Extraction is a phenomenon commonly associated with fossil fuels, such as oil and gas, or with the mining of metals and minerals. In the digital era, the notion of extraction has expanded even further, to also include data- and virtual currency mining as well as the commodification of human emotions and behaviours through social media. In the 21st century, the extractive paradigm seems to be without bounds: the mining of previously unreachable territories such as the deep-sea floor and celestial bodies is fast becoming a reality, all the while the streams of data we leave behind while conducting our everyday lives are being captured, mapped and profited from, commodifying even the most intimate aspects of our minds and bodies.

The exhibition in Trondheim places contemporary artworks and historical materials in dialogue with each other, making the kunsthall into a site of intersectional exploration of the paradigm of extraction. Trondheim’s history of copper mining is used as a starting point for tracing a wider web of actual connections and speculative associations spanning different geographical, digital and emotional realms. Through conflating the exploitation of the Earth with that of the human mind and body, or comparing the actual materiality of digital hardware with the promise of the immaterial experience it seduces us with, the art works offer multiple entry points into the phenomena of extraction and its far-reaching consequences.

The exhibition also prompts its audiences to consider a future scenario: in a thousand years from now, when both Earth and human consciousness might have been depleted of their resources, will today’s artworks be the only remaining fossils bearing witness to the emotional landscapes once inhabited by humans?

Works by: Lise Autogena & Joshua Portway, David Blandy, Liv Bugge, Sean Dockray, Bodil Furu, Marianne Heier, Louis Henderson, Lawrence Lek, Hanna Ljungh, Rikke Luther, Ignas Krunglevičius, Eline McGeorge, Karianne Stensland and Anja Örn, Tomas Örn & Fanny Carinasdotter.

HANNA LJUNGH

Curiosity Cabinet (copper 16,25 kg): You, me, rock, mountain-commodities of the quantified universe (copper population), 2018

Curiosity Cabinet (lithium 6 mg): You, me, rock, mountain-commodities of the quantified universe, 2018
In Hanna Ljungh’s series Curiosity Cabinets: You, me, rock, mountain-commodities of the quantified universe (2017- ) the artist works with minerals that are extracted from the ground, but can also be found in the human body. Using her own body as a reference, each sculpture contains the same amount of mineral–for example iron, coal, sulphur, magnesium, copper, salt or calcium–that an average human of the same weight statistically would. The work conflates human and non-human materiality, and makes a connection between the exact quantification characterizing both the extractive industries’ relation to Earth and the monitoring of human health and competitive performance. 

The exhibition in Trondheim features two new sculptures placed in relation to each other. One makes use of the same amount of copper (16,25 kg) that the entire population of Trondheim jointly carry in their bodies. Copper wires, commonly used as transmitters in telecommunications cables, have been threaded together into an organically unfolding mesh, reminiscent of a network of blood vessels, or the web of digital infrastructures we have become increasingly dependent on for maintaining our social and economic relations. The other contains the average amount of lithium–a mineral commonly used as a psychiatric medication for treating depression and bipolar disorder, but also an essential component in batteries used to power mobile phones, computers and electric cars–of an individual citizen.