Category Archives: Blog

Tender Time. A multimedia installation for Venice

I have taken a three-year break from posting here. But will now start again. In a few week’s time the exhibition Time Space existence will open in Venice. It is organized by European Cultural Centre and will run for six months with about 200 exhibitors, primarily archicture offices, but also a number of universities. Medea Lab will participate with the multimedia installation Tender Time. There are about 20 of us working on it, a mixture of researchers, artists and students. Below you can read the text that will be published in the exhibition catalogue.

For more than 40 years Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have travelled through space transmitting data to Earth. Before leaving our Solar System, the only spacecraft ever to do so, Voyager 1 took an iconic picture in which the Earth appears simply, in the words of Carl Sagan, as a pale blue dot.

Included aboard each of the Voyager spacecraft is a “Golden Record” containing sounds and images telling stories of life and culture on Earth, among them spoken greetings in 55 different languages, both ancient and modern, and 27 music pieces from different parts of the world. The spacecraft and their Golden Records exist as echoes from the past that remain alive, moving continuously through space, and through time.

The Tender Time installation invites visitors to join the Voyagers on their journey and to reflect on the shifting layers of stories, rhythms, sounds and languages that interconnect to form the pale blue dot that is Earth. What new perspectives do the Voyagers’ vast distance from Earth, and the intergalactic timeframe through which they pass, offer on our own lives?

Tender Time (re)presents the sounds and images etched into the grooves of the Golden Records as an immersive environment, with sonic, visual and textual elements conjuring the disjunctures of space and time that the Voyager mission makes apparent. By recognizing the instability and interconnectedness of past, present and future, Tender Time performs a hauntological aesthetic.

New sonic layers have been curated, performed and woven into the Voyagers’ existing cultural archive, adding to the spectral sensibility of the work. These recorded messages, greetings delivered from our own tender time, are expressions of regret and stories of futures lost. By speaking them into this space and time, perhaps there is hope that they can be found again.

 

Final Music Quiz: One Step Beyond

Here is the final Music Quiz of the spring term, broadcast on June 4. It features songs about pushing boundaries, moving on, and breaking through to the other side. And for the final question, on early jazz, I use an HMV gramophone from the 1930s. You can take the whole quiz here.

Another music quiz: Reasons to be Cheerful (Pt. 3)

The fourth episode of the K3 Music Quiz was broadcast on May 19. The theme was “Reasons the be Cheerful (Pt. 3)”. It featured songs about happiness! And joy! And some sorrow! Take the quiz here: Or just listen to great music and watch great clips.

New music quiz: Bright Lights, Big City

And here is last week’s music quiz. The episode is called Bright Lights, Big City. Songs about cities and living in the fast lane. Take the quiz here.

K3 Music Quiz: The Outer Limits

In order to do something new during these corona times, I have started to do a live online music quiz. It is called K3 Music Quiz: The Outer Limits. I will do it every second week during the rest of the term. The latest episode is called Fly Me to the Moon and was broadcastRead more…

Interview with me in podcast serie “Evolving Digital Self”

Social strategist Heidi Forbes Öste runs the podcast Evolving Digital Self. Last month she did an interview with me for the series. It’s on media, technology and education, but also on living and working (and studying) in the city of Malmö. You can find it here.

I never talked to Bob Dylan

One of the most significant cultural events of 2016 was the nomination of Bob Dylan as the Nobel prize winner for literature, and the subsequent award ceremony in the Stockholm Concert Hall, where Patti Smith sang Dylan’s “A hard rain’s a-gonna fall”. Her struggle with getting through the song is captured beautifully by American rock criticRead more…

7 from 80s

For one week, I was in charge of the Facebook group “7 from 80s”. Started by sociology professor Ellis Cashmore, the idea is to post one favourite 80s song a week, and shortly discussing why that particular song was chosen. This was my week. Thank you pal Raiford Guins for inviting me to the group.Read more…

Short interview with me about the online masters programme

Here is a short interview made with me about the online masters programme in Media and Communication Studies. It was originally posted on our Facebook page with the following text: Meet the professors! Bo Reimer, Professor Together with Michael Krona Bo built the program as an online and campus based masters program. He has doneRead more…

An online master in media and communication studies: reflections after one term

In the fall we started our new master’s programme in Media and Communication Studies at the School of Arts and Communication. We have had an undergraduate programme since 1998,and a PhD programme since 2010. Given that, adding a master’s programme was a logical thing to do. However, it was not inevitable which focus it shouldRead more…