The Question of Knowing

Installative concert with Olga Kokcharova, Hilde Marie Holsen, Ewa Jacobsson and Contrechamps

Saturday 13 September, at 15:00–16:30

130–300 kr

35 % off with ultiMATE

There is an excess in the world that technologies try to erase, and encyclopaedias refuse to contain.

In signal-to-noise ratio, composer and sound artist Olga Kokcharova reverses the logic of recording technologies, which have long aimed to eliminate background noise. In close collaboration with Ensemble Contrechamps, she brings the so-called noise—rustle, breath, interference—to the fore, treating it as emotionally charged and sonically expressive.

Labyrinthic Explanation of Knowledge, by Ewa Jacobsson and Hilde Marie Holsen, follows another path. The installation brings together objects Jacobsson has accumulated over decades—knitting and aluminium, sweets and metal sheets, pearls and waste, fragile textures and processed sound.

Some are soft and familiar, others cold and industrial—some generally considered waste. But in this installation, none are valued above the others. What matters is how they act, sound, and resonate together.

Tiny speakers are embedded in each object, forming a circuit through which sound moves in shifting patterns. Holsen’s trumpet and Contrechamps’ instrumental sounds circulate between the objects, opening space for uncertainty, for the minor and the peripheral, and for intuition and sensation as ways of knowing the world.

Programme

Olga Kokcharova

signal-to-noise ratio (2024) (Norwegian premiere)

Ewa Jacobsson & Hilde Marie Holsen

Labyrinthic Explanation of Knowledge (world premiere)

Both works are composed in close collaboration with Contrechamps

Facts

Media theorist Marshall McLuhan wrote that "the medium is the message." What we often dismiss as background, noise, texture or interference, shapes how we perceive meaning.
Olga Kokcharova is a Siberian-born, Geneva-based sound artist. Her meticulous sonic practice spans electroacoustic works, improvisation and sound installations. "By repetition, you start noticing details in the landscape," she says.
Ewa Jacobsson on her work: "I seek a balance between the fragile and the low-status, and more processed sounds and hard materials. I want to undo fixed expectations and invite open listening."
Labyrinthic Explanation of Knowledge will be presented as an installation at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter from 13 to 20 September.