damaged ecosystems and social disasters. Very few of these extraordinarily expensive undertakings have led to the desired economic outcomes. On the contrary, most have been costly financial failures. People’s livelihoods lie in ruins, and the land has become useless for any human endeavor. Several ecological systems have become irreversibly broken.
The project 2.0
Plan:
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A personal tribute to the appearances of the Korean tidal mudflats
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Presenting double-edged understandings of the potentials to utilize the mudflats
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Bringing a once-planned project’s outlines and research footage to a working narrative
Question:
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Will this be an exercise in creating a narrative of a project, or can it become a work of art that follows my initial intentions?
With this video/photo project, I am trying to place a magnifying glass on the beauty of the South Korean tidal mudflats. There’s something very attractive about their fluctuating duality. To describe and define a mudflat, you need to be careful and precise to get it right. When the tide withdraws the water and reveals the sea floor, I get the same feeling as when I find myself on a vast flat desert, an icy plain of the tundras of the north, or on frozen open waters. It is a mixed feeling of being small and vulnerable in defiance of the surrounding environment. The most humbling experience is the loss of control over your destiny. It is the code of the plain that rules.
My idea to work with actors is scrapped. I have neither the resources nor the time to bring that vast part of the project to life. When I started to look back at my gathered material, I thought I could work with sound to bring the narrative together with the landscape footage. I have played around with sound effects and some random voice recordings to create atmosphere. It can create a suitable and carrying soundscape, which can also contrast the mostly nature video footage with urban-based tech sounds.
The narrative of the two opposing groups of people (or is it rather opposing opinions?) I feel I cannot achieve without additional imagery. When I started the project, I made some outlines of the two protagonist groups, the hackers vs. the executives. I am currently working with various ideas to merge those into the video footage. I am also about to write a script for all voice material, which has to be recorded in Korean. Any human features to be used would also have to point to Korea, with Korean actors or some sort of neutralizing features, masks, or erased facial features. The work is about Korea but should also be open to universal interpretation.
On Off Shore – alpha version
The result was On Off Shore – alpha version, an HD video with a duration of 7 minutes and 33 seconds. This was mainly an attempt to create a visual narrative where the two rivaling groups, "hackers" and "executives," were to be represented using graphic composites. I had a clear idea, but the process was time-consuming and didn't meet my expectations. However, it was a fun experiment, and some of the methods developed will likely be used in future undertakings.
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I also worked with sound to carry the narrative. The idea was to create a fictive radio communication between characters belonging to the two antagonist parties. I succeeded in creating the desired audio atmosphere, but I failed to stick to the topic of the exploitation of Korean tidal flats.
The video was presented at the In the Process of... exhibition, Startpunkt, at LUX Gallery, Östersund, at the end of 2022. Adding "alpha version" to the title is meant to indicate that the work is in progress, or rather, a work in process.
On Off Shore – beta version
When I revived this dormant project in 2022, one of my goals was to capture the essence of my original vision through a new approach. The initial plan of a traditional narrative film had become unfeasible, leading me to explore presenting video sequences on separate monitors instead. Dissatisfied with visual experiments in the alpha version, I pivoted towards creating an installation. I chose to depict a hackers’ den, utilising multiple monitors to showcase video material from my initial site research (2018-2019) alongside found footage promoting Korean heavy industries and other exploiting entities of Korean tidal flats.
The installation portrays a fictive Korean and tech-savvy activists’ HQ, featuring multiple monitors displaying simultaneous video sequences and multi-channeled audio. This setup aims to immerse viewers in a dynamic interplay of visuals and narratives, reflecting on tidal mudflats’ dualistic existence and human perception's dichotomy.
The beta version of "On Off Shore" manifests as a media installation, showcasing five videos on five monitors. Each video varies in length, offering diverse perspectives and narrative threads that intersect and diverge throughout the installation. Together, they explore themes of environmental degradation, societal dynamics, and human intervention.
To authentically portray Korean dialogue, I integrated AI-generated voices into the video installation's sequences, enhancing the narrative's intrigue and blurring reality with fiction.
Moreover, all scientific and historical material presented in the installation is genuine, contrasting sharply with the project's fictional narrative elements. By juxtaposing real-world data with fictional storytelling, "On Off Shore" challenges viewers to discern truth from fiction and confronts them with the complexities of environmental issues and human perspectives.
Technical Details
Dimensions: Variable
Media Setup: Desks adorned with documents, notepads, Korean snacks, and drinks
Equipment: Media players, monitors, and active speakers
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Monitor content:
Monitors 1 and 2 each present two computers’ desktop layout. Each showing several videos playing simultaneously. Both monitors’ main window shows views from a flying camera. Adjacent window renders an English translation of the Korean audio track. The audio tracks are fictive radio communications about the camera’s positions, visual and electronically detected observations about the getbol (tidal flat), its minerals and biological status. Two more windows show animated gauges. Monitor 1 represent a hacker/activist’s airborne surveyor and monitor 2 represent an executive venture’s airborne surveyor.
Monitor 3 displays video advertising by Korea’s largest financial and industrial conglomerates.
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Monitor 4 displays video clips shot at various getbols (tidal flats) on the South Korean west coast.
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Monitor 5 displays present a computer’ desktop layout, presenting research about the getbols’ ecological status and legislation about their exploitation as well as preservation restrictions. Together with a research on Korea’s national and local government’s promotion material on exploitation of getbol areas and marine exploitation.
Cullity Gallery artists' talks – Gustav Hellberg
Transcription
The conversation was held at Cullity Gallery in Perth, on February 24th, as part of the exhibition Mediated Process. Curators Elisabeth Pedler and Sarah Douglas mediated the talks.
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Following transcription has been slightly edited for readability.
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Elizabeth Pedler (EP):
And over here, we've got Gustav, who has worked very hard today. Firstly, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land we are on, the Whadjuk people of the Noongar Nation. We're on Noongar Boodja this morning and recognize their elders past, present, and emerging. Gustav, before we get started with your talk, is there anything you'd like to draw attention to if we listen to your work for a minute?
Gustav Hellberg (GH):
You can just listen to it like this because it's all in Korean, so you won't understand it if you don't speak Korean.
EP:
Maybe you want to talk about what's going on with your work here because I see a lot of screens and sound elements. It really looks like something that's been left in progress. Do you want to explain?
GH:
Yeah, so it is in the concept of the show, which is "in the process of." We've been trying in the group to discuss the process of making artworks. When we started this project, I dug out a project that I had started but never finished. I was going to make a video film, a normal narrative film with actors and scenes shot on location and in a studio. Then I became a dad, and the whole project sort of disappeared. I had an idea that I would use my research material, which includes a lot of... I traveled around the west coast of South Korea, looking for locations. I did some extensive 3D renderings of two stage settings that were supposed to be in the film.
I did a version with that material the last time we did a show in the group, about a year ago. I tried to fill in the gaps, but it was much more difficult and time-consuming than I thought. The version I made, a video, is on our website. It's one of those pieces I wouldn't normally have shown because I'm not happy with it; it's not ready. But because it was in this context, I thought it was good back then, and I called it the "alpha version," On Off Shore – alpha version. I planned to do a beta version in film and work with these stage settings, which would have been part of the narrative, but it proved too difficult and expensive. It wouldn't have made the work better, so it was a sort of failed artwork that should not have been shown. Then I thought, why don't I build one of the stage settings, which we see here? I call it "the hackers central" or something like that. It's the same footage I've used, but I've added some found footage to the smaller monitors here.
EP:
Can you explain where the footage is coming from?
GH:
I have to explain the idea behind this work. The west and south coasts of Korea have these tidal flats with mud – getbol (Korean for tidal flat). Since I came to Korea in 2016, I've been fascinated with them because I've never seen anything like that. It's a beautiful landscape when the tide is out, and you can see the sea floor. Sometimes there are big rivers you don't see when the water comes in. People pick clams and mussels there because it's a rich marine life area. I had an idea to make a film about this land that disappears and reappears, a unique feature.
Farmers and big enterprises in Korea have been reclaiming land for decades, building sea dams to create new land for factories, without considering the environmental impact. Some places like Incheon, near the Seoul International Airport, are built on reclaimed land. I now live near an area where rice paddies were created from the sea floor. The environmental impact has been disastrous, with the loss of fishing areas and marine life.
My project aims to depict a hacker activist group looking at these mudflats and trying to preserve them, contrasted with industrialists looking to profit from them. My standpoint is probably with the hackers. The mudflat itself doesn’t care if it's ruined; it will change and adapt. The narrative I wanted to create in the film would show these two perspectives and how they draw different conclusions from the same situation.
I recreated my idea of the hacker's studio here. It was supposed to be filmed with a minimalistic approach in a studio, showing a board meeting discussing industrial plans. This is where my work ends; I won't develop it further. I'm happy with this as an aesthetic product.
EP:
It's interesting you talk about this as the hacker's studio because it captures the conflict. The board meeting wouldn’t show the conflict as effectively. The hackers' setup shows both sides – the antagonist and the protagonist – in a more dynamic way.
GH:
That's deliberate because my heart is probably with the hackers. In the catalog, there's a composite photograph of me at a desk, but not this desk – a fake one in the 3D computer-generated hacker's space. It’s a bit of a self-portrait. I wanted everyone in the film to be Korean, but I included myself, which adds a layer of fiction and nonfiction.
Sarah Douglas (SD):
I found the work fascinating. I went home and googled about these places. It's a success for an artwork if it makes people want to learn more. I saw students engaging with it, trying to figure out what's going on. There's a real strength in creating a familiar setting that draws people in, but then engaging them with complex ideas.
GH:
What I worry about is not taking a side. In my public space artworks, the people engaging with the work are part of it, making it complete. It's more about the viewer's experience than making an activist statement. That approach doesn’t work well in art, in my view.
EP:
I like that you mentioned this is where it ends. The idea started as a narrative video work, but the process led to something different. It allows viewers to see multiple positions and ideas, rather than presenting a single narrative.
GH:
Yes, that’s probably why the film never took off. The story was too weak or documentary-like, not what I intended. Using it in this context felt safe and interesting. It coincides with my teaching; I want to practice what I tell my students about the importance of process. In Korea, students often don’t want to show unfinished work, but it's important to show the process.
EP:
It feels very vulnerable.
GH:
Yes, it's very vulnerable. That’s why I used this project to see if I could reach a point where I'm happy with it. Now, I'm satisfied; this is the end point for me. The alpha version is included in one of these video sessions, with the parts I didn't like cut out.
SD:
I'm happy with the engagement it generates. As an architect, this kind of inquiry is fascinating. The way it brings a place to life, without defining it, allows for multiple interpretations and sensory engagement beyond just the visual.
GH:
Representing an idea is always challenging. In landscape architecture, realizing what people feel when they experience the space is difficult to control.
Professor in Landscape Architecture:
How do you keep in check your own influence on that experience? It's about not completely erasing the existing qualities of a place.
GH:
In several of these tidal flats, industrialists have created disasters by not considering the environmental impact. For example, the world's longest dam, built by the founder of Hyundai, has been a financial and environmental fiasco. It's still under construction and failing. These disasters have a life of their own, with ongoing construction that sinks and collapses. It's a monumental failure, but they can't stop because of the initial belief in the project.
Unidentified person:
Is it about human pride in such projects?
GH:
I don’t think Hyundai is still involved, but other corporations might be. The government promotes these places as ecological attractions, despite the disasters. The big companies in Korea have enormous political power, sometimes influencing who gets political power.
Regarding marine sand, which Korea needs for concrete, it was banned a few years ago, but it’s unclear if the ban is enforced. If they continue at the same rate, there will be no marine sand left by 2035.
Unidentified person:
Has the work been shown in Korea?
GH:
The video was shown in Sweden. I hope to show it in Seoul and am discussing it with some people.
SD:
In some countries, it’s difficult to be critical, but South Korea is open to this?
GH:
There are no issues in Korea. Critical, conceptual, and political works may not enter the commercial art market as easily, but that’s the same in Sweden.
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