OLAFUR ELIASSON
VISUAL CONCEPT
In our age of digital books and life mediated and
staged through screens, I have become increasingly
interested in the physical nature of books.
To me, books have always been about more than
just print on paper. Tree of Codes addresses the
book as a space that relates to our body.
I was fascinated by the fact that the book has a
very physical impact, turning the act of reading
into a sculpting of space and narrative over time.
Despite its cavities and its explicit absence of
matter, which is of course an absence of both
paper and words, the book is intensely rich. It
spaces and times.
I look at the book as vibrant matter. It doesn’t
explain ideas, but vibrates them. It embodies a
space and a narrative—or various narratives—
within it. I tried to translate this feeling into the
visual concept. You might not find a direct link, but
for me the book was a tremendous inspiration for
the light concept and the sequence of set designs.
Both Wayne and Jamie work in ways with which I
identify—they embrace abstraction and complexity
in contemporary languages while giving their
output a form and a tone that are accessible
to broader audiences. This production brings
together sound, dance and light in a way where
the audience will feel invited to join the dance, to
take part.
I’m fascinated by the subtle layers in Jamie’s
music. The beats and lower end feel like they
engage the subconscious; they remind me
of where I come from. The upper end and
instrumental layer are like navigational tools that
show me where I’m going. What touches me in
Jamie’s work is that the mechanics of this looking
forward and backward, or inward, perform in
concert: it feels to me like the subconscious is the
machine grounding the composition, while the
upper end is more invested in the friction on the
path along which we are moving. And then, every
so often, some vocals slip in, tying it all together.
The human voice becomes a door through which
you can enter the whole piece.
Producing reality is always about a relationship:
between you and a space, you and a thought,
a proposition, an object; between you and
other people. I see dialogue as a way of
staying interconnected. I almost always work
collaboratively, whether with my great studio team
in-house or with inspiring people such as Wayne
and Jamie. I am continually in dialogue with people
from very different lines of work: with compassion
specialists, Buddhist monks, physicists, dancers,
environmental activists, politicians… these people
allow me to see the world differently and test
territory I wouldn’t have ventured into on my own.
Our conversations feed my artistic practice with
inspiration. I couldn’t do without it.
—OLAFUR ELIASSON