PinchukArtCentre

Jakob Steensen

Jakob Kudsk Steensen is a Danish artist based in New York. He is concerned with how imagination, technology and ecology intertwine. To make his work, Steensen ventures on intense photographic excursions and then converts the collected material into digital worlds by the use of 3D scanners, photogrammetry, satellite data and computer game software. Inspired by ecology-oriented science fiction and conversations with biologists and ethnographers, his projects are ultimately virtual simulations populated by mythical beings existing in radical ecological scenarios. Jakob Kudsk has recently exhibited internationally at Jepson Center for the Arts, Time Square’s Midnight Moment, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Serpentine Galleries, MAXXI in Rome, FRIEZE London, Podium in Oslo, and Ok Corral Copenhagen. In 2018, Steensen’s work as an art director won him a Telly award and a Games for Change Award. His work has been featured in MOUSSE Magazine, artnet News, The Art Newspaper, Hyperallergic, Politiken, Information, VICE, and the New York Times, among other publications. He has also received awards from the Danish Arts Foundation, The Augustinus Foundation, and the Lumen Arts Prize. He has been the artist in residence at Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, AADK, Centra Negra, MASS MoCA, BRIC and Mana Contemporary. Steensen is an alumni of NEW INC, a technology and culture incubator by The NEW MUSEUM, in NYC. In his artistic practice, Jakob Kudsk Steensen investigates future scenarios of hybridisation of technology and nature. His work RE-ANIMATED proposes a utopian response to a story of the last Hawaiian Kaua’i ʻōʻō bird, which died in 1987, marking the extinction of its species. In 2009, its mating call was uploaded to YouTube. Since then, the unreciprocated song of the last Kaua’i ʻōʻō bird has been played by users for more than half a million times. RE-ANIMATED is a digitalised spatial response to this mating call reconstructing the habitat of the bird, resurrecting itself and defending its right to life if not in the organic, but in the data world. As a digital gardener, the artist has collected and planted a myriad 3D scan copies of flora and fauna, which he, by the use of algorithms, has programmed to colonize the island. The sound of this virtual world is composed of algorithmic music and interactive environmental audio effects created by Michael Riesman, Musical Director for the Philip Glass Ensemble.
Jakob Kudsk Steensen is a Danish artist based in New York. He is concerned with how imagination, technology and ecology intertwine. To make his work, Steensen ventures on intense photographic excursions and then converts the collected material into digital worlds by the use of 3D scanners, photogrammetry, satellite data and computer game software. Inspired by ecology-oriented science fiction and conversations with biologists and ethnographers, his projects are ultimately virtual simulations populated by mythical beings existing in radical ecological scenarios. Jakob Kudsk has recently exhibited internationally at Jepson Center for the Arts, Time Square’s Midnight Moment, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Serpentine Galleries, MAXXI in Rome, FRIEZE London, Podium in Oslo, and Ok Corral Copenhagen. In 2018, Steensen’s work as an art director won him a Telly award and a Games for Change Award. His work has been featured in MOUSSE Magazine, artnet News, The Art Newspaper, Hyperallergic, Politiken, Information, VICE, and the New York Times, among other publications. He has also received awards from the Danish Arts Foundation, The Augustinus Foundation, and the Lumen Arts Prize. He has been the artist in residence at Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, AADK, Centra Negra, MASS MoCA, BRIC and Mana Contemporary. Steensen is an alumni of NEW INC, a technology and culture incubator by The NEW MUSEUM, in NYC. In his artistic practice, Jakob Kudsk Steensen investigates future scenarios of hybridisation of technology and nature. His work RE-ANIMATED proposes a utopian response to a story of the last Hawaiian Kaua’i ʻōʻō bird, which died in 1987, marking the extinction of its species. In 2009, its mating call was uploaded to YouTube. Since then, the unreciprocated song of the last Kaua’i ʻōʻō bird has been played by users for more than half a million times. RE-ANIMATED is a digitalised spatial response to this mating call reconstructing the habitat of the bird, resurrecting itself and defending its right to life if not in the organic, but in the data world. As a digital gardener, the artist has collected and planted a myriad 3D scan copies of flora and fauna, which he, by the use of algorithms, has programmed to colonize the island. The sound of this virtual world is composed of algorithmic music and interactive environmental audio effects created by Michael Riesman, Musical Director for the Philip Glass Ensemble.