hrund.org

Black Whole

3min, 4k, video loop screened inside a hole in a wall.

This video installation was exhibited at Kling&Bang gallery for the Sequences Art Biennale 2023. Different dimensions collide together from our natural world drawings from the imagination and Artificial Intelligence.

The installation got nice reviews in the media,

"Among the highlights of the biennial this year is a video work by Hrund Atladóttir, Black Whole (2023), a deep, dark stare into the geological centre of the island." - The Art Newspaper

Also a writeup at artnet.com

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/icelandic-biennial-darkness-2382269

The 11th edition of Sequences took place in October 2023. Curated by Marika Agu, Maria Arusoo, Kaarin Kivirähk and Sten Ojavee, who work together at the Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA), based in Tallinn, Estonia. Titled Can’t See, the Biennial explored the ever­-growing threat of ecological destruction by delving into spaces that cannot be perceived by the human eye, from the depths of the sea and layers of the soil, imagining the debris of the past and visions of the future.

Light installation, The Sculpture Garden, 2023

The solo exhibition Comes to light opened during the dark days of January at The Sculpture Garden in Reykjavik. The installation lit up the darkness with daylight bulbs and cheered up the mental health of visitors by affecting their body’s circadian rhythm. As well as a void buried into the snow that viewers could gaze into. And ponder the concept of time and space reflected by a metal ball in the middle.

Virtual Reality installation, Icelandic Design Museum 2022.

The installation is in dialogue with an exhibition about Icelandic swimmingpool culture from the first pool to the Blue Lagoon. It takes place in a future where the swimming expirience is virtual, the mythological creatures reside in a man made environment instead of nature. The art on the walls is in the form of a QR code that links to a nft collection of the waternymphs seen inside the VR glasses.

https://opensea.io/collection/waternymphs

Projection, Museum Night 2020

During the hight of Covid when gatherings were still forbidden I was commisioned from the town of Gardabaer to make work for the event of Museum Night. I chose to project a visual onto a old building designed by a well known Icelandic architect, Gudjon Samuelsson. The building was originally a hospital for Tuberculosis patients and is loaded with history. The installation represents micro landscapes and viruses that are invisible to the human eye. But can affect our societies in a massive way. People could look at the installation from the safety of their cars and tune into soundscapes by Geir Helgi Birgison soundartist on their car radios. Like a drive in art cinema.

Animated animals that belong to the Northern Hemisphere travel over the facade of Harpa Musichall. During The International Climate Strike 2019

Projection Mapping, Museum Night 2019.

This church sits on a hill surrounded by rocks believed by many to be inhabited by hidden people. Turning a government run church into a nature shrine is a ode to our superstitious believes and to nature itself.

Part of the installation took place inside the church. Where Arnljótur Sigurðson performed for a half an hour. Music especially written for the installation, accompanied by visuals created by me.

Commissioned by Gerðarsafn Art Museum and the Church of Kópavogur.

4k Video 2019

Directed by Hrund Atladóttir

Music and performance by Borgar Magnason

Assistant Alda Daníelsdóttir 

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The backdrop of the video is Ok and the area around it. Ok was a glacier in south west Iceland and is the first glacier to have disappeared. Where the glacier used to be we can now see the crater that lay underneath.

One moment standing in the midst of nature can be an eternity. 

The dance performed by Borgar in the video has a strong affinity with the Japanese Butho dance, taking the audience on a backward journey to primordial states of being. Painted white but still in his suit he resembles an ancient Icelandic ghost dressed up in his sunday suit.  In the video we see the convergence of the seemingly disparate cultures of these two volcanic islands.

Mosswalls, 2x20 min, 4K Video installation at Reykjavík Art Museum. 2019

Video collages from one of my favorite places, hidden in the Icelandic highlands. Next to a massive waterfall that is under threat of being destroyed by big industry. The videos morph and change slightly over the course of 20 minutes taking over the mood of the whole space. They show the delicate nature hidden within the highlands that is coincidentally the biggest desert in Europe. In Iceland there is a big fight at the moment to preserve our wilderness by making it a National Park while the government wants to turn it into a battery for Europe.

Commissioned by the city of Reykjavik.

Exhibition at Gallery Geysir Heima 2022

During a residency in Berlin I printed out images taken during my stay in Hrafntinnusker. A remote location in the Icelandic highlands. I drew on top with various mediums, exaggerating the creatures and forms that came to me through the landscapes.

The show curated by Hrafnhildur Gissurardottir consisted of images printed onto aluminum plates with accompanying ceramics sculptures. Representing the spirits of the Icelandic Highlands as seen and photographed through my eyes.

The Exhibition “Dansað í ljósinu” - Dancing in the light, is made up of works that move on a slower timeline and, by chance, all originate in the REykjanes peninsula. The works illustrate time and light from different angles; the light controls how we sense and measure time. Light shows us the world and controls our biorhythm

Solo exhibition in January 2018 during wintersolstice in Iceland.

Video installation created at a sportsbar using all 20 TV´s that where already in place. Collaboration with Ragnar Már and Katla Rós during Sequences time based art festival. Video 1920 X 1080 HD x 20. Upon realising that most sports are played on a green background or natural green screen we created a new take for todays attention disordered public. Remixing sports with reality TV and sitcoms there can be something for everyone. The sportsbar can become more gender equal place, as well as bringing people together at home where everyone get´s caught up in indvividual screens. 2015

A visual for the show of Another Creation at Reykjavik Fashion Festival 2017. Top video is the actual visual and the one below is a documentation of the catwalk.

Visuals for different pieces of music written by six icelandic contemporary composers. Performed by The Hnúkaþeyr Octet in Harpa musichall. A part of the series Svartir Sunnudagar. Fall 2017

Multidimensional, VR glasses made from cardboard, Nexus tablet, Dunkin Doughnuts paperbag. 2016

VR sculpture where the viewer flies through a doughnut galaxy standing on a giant doughnut. Created two weeks after Dunkin Doughnuts first opened in Reykjavik. When the work was shown there was still a two hour line outside the Doughnut chain that had to hire bouncers. I was hoping to have a two hour line for looking into my art as well, but people seemed to be more excited about real doughnuts then virtual ones. Now the American fast food chain has gone bankrupt in Iceland and closed it´s doors.

I designed the setting for a zero waste technoparty by lake Kleifarvatn called TaktFakt. The dancing took part in a cave. I only choose found and recycled materials. We cooled our beers in the lake behind the bar using dipnets to fish them out. We also built a bar only serving Smirnoff shots from old lumber previously used for dried fish. Later in the night we turned the bar into a bonfire and as predicted the partiers dragged the rest of wooden structures into the fire as well. So the party mostly cleaned up after it self. It got killer reviews in MixMag worlds biggest dance music magazine. 

http://mixmag.net/feature/taktfakt-review

A1 prints on glossy museum quality paper. 2016.

I had a operation and needed to stay in bed for a few months. People kept bringing me fashion magazines. I started drawing on them with oil colors. This evolved into a show where I blew up my doodles and showed them at Kaffi Vinyl the only Vegan restaurant in Reykjavik. Humanising animals or animalising humans.

Collage & Blog

Watching You Watching Me is a blog I created and dedicated to Keith Brian Alexander, the director of the National Security Agency, chief of the Central Security Service, and commander of the United States Cyber Command. He was the public face of the largely faceless NSA, meaning he is inside your house, car office, everywhere, always.

Vice magazine wrote about this blog and re-posted this picture of him with a cat. It became the most popular image from my blog, because when we think the internet is controlled by a secret government in reality cats are the true rulers of the internet.
 

http://keithbalexander.tumblr.com/

Attentions.

2012. Video HD 1920x1080

“Life is what happens to us while we are making plans” This video was created in NYC and shown in a Japanese gallery in Chelsea, it was created before Instagram became a thing, before we became used to the story format that we take for granted today. It was also a time when seeing people watching their phones in public was relatively new to us. I still found it quite strange to see people stare at a small screen ignoring a whole world around them. It was also during the time of a slower internet connection so the waiting symbol on phones was more frequent. The installation had very different effects on the viewers, depending on the association they had with the waiting symbol. But most people felt a mix of anxiety and frustration.

Video, 30min, HD1980x1020, 2015

Underwater installation, 1000 disposable plastic gloves, bricks, the ocean.

Asking myself the question of when man made objects cross the line and become nature again? And raise awareness of the rising amount of plastic in the ocean with beauty. Many of the people who walked by the installation in NYC thought it was a pure nature video showing corals or some other underwater phenomena. The people of Aruba quickly asked where the plastic gloves had ended up.

The video is a three-minute excerpt from a installation, which was projected onto a plastic screen during a solo exhibition at a gallery in New York City. This work was also a part of Plastic Poetics a group show in Berlin. 

Photography, 2013

A documentation of how the wildlife in USA changes by photographing taxidermied animals at various gas stations. During a road trip from the East Coast to the West.

Installation/sculpture, 2013  
(Photography C-print 16 x 23 inches)

Created inside a old forrest where I lived for a few months on a island outside of Seattle.