Video from Jacob Kirkegaard's exhibition at ARoS:
The sound art of Jacob Kirkegaard explores ways to reflect on immediate complex, unnoticed or unapproachable aspects of the human condition or civilisation. His works have treated themes such as radioactivity in Chernobyl and Fukushima, melting ice in the Arctic, border walls in Palestine, and tones - otoacoustic emissions - generated from the actual human ear.
Kirkegaard's most recent projects use the sound of global waste and waste management the sound environments related to the immediate human post mortem.
With his peculiar alchemist approach and extensive research, complex phenomena and current conditions are portrayed through composition, installation, video and photography. Rather than providing answers, his portrayals create spaces for reflexion.
Jacob Kirkegaard graduated from the Media Art Academy in Cologne in 2006. His works are released on the TOUCH (UK), Important Records (USA), VON Archives (F) & Posh Isolation labels (DK). Kirkegaard has presented his works at several renowned exhibitions platforms, festivals and conferences all over the world, i.e. MoMA, Issue Project Room & The Stone (NYC, USA), KW & Transmediale (Berlin), The Menil Collection, Rothko Chapel, Museum of Jurassic Technology & Stanford University (USA), Mori Art Museum and Aichi Triennale (Japan) as well as at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, ARoS, Aarhus and Museum for Contemporary Art, Roskilde (DK).
View English artist Darren Almond and Danish artist Jacob Kirkegaard talking about their different approaches to the interpretation of the Arctic, on the occasion of their participation in the exhibition 'Actic' at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art:
Membran, Galleri Tom Christoffersen, 2020
Invisible Man, Wood Street Galleries (US), 2019
Black Metal Square, Galleri Tom Christoffersen, 2019
Jacob Kirkegaard - alt & intet, ARoS, 2017
Jacob Kirkegaard, Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde, 2014
Interview, Mori Art Museum, 2014
Sounding Exhibition, MoMA, Jacob Kirkegaard, 2013
available works | website | CV
EUSTACHIA - for 18 ears, 2019, Installation. 30-minute composition from spontaneous otoacoustic emissions., Sound installation composed from tones emitted by the cochlea of the inner ear. These faint but constant and crystal clear acoustic tones, called spontaneous otoacoustic emissions (or SOAE), are produced - without external stimulation - by the ears of only some people. Whereas the combinations of tones emitted from one ear can be dissonant and microtonal, tones emitted from another ear can be almost harmonic. Each emitting ear produces something akin to an acoustic fingerprint. Recorded and amplified by Jacob Kirkegaard, this work is based on a selection of 9 people where both ears emit their own unique SOAEs simultaneously. The blood-red textile shaped installation is designed as two imaginary cochleas representing the left and right ear of a person who’s ears emit SOAEs. At the center of each cochlea a parabolic speaker reveals the tones from their left and right ear respectively. Eustachia – For 18 Ears is an immersive and intimate listening inner-space into an otherwise unheard chamber of our very ears. Into the reversed and paradoxical act of listening to the sound of the ears themselves.
EUSTACHIA - for 18 ears (1), 2019, Installation. 30-minute composition from spontaneous otoacoustic emissions., Exhibited at Wood Street Galleries, Pittsburgh, USA 2019.
Black Metal Square #1-3, 2017, Three black metal plates (100 x 100 x 0,06 cm; 75 x 75 x 0,05 cm; 50 x 50 x 0,04 cm), sensors, contact speakers, transformers and metal wire
Black Metal Square #1-3 (1), Black Metal Square #1-3 was created for Jacob Kirkegaard's solo exhibition 'alt & intet' at ARoS. The exhibition consists of five different sound installations by the artist.
Black Metal Square #1-3 (2), 2017, The installation takes inspiration from Kazimir Malevich's famous painting 'Black Square' from 1915 and his quote 'It is from zero, in zero, that the true movement of being begins'.
Black Metal Square #1-3 (3), 2017, The installation consists of three freely hanging metal plates creating vibrations. The vibrations are amplified and played back into themselves, evoking their resonant frequencies.
Bloku (2), 2011, C-print, 62 x 80 cm, Ed. 1/5
Bloku (3), 2005, C-print , 62 x 80 cm, Ed. 2/5
Bloku (1), 2005, C-print, 62 x 80 cm, Ed. 1/5
Bloku, 2005, C-print, 62 x 80 cm, Ed. 1/5
ISFALD (1), Courtesy LOUISIANA - Museum of Modern Art and part of the exhibition ARCTIC, © 2013
ISFALD (2), 14 speakers, 4 subwoofers, 2 transducers, textile, light
ISFALD (3), The ice sounds used in this work were recorded with underwater microphones at the Ilulissat icefjord and with vibration sensors at the melting glaciers of Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, June 2013
ISFALD (4), To hear more please visit: http://fonik.dk/works/isfald.html
ISFALD (5)
STIGMA (1), 2014, 33 minute installation / video work from field recording & video footage, looped, To hear more please visit: http://fonik.dk/works/stigma.html
STIGMA (2), As a sequel to AION, Kirkegaard's new sound and video installation STIGMA created especially for Mori Museum (MAM Project) in Tokyo, works with the natural landscape of Fukushima
STIGMA (3), Inspired by hanging scroll landscape painting Kirkegaard fills a five meter vertical screen with idyllic nature scenes. By recording and layering their ambient sound, the resonances of these outside spaces are revealed. STIGMA challenges the perception of a nature we usually embrace
STIGMA (4), Commissioned by at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2014. Created by Jacob Kirkegaard, Fukushima & New York, 2014.
EARSIDE OUT, 2015, Composition from audio recordings of tones generated by the human ear. 12 speakers, steel wire, and speaker cable. 35 minutes. , Earside Out portrays spontaneous otoacoustic emissions – mysterious and complex tonal clusters, here recorded in the ears of 30 arbitrary people. The tones from each individual ear are spread across 12 speakers attached to thin steel wires and suspended between the floor and the ceiling, forming a three-dimensional spiral. Installation shots from Kirkegaard's exhibition 'all & nothing' at ARoS, 2017
EARSIDE OUT (1), 2015, The installation resembles the cochlea of the inner ear from where the tones originally derive. With Earside Out, Kirkegaard demonstrates how the human ear not only receives ambient sound, but actually produces sound.