Sunset/Sólarlag by Pall Thayer at Mejan Labs, Stockholm

Opening Thursday 24January 5-8pm

Mejan Labs in collaboration with the RoyalUniversity College of Fine Arts and

The RoyalAcademy of Fine Arts

Mejan Labs, Akademigränd 3, 111 52 Stockholm, Tel: +46 8-796 60 30,
www.mejanlabs.se / [email protected] Hours:Tue-Fri 11am-5pm, Sat-Sun 12-4pm,
closed Mondays

Pall Thayer: Sunset/Sólarlag

24 January - 9 March 2008

Pall Thayer lives and works in Reykjavik.Sunset/Sólarlag is a piece from the
year 2000 and consists of an image of a sunset, collected from different web
cameras collected from Internet. Thayer has chosen cameras world wide and by
switching between them he is able to present a forever setting sun.

When Thayer re-creates the piece at Mejan Labs it becomes obvious that there
has been a tremendous development during the eight years that have passed.

The Internet is today apart of everyday life and what were visions in the late
1990's are today's reality.

The sunset as a motif is often seen as synonymous with Romanticism.

Except for some impressionist studies and the fin-de-siècle period in the end
of the 19thcentury, the motif has been more or less reserved for cheaper art.
With all the kitsch and romanticism that is connected to the motif it is hard
to take the subject seriously. Thayer does and does it without sustaining
colours or spirits. His images are the reality. An ongoing sunset, reality when
it is as beautiful as it can be, 24 hours a day.

Maybe the piece creates a utopian dream where everything is good and without an end,
a possible Shangri-la.

Maybe the concept "post-modern sunsets" that Don Delillo created in
his novel White Noise is the one to choose to describe the duality between real
and virtual that can be found in Sunset/Sólarlag. In the novel the sunsets
reach a new dimension after a toxic discharge and are more beautiful and
colourful than ever. People gather and admire the phenomena but whether it is
the toxic discharge that makes the sunsets more beautiful or if the discharge
has an effect on the human brain that changes the perception, Delillo never
tells the reader.

The romanticism inSunset/Sólarlag and the impossible idea about the never
ending beauty is opposed to the authenticity of the images, that is also
sustained by the aesthetic created by the real time and the images of the web
and security cameras, an aesthetic we now have learned to perceive
as "authentic". The sunsets are real and we perceive them in realtime.

Still they are as artificial as ever filtered as they are through the web cam lens,
the distortions of the Internet transmissions and finally by the limitation of
the audience to experience that this is something that really is taking place
right now but in an other place.

A part of the festival node.stockholm, www.nodestockholm.se