newstime2007.com  
 
 
  TURES VERK UTMANAR 
 
    "Konstnärerna samhällets antenner"
Ture Sjölander
 
 
Transcript from news article.
HP - Hallandsposten - Sweden
22 September 1993.
by
Roland Andreasson.
 
 
Han  är konstnären som nästan fick Australiens premiärminister bötfälld, och han utmanade hela kontinenten med sina kontroversiella manifestationer i invandrarafrågor.
Så visst kan en kulturarbetare sätta luntan till många laddningar.
Konst är inte heminredning.
 
- Den enda hållbara definitionen på konst är "tanke omsatt i handling", säger Ture Sjölander, 56 år och sedan kort tid tillbaka bosatt i Oskarström.
 
Därmed är han också hallänning. Det är viktigt för honom att betona, inte därför att det är något extra fint med hemhörighet i detta västsvenska hörn, utan därför att markeringen bildar startpunkt för ett betydligt mera vittfamnande resonemang, nämligen debatten kring invandringen. Även om han är född i Sundsvall, har verkat i Stockholm och Malmö och bott länge utomlands, är han nu hallänning, eftersom han slagit ner bopålarna i Halmstads kommun.
 
Detta med bostadsort var en primär fråga i den stundtals mycket inflammerade diskussion han drog igång under sina år i Australien. Dit hade han egentligen inte tänkt sig, när han fick Konstnärsnämndens stora stipendium. Han sökte sig till Nya Guinea för att studera kroppsmåleriet och för att rekognosera och dokumentera inför en planerad filmatisering av Eric Lundqvists roman "Inge tobak, inget halleluja".
 
 
Skördade skäll
 
- Det blev emellertid Australien 1986, och där fann han sig väl mottagen - så länge han uppgav sig vara turist. När han slog fast, att han bodde i landet och därmed hade samma rättigheter som övriga invånare, blev det dissonanser i välkomstkören. Här kom en utlänning och hävdade, att han kunde resa samma krav som i nationen inskrivna medborgare. Det blev en inflammerad insändardebatt, och rena skällsbrev hamnade i den Sjolanderska brevlådan.
 
Men det var han beredd på, eftersom han visste sig ha utmanat stora delar av den allmänna opinionen. Och man kan kalla hans aktion för ett konstverk, även om det gick utanför de traditionella uttrycksformerna. I denna typ av konceptkonst utgjorde själva ideen och de spår den avsatte det totala objektet. En i handling omsatt tanke.
 
Hävdar revir
 
- Vi människor vill leva i våra inmutade revir, men även om jag kan härleda min svenska släkt tillbaka till 1500-talet, är jag inte mer svensk än en nyligen invandrad person. Om jag bor i ett land, är jag också medborgare där och skall ha samma möjligheter och skyldigheter.
- Vad gäller Australienfinns det en benägenhet hos vissa delar av befolkningen att tala om det brittiska arvet, som om detta ensamt ger landet dess identitet. Men mer än 67 procent av befolkningen har icke-brittisk bakgrund.  " Vi " är i detta fall alltså knappt 35 procent. Och skall man tala om urbefolkningen i detta mångkulturella  samhälle, handlar det ju i så fall om aboriginerna, men de har närmast utsatts för utrotningsförsök.
- I ett vidgat perspektiv lyfte Ture Sjölander upp hela problematiken med människors hemortsrätt och vårt behov av tolerans och vidsynthet. Information och utbildning måste till för att lägga moteld mot främlingsrädsla och fascism. Om invandringen i Sverige skall stoppas, skall det i så fall bara ske temporärt till dess reglerna är satta, för det nu bofastas beteenden och ageranden, menar Ture Sjölander.
 
Häxbrygd av hat
 
- Tar vi inte itu med problemet nu, kan det snabbt växa oss över huvudet och leda till en formlig explosion av hat och våld. Och EG, som ibland lyfts fram som en fredsorganisation, kan lätt utvecklas till sin motsats med krig mellan olika etniska grupper, fruktar Ture Sjolander.
Ett förfärande exempel på sådan utveckling finns att studera på nära håll, nämligen i Jugoslavien.
 
Ture Sjölander ger delvis politikerna skulden för att ha kokat till sådan häxbrygd, men även medierna har sitt ansvar.
- Det är lätt att utnyttja medierna för att odla främlingsfientlighet, menar Ture Sjolander. TV har en oerhörd genomslagskraft, men redovisningen ger en fragmentiserad verklighet, och nyhetsindustrin jobbar nästan som börsen. Inslag erbjuds, säljs och går runt till olika delar av världen.
 
Kyrkorna skyldiga
 
- Ture Sjölander utpekar dessutom kyrkorna som skyldiga till att många platser på jorden drabbats av motsättningar och elände.
I många relationer utnyttjar kyrkorna fel känslor hos de olika folken, anser han. Begrepp som kulturell tillhörighet blandas med etniska traditioner och gudstroende. Kärleksbudskapet kommer i skymundan eller vantolkas.
Själv skulle han vilja genomföra ett stort projekt, där bildbudskap och tal flätas samman. Ett 20-tal stora målningar skulle reflektera vår egen tid och spegla den moderna ikonografin. Mot en bakgrund  av projektioner skulle företrädare för olika religiösa riktningar mötas till ett meningsutbyte. Ur dessa dialoger skulle ett nytt förhållningssätt kunna växa fram. Och så länge samtal pågår, minskar riskerna för krig.
Ture Sjölander tror på sprängkraften i sådana aktioner, och han har bevis på att de fungerar.
När premiärminister Paul Keating besökte den australiska staden Townsville, passade den svenske konstnären på att sticka fram två femdollarsedlar med drottning Elisabeths porträtt. Han utbad sig premiärministerns autografer, och denne signera villigt de båda papperpengarna. Reaktionen lät inte vänta på sig.
Keating hade förstört statlig egendom och riskerade därmed i princip ett tvåårigt fängelsestraff och höga böter.
Just i dessa dagar kommer meddelanden om att Australien är på väg att kasta av sig den brittiska överhögheten och bli republik.
 
Mycket effektivt
 
Naturligtvis  innebar inte den Sjolanderska aktionen någon direkt vändpunkt beträffande nationens framtida status och styreskick, men den visade sig vara mycket effektiv som ett exempel på hur en konstnär med udda grepp kan spela en viktig roll i dagsdebatten.
- Konstnärens roll får inte reduceras till att framställa bijouterier. Att måla tavlor är inte den primära uppgiften. Konstnärerna skall fungera som samhällets antenner.
 
newstime2007.com
 

 
 
 
KONSTPERSPEKTIV MAGAZINE SVERIGE: 
Intervjun hade delvis redigerats av Olofsson utan att informera Ture Sjolander.
Webadresser var också  inskrivna i Sjolanderäs svar som förtydliganden av svaren men bort tagna av redaktören innan tryck.
 
 
 
Konstperspektiv  ( KP ): Var befinner du dig nu ?
 
Ture Sjölander ( TS ): Geografiskt och fysiskt befinner jag mig just nu på en ö i tropikerna, Magnetic Island. Något av ett paradis. En av de första europeerna som satt sin fot i denna region och seglade i dessa vatten var Dr. Daniel Solander, den 6 Juni 1770 - den numera varande, Svenska Flaggans Dag.
Mentalt befinner jag mig dock i ett exiltillstånd, men som Winston Churchill en gång sa: " If you are walking through the Hell, continue to walk."
 
KP: När och varför lämnade du Sverige ?
 
TS:  1982 reste jag för första gången runt i Malaysia och Australien och senare 1986-1987 vistade jag Australien på inbjudan från konstskolor och det australienska filminstitutet.
Jag reste runt i Papua Nya Guinea och studerade kroppsmåleri. Jag redovisade detta projekt med en installation på Etnografiska Museet - Folkens Museum -  i Stockholm. Projektet var finansierat av Konstnärsnämnden i Sverige.
 
Jag återvände till Australian permanent 1988 och kom tillbaka till Sverige 1993 med min nya familj för en kort och dramatisk tid, då min 4-åriga son, Matu, blev kidnappad till Filippinerna. Jag flyttade tillbaka till Australien, men blev uppmanad att åter resa till Sverige med hopp om att min son skulle bli utlämnad  från Filippinerna och återförenad med mig.
Den svenska  regeringen desavouerade hela affären och skandaliserade  min person genom en olaga häktning under 63 dagar.
 
Jag fick en ersättning av den svenska Justitiekanslern för "sveda och värk" med 150.000 kronor, men har aldrig blivit kompenserad av svenska staten för den internationella ryktesförstöringen och för förlusten av arbetsförtjänst.
 
1997 vistades jag någon vecka  i Älvdalen under ett skulptursymposium och 1998 var jag inbjuden till The World Conference on Culture  på Hässelby slott.
 
Därefter beslutade jag mig för att aldrig återvända till Sverige, om inte den svenska staten reviderar lagstiftningen och utfärdar en skrifligt ursäkt föt den olaga häktningen, samt ger mig en väl tilltagen ekonomisk kompensation, runt 3 miljoner kronor, typ EX GRATIA - EX ANIMO.
 
KP: Hur kom det sig att du valde att arbeta med konst ?
 
TS: Jag tror inte att jag "valde att arbeta med konst", det blev snarare en livsstil. Som 13-åring hade jag ett brinnande intresse för fotografi i alla dess former.  Som 15-åring hade jag mitt första sommarjobb som lärling på TT:s redaktion i Sundsvall. En förförande ny mediateknologi med teleprinterkommunikation gav mig min första insikt om massmedias funktioner. Fem mycket erfarna redaktörer  gav mig privatundervisning i fotografi som konst.
 
Samma år visade en trevlig morbror till mig i Stockholm , elektroingenjör Knut Magnusson, Stuvsta, Huddinge, hur man kunde förvränga och manipulera en svart/vit Televisions bild med hjälp av en kraftig magnet. Det öppnade en helt ny värld för mig, liksom en farbror till mig gjorde, som var radiotekniker och radarexpert vid Flygvapnet i Arboga, Mattias Sjolander.
Ett annat sommar jobb jag hade var som pressfotograf för Sundsvalls Tidning och lärling till en fotografisk legend, då 82-åriga Maria Kilbaum.
 
KP: Vilken uppgift ser du att konsten har i vår tid och vårt samhälle ?
 
TS: Konsten har ingen direkt  uppgift, den ger snarare uppgifter till det samtida och framtida samhället.
 
Bildkonst är i mina ögon och med mitt förstånd en forskning av första graden, likaväl som fysikers eller snedseglande matematikers olikartade fåfängligheter.
Konst är inte endast en fråga om att producera "bijouterier" för ett vardagsrum eller ett konstgalleri.
 
KP:  Du verkar röra dig med stor frihet mellan olika konstnärliga uttryck, från måleri till conceptualism. Är det en uttryck för en medveten konstnärlig strategi, eller resultat av ren och skär experimentlust där och då ?
 
TS: Både och, är jag benägen att svara. Nuet är alltid en ocean av obetalbar information. Inte ens Google kan balansera informationen från människans gåtfulla och mentala Tsunamis.
 
KP: Har du regelbunden kontakt med svenskt konstliv fortfarande ?
 
TS: Jag har ingen regelbunden kontakt med svenskt konstliv, annat än att Moderna Museet uttryckt en önskan om att jag fullbordar ett installationsverk inköpt av Pontus Hulten 1966.
Fylkingen i Stockholm hade en visning av mina elektroniska verk från 60-talet under april 2004.
 
KP: Vad arbetar du med ? Enbart konst eller annat ockå ?
 
TS: Jag arbetar med en serie nya större målningar i akryl och duk, i stil med vad som nyligen visades på Galleri Svenshög i Lund. Parallellt  har jag de senaste åren byggt upp en massiv webplats om mitt liv, som säkert kommer att ses som en dödsruna i den svenska regeringens ögon. För en intelligent observatör kan min levnadsteckning på Internet visa en bitterljuv beskrivning av korrumperade regeringar och bisarra etablissemang inom konstvärlden.
 
KP: Planerar du att återvända till Sverige ?
 
TS: Okänd Känd Ökänd ... Jag besöker gärna Sverige som gästföreläsare på inbjudan av svenska universitet, konstföreningar, konsthögskolor och kulturinstitutioner. " Svenska gräsrötter " är av större intresse för mig än de svenska medierna, särskilt som jag kan spåra min egen familjehistoria ända tillbaka till 1540. Jag har just fått en personlig inbjudan att arbeta i Sverige under en tid i Alfred Nobels hus i Vinterviken, Stockholm.
Jag kan återvända till Sverige om Moderna Museet formellt bjuder in mig och ger mig en generös budget för rekonstruktionen av verket Hulte'n köpte in 1966.
Alla dörrar var öppna för mig i Sverige fram till min häktning 1996, när regeringen beslutade att åsidosätta allt sunt förnuft. En sanering av den svenska lagstiftningen kunde onekligen stimulera mig att axla rollen som ny statsminister. En demokratisk skyldighet !
 
1/05 KONSTPERSPEKTIV 43
 

Email korrepondens mellan Riksdagleadmöten Cecilia Wikström och konstnären Ture Sjölander 31 Aug. 2006

 

Cecilia, det värmer gott med din välkomst hälsning ! Kan man vara mer liberal än att låta publicera din generositet ?

Vad glad jag blev när jag fick läsa i dag,  att Lars Danielsson lämnat stolen.

Den häxbrygd av hat som Socialdemokraterna kokade ihop om mig 1995-96 gör  mina utställnings möjligheter i Sverige hopplösa. Men ändå, visst vore det en glädje att få göra ett brandtal till de svenska gräsrötterna, runt landet.

Det är bara så att jag svurit en Ed till mig själv att bara återvända om en fullvärdig ursäkt och kompensation kan komma till stånd. Det blev bara så att min egen försvars advokat fick problem i samma veva  eftersom Thomas Bodström just då blev utnämnd som justitie minister och de hade varit företags polare och var ungdomsvänner.

Konflikt of Interest, kallar man det.

Hela historian är ruggigt Kafka-lik. Jag har kryptiskt redogjort för mardrömmen på Internet sedan en längre tid... Men det hjälper knappast mot folk och politiker som adopterat ideen med att "EN SVENSK TIGER".

Även en gammal vän som Bengt Göransson f.d. Utbildnings minister blev stum över min behandling... och paralyserad till att inget kunna göra.

Det är verkligt behagligt att få ditt mejl !!!

Titta gärna på sajterna nedan när du har tillfälle och kanske på din hemdator, som en underhållnings följetong.

Du behover Broadband eller Highspeed och Jag tror jag härvidlag har världens största privata Websajt.

Tack igen, Du vackra liberala Dam !

Cheers

Ture


http://www.swedish.homestead.com/


From: cecilia.wikstrom@riksdagen.se
To: "ture sjolander" <turesjolander@hotmail.com>
Subject: Ang. August Strindberg och grabbarna och tjejerna...
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2006 01:04:53 +0200



TACK!

Jag känner mig oändligt stolt och hedrad över att få företräda dig- och välkommen hem en dag!
Berätta när du kommer, så ska jag möta dig.

När och var kommer du att ställa ut härnäst?

Med de bästa hälsningar till dig från mig,

Cecilia


Cecilia Wikström
Riksdagsledamot (fp)
Tel 08- 786 48 53



"ture sjolander" <turesjolander@hotmail.com>

2006-08-30 02:06

Till
Cecilia Wikström/LED/FP/Riksdagen@Riksdagen
Kopia
ulrika@liberal.se
Ärende
August Strindberg och grabbarna och tjejerna...





Du ar Haftig Cecila !

Vinn Valet, och jag kommer tillbaka till Sverige fran min Exile.

All the very best from Australia.

Ture Sjolander

www.sjolander.homestead.com/

www.newstime2007.com/WORLDNEWS.html

www.newstime2007.com/TIME.html

 


Liberaler som jag gillar: TURE SJOLANDER

From: "Ulrika Tellander" <ulrika@liberal.se>
To: "ture sjolander" <turesjolander@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: valmojlighet !
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2006 15:45:19 +0200
>Jag tror att jag lade ner samtliga valsedlar, du får slänga de du inte vill ha
>helt enkelt!
>
>Lägesrapport från sifo hittar du pålänken
>http://www.sifo.se/Public/Reports.aspx?showpnl=L3_1, den senaste mätningen är
>för perioden 21-24 augusti. Det bör komma en ny vilken dag som helst. Det är
>jämt och mycket spännande.
>
>På tal om Jan-Erik Wikström. Jag kan meddela dig att Cecilia Wikström (gift med
>Jan-Erik) och folkpartistisk riksdagsledamot är den som leder den svenska
>kulturdebatten för tillfället,
>http://www.folkpartiet.se/FPTemplates/News.aspx?id=6893. Världen är liten.
>Hennes förslag om att införa en literaturkanon har väckt stor debatt.
>Folkpartiet anklagas för att vara rasistiskt och allt möjligt för att vi tycker
>det är bra att svenska barn läser stora svenska författare i skolan, man blir
>häpen... Jag länkar till DN:s debattserie, du hittar en del debattinlägg
>http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=2502&a=566647. Spännande spännande.
>Sören Holmberg som du kanske känner till, professor i statsvetenskap, ringde
>Cecilia häromdagen för att säga att det aldrig i historien (nja, kanske under
>de senaste 23-30 åren) har hänt att en enskild riksdagsledamot har haft en
>fråga levande så länge i slutat av en valrörelse.
>
>Ja, det var en parantes.
>
>Roligt med mejlväxling!
>
>/Ulrika

 
 
 Kommentar av Enn Kokk — 2006 09 09 14:51
  1. Ja, vilket djävla liv !
    Frågan är om jag skall förbli konstnär i exile.
    www.swedishboysandgirls.homestead.com/A.html
    Tänka sig, Han Kokk är bara en månad äldre än mig själv, men vi båda är äldre än Anders Thunberg.
    Men han bodde ju inte i Njurunda 1944 där jag spenderade mitt första levnadsår.
    Vilket strul livet kan vara.
    www.newstime2007.com/WORLDNEWS.html
    Tycker ni inte det ?

    Mvh

    Sundsvalls sonen
    Ture Sjölander

    http://www.turesjolanders.homestead.com/GOGGLE.html

    heeheeh

    Kommentar av Ture Sjölander — 2006 09 09 15:30

  2. Till Ture Sjölander: Hej! Min första reaktion är glad häpnad - internet är ändå en märklig inrättning för kommunikation, där man plötsligt kan få kontakt med människor, som i tiotals år har varit borta från ens horisont.

    Kommentar av Enn Kokk — 2006 09 09 15:59

  3. Till Enn: Från min horisont kan jag nu se denna korta dialog på Google redan om man söker på mitt namn. Min första reaktion på detta är glad häpnad. Ja, det är minsann en märklig inrättning, Internet. Det blir lättare att förstå Marshall McLuan för varje dag. Mediet är budskapet.
    Hursom helst här är en av mina tusentals websajter:
    www.newstime2007.com/WORLDNEWS.html
    Det är gratis prenumeration på mina Världsnyheter.
    Hoppas ni skall gilla den lilla bilden till höger i mitten, av Folkpartisten och förre konsuln i New York.
    Jag har faktiskt aldrig röstat i hela mitt liv men ofta påverkat politiken på mitt eget sätt, starkare än en single röst någonsin kan göra.
    www.youareinmy.homestead.com/now.html
    Det är och förblir lika märkligt !

    Cheers
    Ture Sjolander

    Kommentar av Ture Sjolander — 2006 09 12 12:38

  4. Till Ture Sjölander: Själv har jag, som du väl minns, alltid befunnit mig i gränslandet mellan kultur och politik. De är också de mest frekventa ämnena på min blogg.

    Och röstat har jag gjort i vartenda val, så länge jag har haft rösträtt. Alltid på socialdemokraterna.

    Kommentar av Enn Kokk — 2006 09 12 14:03

  5. KONST POLITIK.
    Från Ture Sjölander: Jo så minns jag med. Men du, varför tror du att vissa människor röstar på samma Logo-Politiskt Parti, hela sitt liv?
    Är substansen eller folket inom den ramen verkligen densamma år efter år…
    Var ligger de grundläggande värderingarna hos respektive parti, så att säga?
    Vissa tidsintervaller måste väl “besättningen” vara mindre begåvad och vid andra perioder mer.
    Kan det ibland vara ett slags tvångstanke att hålla fast vid samma äktenskap livet ut?
    Under en särskild tid i ditt, nu långa liv, måste du väl ha blivit besviken över gänget som styrde båten.
    Vad kunde du ha gjort med ditt “gränsland”? Hade detta “gränsland” du syftar på ett eget värde som hade kunnat blomstra och konstituerat ett helt eget “parti” kunnat bli realiserat?

    Jag såg nyligen att LO utlyste en konsttävling (vilken djävla bedräglig term) för konstnärer med en prissumma på, ja minns inte beloppet…
    Kunde man tänka sig tvärtom att en politiktävling kunde sättas upp för politiker. så att politikerna kan visa upp sitt begåvningskapital?
    Jag finner det osmakligt i båda riktingar när man utlyser TÄVLING i konst, vetenskap eller politik.
    Det är en form av muteri i att diktera konsten riktning men också en skakande underskattning av konsten. Jag vill inte muta politiker att stäppdansa för mig på särskilda villkor, inte heller skulle jag vilja att fysikforskare låter sig köpas för att spela mungiga.
    Du fattar vad jag syftar på efter att alltid ha befunnit dig i detta gränsland.
    Hursomhelst..The money-side ser ut att alltid vinna.
    Ägget eller Hönan…det är hemskt hur hela nationer kan vilseledas, det är svårt att beskylla ledare.
    www.newdemocracy.homestead.com/
    frågar sig: Finns det demokrati i en Galax?
    Och om, vad som förr sågs vara demokrati är den detsamma, livet ut?
    Inget vara för evigt! Men så länge det varar så kan man väl chansa på att ge sin röst för det…
    Det är lite Lotto över det hela
    Har du en personlig epostadress?
    Även om det kan vara festligt att vika ut sig och inte ha några hemligheter, kan andra läsare finna det ointressant. Jag är inget blogmonster och har därför föredragit att göra sajter, i mängder som är mer tidslösa, och med ett visuellt språk som grund. Det förutsätter att betraktaren har rätt satt bredd och inte 600×800, som den normala bloggaren mestadels har.
    Jag har gjort ett klart statement på någon sajt där jag säger: “I don’t read what people write, I read people.” I många fall är det faktiskt sajterna som “läser” tittaren i stället för tvärtom. Händer sällan, men dock att den som intervjuar blir den intevjuade.
    Gud så långt detta blev.
    www.100.homestead.com/UNIFEM.html
    sa flickan och grät…
    Tjena..Ture

    Kommentar av Ture Sjolander — 2006 09 12 15:02

  6. Addendum
    Jag måste bara tillägga att min svenska börjar bli lite rostig efter mer än 20 år i landet down under, utan kommunikation med svenskar, alls.
    Gjorde dock vissa utredningsuppdrag för kulturrådet utomlands i slutet av 70-talet och lärde mig det ondskefulla byråkratispråket t.o.m.
    Det var urbota tråkigt att lära sig men man måste ju ibland ta skeden i vacker hand eller deras egna vapen för att ge tillbaka, du vet…

  7. Kommentar av Ture Sjolander — 2006 09 12 15:07

  8. Har omedelbart föreslagit bildandet av ett nytt politiskt parti i Sverige med namnet:
    “GRÄNSLANDET”.
    Kan du tänka dig att bli partiordförande för partiet ? Du är en mycket passande boss !
    Här är sajtförslaget=
    www.swedish.homestead.com/KONSTPOLITIK.html
    Ett parti utan gränser….
    Vi ses på första kongressen 2007.
    mvh
    Ture

    Kommentar av Ture Sjölander — 2006 09 12 16:08

  9. Till Ture Sjölander: Människor kan väl ha olika skäl för att hålla fast vid ett parti, också för att byta parti. För min del handlar mitt val om värderingar och ett sätt att analysera motsättningarna i samhället; i båda fallen grundar jag mitt ställningstagande både på läsning och på erfarenheter, främst sociala erfarenheter.

  10. Besättningen, liksom de som styr båten, kan skifta genom åren - för att använda din metafor. Likaså kan verkligheten förändra kursen. Men sina grundvärderingar och sitt sätt att analysera samhället kan man behålla.

    Som reflekterande och kännande människa blir man naturligtvis, just utifrån grundvärderingarna och samhällsanalysen, under perioder besviken över dem som styr båten. För mina egna besvikelser, men också förhoppningar, har jag gett uttryck i det till socialdemokratin riktade inledningskapitlet “Vart tog den där elden vägen?” i boken “Var blev ni av, ljuva drömmar?” (red Enn Kokk, Stigbjörn Lunggren och Klas Gustavsson, Ordfront, 2002).

    Men i mina grundvärderingar står jag fast, och jag har utifrån dem aldrig sett något för mig acceptabelt alternativ till socialdemokratin.

    Så jag avböjer också det generösa erbjudande att få bli partiordförande för partiet Gränslandet.

    ***

    Jag förstår dina synpunkter på konsttävlingar - konst är ju i första hand ett uttryck för ett djupt personligt skapande.

    Nu finns det ju på konstområdet erbjudanden till konstnärer, som kan sägas ha ett “tävlingsmoment” men inte går ut på att muta de deltagande konstnärerna till att göra något, som egentligen bara har pengaersättning som enda motiv.

    Särskilt när man ska bygga kulturinstitutioner är det ju vanligt att anordna en arkitekttävling, som har i förväg angivna användarkrav som utgångspunkt. Den som bygger kulturinstitutionen i fråga kan sen också be olika konstnärer tävla om konstnärlig komplettering inne i lokalerna, varvid man ber om skisser och förslag. Det här kan ju omfatta ett stort spektrum - muralmålningar, inramad konst, fotografier, ljusspel och så vidare - och då behöver det ju inte finnas andra urvalskriterier än kvalitet; möjligen kan husets arkitektur tala för antingen harmoni eller brytning.

    Din oro för att din svenska skulle ha blivit sämre av alla dessa års utladnsvistelse är på det hela taget obefogad. Jag hittade några särskrivningar av sammansatta substantiv, där bakgrunden förmodligen är engelskans sätt att skriva sammansatta subsantiv i två ord. De här småsakerna tog jag mig friheten att korrigera.

    So don´t worry där på andra sidan klotet.

    Enn

    PS Hösten 2001 avlade min hustru, Birgitta Dahl, då talman i Sveriges riksdag, ett officiellt besök i Australien. Jag var med. DS

    Kommentar av Enn Kokk — 2006 09 12 23:15

  11. Till Enn: Tack, verkligen uttömmande beskrivning av din raka livslinje och typiskt generös och alltid vänsinnad Kokk’ska.
    Du ser ut att må bra efter 70 och det var kul att få veta.
    Jag återkommer gärna senare till ditt bloggrum när vi väl vet hur väl valet föll ut…om det nu vore en prioritet i livet; en välfärdsstat kan för all del inte existera utan yttrandefrihet.
    www.cordially.homestead.com/Ovulator.html

    Cordially Yours
    Ture

    Kommentar av Ture Sjölander — 2006 09 13 4:57



 
 
 
Följande artikel nedan var publicerad i samma tidskrift  KONSTPERSPEKTIV: ¨på sidorna, 40, 41 och 42 i svensk översättning.
 

The Artist that invented Computer Animation

by Aapo Saask

2004

 

On an island aptly named Magnetic Island off the coast of Australia, a Swedish artist lives in exile. Just like so many others in today's media-landscape, he was first praised and then brought to dust. However, he has left a lasting imprint on the world. As early as the 1960's, he made the first electronic animation. Had he been an inventor, he would have been celebrated as a genius today, but because he is a predecessor in the world of art, things are different. In that world, the great ones often have to die before they are recognized.

We all know how Disney's famous cartoons were made: thousands of drawings, filmed in sequence. Even today some films are made this way. However, electronic animation has opened up a new world within the film industry and it has also made computer games and countless graphic solutions possible in business and science.

Pixar, which used to be part of Lucasfilm and then sold to Steve Jobs in the lat 1980's, made the first completely computer animated film called "Andre and Wally B" in 1983. The first feature length fully animated movie was Toy Story from 1995. It was made by Pixar and distributed by Disney. Disney had already started to use computer animation in Little Mermaid from 1989, and then on through Aladdin, Lion King, Pocahontas, etc In those fantastic movies the pictures were however first drawn on paper and then scanned into computers for painting and cleanup and superimposition over painted backgrounds.  

Decades earlier, in 1963 Nam June Paik Paik and Wolf Vostell presented the earliest experiments with distorted TV-images. They placed thirteen televisions prepared for the distortion of images on the floor among many other objects at the Parnass Gallery in Wuppertal. This "event" is retrospectively identified as the beginning of video art.

From 1965-1968, Nam June Paik and Yud Yalkut work with the first experimental creation of electronic images, based on the manipulation of transistors and resistors of a television set, with what was called a video synthesizer. These abstract images - waving, and swinging and changing colour, surging forth at random as a result of maladjustment – show that a monitor can also be an instrument and not just a simple receiver of images. Their esperiments were first shown in 1971. Already in 1965, Ture Sjolander’s electronically manipulated images were broadcasted by the Swedish Television (SVT) and later by other TV-stations in Europe. Among other things, Ture Sjolander was experimenting with the question of how much the portrait of a person could be changed before it was unrecognizable, something which has pioneered the amazing morph-technique that is used today.

Gene Youngblood, who, alongside with Marshall McLuchan, is the most celebrated media-philosopher of the era, devoted a whole chapter in his book Expanded Cinema, 1970, (Pre face by Buckminster-Fuller) to the experiments of the SVT. Expanded cinema means transgression of conventions as well as mind-expanding transgressions and new definitions. Sjolander’s broadcasts were not technically sophisticated, but they were ground-breaking.

The film mentioned by Youngblood  is "Monument" (1968) by Ture Sjolander and Lars Weck. The other televised pioneering animations were "TIME" (1965/66) by Ture Sjolander and Bror Wikstrom and "Space In the Brain" (1969) by Ture Sjolander, Bror Wikstrom, Sven Hoglund and Lasse Svanberg. Whereas most of the modern-day artists fade into oblivion, Ture Sjolander has found his place in the art history by the making of those films.

Ture, a lad from the northern city of Sundsvall, had instant success with his opening exhibition at the Sundsvalls Museum 1961. He moved to Stockholm in the beginning of the 1960's. At an exhibition in 1964 at Karlsson Gallery his imagery upset the public so much that the gallery immediately became the trendiest place for young artists in Stockholm.

In 1968, he created another scandal, when the film "Monument" was televised in most European countries. For a couple of years, Ture Sjolander was celebrated in France, Italy, Great Britain and the USA. In Sweden there was a lot of jealousy. The Museum of Modern Art and the National Gallery of Sweden, to name a few, bought his works, but the techniques he worked with were expensive and after a few years, he found himself without resources. Instead he started to work with celebrities such as Charlie Chaplin and Greta Garbo. They taught him that exile – mental and/or physical - is the only way to escape destruction for a creative genius. He moved to Australia.

Ture Sjolander's works include photos, films, books, articles, textiles, tv-programs, video-installations, happenings, sculptures and paintings – all scattered around the Globe. Tracing will be a challenging and exciting task for a future detective/biographer and web-archaeologist's.

But mostly, his work consists of a life of questioning and creation. This is what sets him aside as one of the great artists of the 20th century.

Another forerunner in the art world, the internationally celebrated Swedish composer Ralph Lundsten, says in an interview in the magazine SEX, 5, 2004: "In those days (the 19th century), a painting could create a revolution. Today people look idly at all the thousands of exhibitions that there are. ’Hmm. Oh, really. How clever he is’, and they yawn… If I were a visual artist, and if my ambition was to create something new, I would devote myself to the possibilities of the computer."

In 1974, Sherman Price of Rutt Electrophysics, wrote to the Swedish Television Company (SVT): "Video Synthesis is becoming a prominent technique in TV production here in the United States, and I think it will be interesting to give credit to your broadcasting system and personnel for achieving this historic invention."

He was referring to Ture Sjolander's revolutionary work in the 1960's. No one at the SVT could at that time imagine the importance that this innovation would have for television, and Sweden therefore lost a lead position in the computer-development (later called IT) business.

Amongst the younger generation of computer animators, few know that they have a Swedish predecessor. Many engineers were probably working away in their cellars in those days, trying to do the same thing, but Sjolander was the first person to show his results on the air. If any of you would like to have a look at the Godfather of animation, you can find a good glimpse of him by googling. Today, he has a fascinating web-presence.

He did not seek to patent his inventions and he has made no money from it. However, he has made it to the history books as one of the great precursors of art - and perhaps also of technology - of the 20th century.

For the past decades, Ture Sjolander has mostly lived in Australia, but he has also worked in Papua New Guinea and China.

After a couple of decades of silence, in the spring of 2004, Sjolander's groundbreaking work was shown at Fylkingen, an avant guard media and music hide out in Stockholm

In September/October 2004, some of his recent paintings are to be exhibited at the Gallery Svenshog outside of Lund, Sweden. This was to commemorate the forty years that have gone by since his last (scandalous) exhibition at Lunds Konsthall. Many artists take a pleasure in provoking the established art world. Ture Sjolander also provokes the rest of the world.

Aapo Saask

2004-09-12

 

 
 a
FIRST CLASS HONOURED CITIZEN OF AUSTRALIA
WHO HAVE CHOSEN TO LIVE
 IN AUSTRALIA,
AND ARE NOT JUST BORN
IN THE COUNTRY,  ACCIDENTALLY.
You have to be born and bred somewhere, don't You
although, "born and bred"  is Not a  quality in itself.
 
Most websites have a number of pages not mentioned on this list
but can be obtained from the search-engine "More from this site"
 
Sample below:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

  R E S U M E   

Excerpt and Websites 

turesjolanders@hotmail.com

TURE SJOLANDER

Intermedia Artist

VIDEO ART

http://turesjolander.homestead.com/hall.html

"this artist is already well represented in our collection"

David Elliott

Director, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden. October 6, 1999.

 

Societies:

1981 - 1982.

Elected Secretary and Member of the Board of the National Association of Professional Swedish Visual Artists - K.R.O - Konstnärernas Riks Organisation Stockholm - with over 6.000 members.

1979 - 1986.

Elected as the first Director and Chairperson of the Board, while Curator/ Administrator of the former Swedish National Artist Organisation, VIDEO-NU, Stockholm, an Art Laboratory for new electronic technology financially assisted by the Swedish Government and the Stockholm City Council ( 200 individual and 15 corporate members)

Off Record: Garbo  -  Chaplin

 

 Represented:

 

Paintings:

Museum of Modern Art, Stockholm, Sweden.

National Museum, Stockholm, Sweden.

Gothenburg's Art Museum, Gothenburg, Sweden.

Sundsvalls Museum, Sundvall, Sweden.

Family of Charles Chaplins private collection Switzerland.

Swedish National Television collection Stockholm, Sweden.

The Australian Embassy in Beijing, China.

The City Council of Changchun, China.

James Cooks University, North Queensland, Australia

Qingdao Municipal Museum, China. Sculptures:

'97 China Changchun City, International Invitation Exhibition of Sculpture - Permanent installation of two-of-a kind, 3 meters marble-sculptures, at the Culture Square.

Alvdalens County collection, Sweden. Stone of Alvdalskvartsit.

County Council, Falun City, Sweden. Stone of kvartsit.

Thirty public artworks in Sweden and in addition; international corporate and private

Collections in USA, Australia,Europe and China.

 

http://writingsrelatedsjolander.homestead.com/

 

 

 

AWARDS AND GRANTS;

The Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts - Top Project Grant 1975 for pioneering elec-

tronic Artworks since 1966 and for the development of art&technology, 'video-art'.The Ministry for the Arts, Development Grant, Oueensland State Government, Australia, 1992.

The Royal Fund for Swedish Culture - Video&Television installation/experiment, 1966.

The Swedish Government Ministry for Arts, Project Grant for New Media Experiment1962.

Stockholm City Council, Department for Arts, Project Grant - experimental photo- graphics - lightpainting, 1962.

 

Bibliography:

Expanded Cinema  by Gene Yomgblood - Published by Studio Vista Ltd 1970. Pages; 331 - 334. Introductionen by  R. Buckminster Fuller.

"Digitala Pionjarer", by Gary Svensson, Linkopings Studies in Arts and Science, Linkopings University, Sweden. Publisher: Carlsson Bokforlag, 2000.ISBN 91 72 03 992 2. ISSN 0282-9800.211 pages. Sjolander pages: 64-65, 104- 113, 129.

"New Media in Late 20th-Century Art", by Dr. Michael Rush, Harward University, Thames&Hudson , Publisher 1999. Pp. 92 -93 of 224 pages. ISBN 0-500-20329-

 

 The Collection Of The Qingdao International Art Exhibiton - China 1999. Catalogue; pp. 11, 296, 316. Published by Chinese Artist's Organisation. ISBN 7-5305-1101-7

Art and Australia ( June 1992 Winter/issue, 3 full pages ) - Fine Art Press Pty Ltd. Australia.

The Courier Mail, Queensland, Australia. Saturday, January 25, 1992; 'Artist to fine tune the relevance of art', by Sonia Ulliana.

Essere (Vol. 4 1968) by Pierrluigi Albertoni.Tribunale di Milan, 'La Mec-Art' by Pierre Restany (pp. 13, 15 17, 64, 65)

Video (Monthly Magazine - January 1979) Linkhouse Publication Group Pty Ltd. UK, 'Video Art at New Castle' by Mandy McIntyre (pp.32-33)

Konstrevy (Volume 1) 1963 'Photographic Development' by Kurt Bergengren. (Pp. 10 - 13, and original cover art: 'Ready Maid/Pop Art'. Publisher; Bonniers Bokforlag Sweden.

National Swedish Encyclopaedia - ( 'Focus' ) 1967, Publisher; Bonniers Sweden. See 'S' for, Sjölander Ture.

 

An innumerable number of articles in Europe, Australia, China and USA have been published as well as radio and television programs (e.g. catalogue text for installations/exhibitions) by writers as: Pierre Restany, Paris, Öivind Fahlström, N.Y., Kristian Romare, Belgium, Prof. Björn Hallström, Stockholm, Pontus Hulten, Bonn, etc. etc .

Available upon request.

 

EXHIBITIONS/INSTALLATIONS:

 

Sundsvalls Museum, 1961, (regional Art Gallery Sweden) - Light paintings. Debut. Solo

Exhibition. Catalogue foreword by Oyvind Fahlstrom.

White Chapel Art Gallery - London, UK. 1963. Light paintings. Selected group exhibition.

 

 Lunds Konsthall (famous Regional Fine Art Gallery in South Sweden, Lund City) 1965.

Simultaneously installation of an outdoor exhibition in Stockholm on billboard space of Monumental size. Solo installations.

 

The 5th Biennale of Paris, France 1967. Selected group exhibition. Catalogue foreword by Pierre Restany.

 

 Gallerie Apollinaire - Milan, Italy 1968, Invited to exhibit with contemporary all-

Italian artists. Selected group exhibition.

 Serpentine Gallery, London, UK. 1975. Selected group exhibition

 

 The Galleries, Biddick Farm Arts Center, Washington Tyne and Wear, New Castle. UK. 1976 and 1979. Selected group exhibition/installation incl. Bill Viola, Ed Emshwiller etc.

Museum of Modern Art, Stockholm Sweden, 1981. Electronic Art, International Exhibition incl. seminars. Selected group exhibition.

 International Video Art exhibition KULTURHUSET Stockholm Sweden 1982. Selected

group exhibition incl. Nam June Paik, Bill Viola, etc etc

 

Museum of Modern Art - Stockholm Sweden, 1985. 'Swedish Contemporary Art' - Six months exhibition. Selected group exhibition.

 Ethnographic Museum, Stockholm, Sweden, 1987 and 1988. Video/multimedia installa-tion; 'Body Paintings Papua New Guinea' - 'The South Pacific Festival of Art', Solo installation.

 

 Gallery Umbrella, North Queensland, Australia, 1991. 'Space - the Image of Wealth 1'.

Solo installation.

 1997 - China International Sculpture Invitation Exhibition in Changchun, Jilin province. 'Peace, Friendship and Spring'

Group exhibition. Foreign artists from 10 nations. Permanent installations of stone sculptures at the Culture Square in the City of Changchun.

 

1999, CHINA, Qingdao, " Trancentury China International Masterpieces Exhibition '99, August. Paintings. Qingdao Municipal Museum.

 

http://turesjolander.homestead.com/

 

 

 

PIERRE RESTANY

Paris - France

October 31, 1968

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Catalogue text for Ture Sjolander

Extracts/Extrait;

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MONUMENT: UN NOUVEL HUMANISME

" Je ne connais pas Ture Sjolander. En automne 1967 un long voyage en Amerique du Sud ne m'a permis de visiter la 5 `eme Biennale de Paris, ou il exposait, qu'a l'extreme fin de la manifestation. Mieux vaut tard que jamais. J'ai ete frappe par les oeuvres de Sjolander. Par leur esprit vraiment moderne. Par soon instinct sur, son usage poetigue des donnees technologiques des mass media: une liberation iconographique au niveau de la technologie de l'information, du langage de la communication de masse…

 

Elle nous concerne tous, elle est plus historique que l'histoire, plus sexuelle que le sexe, plus criminelle que le crime, plus objective que n'importe quel processus d'objectivation. On atteint la notion d'une super-

Expressivite de synthese, liee aux phenomenes d'alteration et de transformation des structures visuelles initiales. Cette alchimie de la vision a trouve sa pierre philosophale. Le plomb des definitions theorigues et standard de l'image animee s'est mue en vif-argent: le mercure des distorsion libres.

 

En creant une distance optique par rapport au phenomene mental

d'enregistrement de l'image, l'enterprise de Ture Sjolander apparait comme un magistrature, le cure d'hygiene de la vision. Elle bouleverse nos habitudes de perception reflexe, elle stimule notre conscience et notre gout, elle nous associe au destin structurel de l'image animee.

 

Dans une societe en plein mutation, ou le peril majeur consiste sans doute dans la mecanisation des esprits et la generalisation d'une passivite sensorielle, d'un modernisme-reflexe saturant l'individu, l'enterprise collective de Ture Sjolander, associant l'art et la technique dans le but d'assurer la survie poetique de notre vision, est une enterprise pleinement humaine, que dis-je, humaniste au sens le plus moderne du terme "

 

Pierre Restany, Paris, oct. 1968

 

 

 

In the short history of video animation the Swedish artists TURE SJOLANDER and BROR WIKSTROM are the pioneers. Their television art programme ' TIME ' (1965 - 1966) seems to be the first distortion of video-scan-line rasters achieved by applying tones from wave form generators.

 

For almost ten years they have been using electronic image-making equipment for a non-traditional statement. It must be kept in mind, however that SJOLANDER and WIKSTROM have a traditional and solid artistic background. Howard Klein likens the relationship between the video artist and his hardware to that between Ingres and the graphite pencil. It should be added that real artists like SJOLANDER and WIKSTROM have a natural relationship to any image-making equipment. In that respect they differ from most cameramen and tape makers and they may come back some day as pioneers in other fields of art.

In fact they have already surpassed the limits of video and TV using the electronic hardware to produce pictures which can be applied as prints, wall paintings and tapestries.

 

They have generously provided new possibilities to other artists, they are not working alone on a monument of their own.

It is significant that the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts has decided to support SJOLANDER and WIKSTROM financially.

 

Professor Dr. Bjorn Hallstrom

Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Art.

Stockholm - 1976

 

 

 

 Fahlstrom about Sjolander - 1961

We live at a time when borders between the art forms are constantly being redrawn or abolished. Poets arrange their poems as pictorial compositions or record spoken sequences of sound which can hardly be distinguished from musique concrète. Composers are able to build a complete composition around the manipulation of a spoken voice. Artists sometimes create pictures by striking off newspaper photographs or mixing conglomerates of discarded objects and painted areas into something which is neither picture nor sculpture. Puppet theatre is performed by setting mobiles in motion in the constantly changing light effects on a stage.

The border between photography and painting is no longer clear, either, and it is easy to understand why this is so. Tinguély, the creator of mobiles, started out by making a form of reliefs with moving parts, powered by a machine placed at the back of them. After a while Tinguély began to wonder why he could not equally well show the play of cog wheels and driving belts at the rear and let "machine" and "shapes" become a united whole.

Similarly, some photographers have asked themselves why the action of light on photo paper and the development baths could not become a creative process comparable with the exposure of a motif — why camera work and darkroom work could not become one.

Among those photographers we find Ture Sjölander. Among those photo graphic artists, as he calls them, who feel dissatisfied with the dialectic of the traditional photographer’s relationship to his motif: when he searches for his motif, he is the sovereign master of it, choosing and rejecting it —. At the very moment that he touches the trigger, he has become enslaved to the motif, without any possibility (other than in terms of light gradation) to do what a painter does — reshape, exclude, and emphasize in the motif.

This subjection to the motif does not have to be disrupted by eliminating the motif. The photographer simply needs to remove the limits to what is permitted and what is not allowed. To let the copy of a photo remain in the water bath for an hour is allowed (if you want to keep the motif). But leaving it there for a couple of days is the right thing as well (if you want to let the motif diffuse into deformations soft and silky as fur). Scratching with a needle or a razor blade is making accidents with scratches into a virtue — and so on.

In addition, there is the chance of manipulating a figurative or non-figurative motif by copying different pictorial elements into it, by enlargements which elevate previously imperceptible structures to the visible level, even up to monumental dimensions. The tension between scratching lines of light into a developed (black) negative the size of a matchbox and enlarging it on the Agfa papers the size of a bed sheet. This is where the photographer has at his command tricks of his art which the painter lacks, or at any rate seldom uses.

But on the other hand, is the photographer able freely to experiment with the colour? Yes, he is — if he brushes paint on to the negative and makes a colour copy.

He may also, like Ture Sjölander, brush, pour, draw etc. on a photo paper — possibly with a background copied on to it — with water, developing or fixing sodium thiosulphite solutions, ferrocyanide of potassium and other liquids. In that case the result is a single, once-only, art work. In this way he is able to achieve a tempered and melting colour scale of white, sepia, ochre, thunder cloud grey, verdigris, silver and possibly also certain blue and red tones.

In this area, however, it seems everything still remains to be done — but one single photographer’s resources are not enough for the experiments to be conducted widely and in depth. Sweden has recently inaugurated its first studio of electronic music. When will photographers and painters be given the opportunity to explore this no-man’s-land between their time-honoured frontlines?

But can photography, in principle, be equal to painting? Is not the glossy, non-handmade character of the photo an obstacle? People have argued in a similar way about enamel work, but that technique is now recognised as totally and completely of a kind with the painted picture. If we adjust the focus of the "conventional painting concept" when we are looking at photo painting, we will perchance discover that in its singular immaterial quality it can possess new and suggestive value.

Öyvind Fahlström

Stockholm, 1961.

Translation from Swedish by Birgitta Sharpe

 

TIME

 

"VIDEOART" ELECTRONIC PAINTINGS - TELEVISED 1966 - 1967 - 1969.

 

  1. "The role of Photography" Commissioned by the National Swedish Television year 1964. B/w. Multimedia/electronic experiment. 30 minutes. And an outdoor exhibition on giant bill board in the City of Stockhom plus indoors exhibitions at Lunds Konsthall and Gavle Museeum among other Gallerys. Represented as an installation 80 dia/slides projected on canvas purchased by Pontus Hulten at Moderna Museet Stockholm 1966.
  2. "TIME" - b/w, Commissioned by the National Swedish Television. Electronic paintings televised in September 1966. 30 minutes. A video synthesizer was temporarily built, in spite of the TV-technicians apprehension. (Same technical system was later used to create MONUMENT one year later, 1967.) See letters from RUTT ELECTROPHYSICS, NY, USA dated March 12, 1974, below *. "In principle this process is similar to methods used by Nam June Paik and others, some years later." Rutt&Etra . Nam June Paik visited Elektronmusic Studion in Stockholm July/August 1966 , during the Stockhom Festival; "Visions of the Present". Static pictures from TIME was demonstrated for Paik at this point in time. A rich documentation is available from the main news media in Sweden about "TIME". Parts of "TIME" was planned to be send via satellite to New York, but the American participants, E.A.T. - Billy Kluver and &, pulled out. (See E.A.T.s and Billy Kluver's biased USA history page from Aug. 1966) "TIME" is the very first 'videoart'-work televised as an ultimate exhibition/installation statement, televised at that point in 'time' for the reason to produce an historical record as well as an evidence of 'original' visual free art, made with the electronic medium - manipulation of the electronic signal - and 'exhibited/installed' through the televison, televised. Other important factors for the creation of TIME was our awareness of the fact that the "electron" was, at this Time, the smallest known particle and that all traditional visual art, up to this Time was created with light - material/colour reflecting the light - (lightpainting) and the description of our new concept should be "Electronic painting". Pontus Hulten and his associates launched the term "Machine" art as an attempt to describe the Time movement. Pierre Restany was using the term "Mec Art", later. The work was commenced early 1966. (Soundtrack by Don Cherry, USA) Paintings on canvass and paper was made from the static material, and in silk-screen prints, for a large numbers of Fine Arts Galleries and Museums 1966, ironically in a 'limited edition', signed and numbered by the artist; Ture Sjolander/Bror Wikstrom. (See National Museeum Stockholm, Sweden).
  3. "MONUMENT" - b/w. Electronic paintings televised in 5 European Nations; France, Italy, Sweden, Germany and Switzerland, 1968. Monument reached an total audience of more than 150 miljon. The work surpassed the limits of "videoart" - a word first used in the beginning of 1970 - 73 - and was developed into an extended communication project, involving other visual artists, by invitations, multimedia artwork including the creation of tapestries, (Kerstin Olsson) silk/screen prints on canvass and paper - first edition, by Ture Sjolander/Lars Weck, posters, and an LP/Record Music, (Hansson&Karlsson) and some years later paintings on canvass, (Sven-Inge), and a book among other things, exhibited in several international Fine Arts Galleries. Catalogue text for Ture Sjolander by Pierre Restany, Paris Oct.31, 1968.

     

    Gene Youngbloods book "Expanded Cinema". 1970.

     

  4. "SPACE IN THE BRAIN" - 30 minutes. Televised 1969, in direct connection with the moonlanding project by NASA. in Swedish Television. Soundtrack by Hansson&Karlsson. First colour electronic original painting where the electronic signal where manipulated. Described in media as an Electronic Space Opera. Based on authentic material directly delivered from NASA. Space in the Brain was a creation dealing with the ; "space out there" - the space in our brains and the electronic space, (in television) Contemporary to Clarke's 2001, except that the Picture it self was scrutinized and the subject, and focused, in Space in the Brain. The Static material from the electronic paintings was worked out into other medias and materials; tapestrys made in France among other objects was made in large size, 3 x 2 meter, for Albany Corporation USA and for IBM, Sweden, as in "TIME" and "MONUMENT", see above.
  5. And a serie of international bestseller posters was produced, and world wide distributed, by Scan-Décor Upsala, Sweden.

"Man at the Moon". is the name of the LP Record.

 

 

 "HISTORIC INNOVATION"

RUTT ELECTROPHYSICS, NY, USA.

Letter from: RUTT ELECTROPHYSICS, 21-29 West 4th Street, New Yourk,N.Y., 10012. March 12, 1974.

Signed by Sherman Price.

 

To: International Section of Swedish National Television, Stockholm, Sweden.

Extracts;

"I am writing a detailed magazine article about the history of video animation.

From literature avaiable I gather that a videofilm program, "MONUMENT", broadcast in Stockholm in January, 1968, was the first distortion of video scan-line rasters achieved by applying tones from wave form generators.

This is of such great importance - historically - that I would like to obtain more detailed documentation of the program and of the electronic circuitry employed to manipulate the video images.

I understand from your New York office that there may have been a brochure or booklet published about the program.

I will be happy to pay any expense for publications, photcopies or other documents about the program and its production -particulary with regard to the method of modulating the deflection voltage in the flying-spot telecine used.

"Video synthesis" is becoming a prominent technique in TV production here in the United States, and I think it will be interesting to give credit to your broadcasting system and personal for achieving this historic innovation."

Sherman Price

 

( A number of authentic documents/letters from this communications is avaliable)

No "detailed article" or even magazine was never reported or later presented after receiving the vital information from the Swedish Broadcating Company, by Rutt Electrophysics)

 

 

 

Letter from the Manager of

THE PINK FLOYD.

Stockholm, Septembre 11th 1967.

 

Dear Messrs Sjolander & Weck,

 

Having seen your interesting Stockholm exhibition of portraits of the King of Sweden made with advanced electronic techniques I have been struck by the connection between this new type of image creating and the music-and-light art presented by The Pink Floyd.

 

I think that your work could and should be linked with the music of The Pink Floyd in a television production, and I would like to suggest that we start arranging the practical details for such a production immedialtely. With all his experiences from filming in the USA and elsewhere I also feel that Mr. Lars Swanberg is the ideal man tp help us made the film.

Please get in touch as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely

Andrew King

 

 

Monument

following text was written by

the Swedish Art writer

KRISTIAN ROMARE

1968.

 

MONUMENT

electronic painting 1968byTURE SJOLANDER/LARS WECK

We create pictures. We form conceptions of all the objects of our experience. When talking to each other our conversation emerges in the form of descriptions. In that way we understand one another.

 

Instantaneous communication in all directions. Our world in television! The world in image and the image in the world: at the same moment, in the consciousness and in the eyes of millions.

The true multi-images is not substance but process-interplay between people.

"Photography freed us from old concepts", said the artist Matisse. For the first time it showed us the object freed from emotion.

Likewise satellites showed us for the first time the image of the earth from the outside. Art abandoned representation for the transformational and constructional process of depiction, and Marcel Duchamp shifted our attention to the image-observer relation.

That, too, was perhaps like viewing a planet from the outside. Meta-art: observing art from the outside. That awareness has been driven further. The function of an artist is more and more becoming like that of a creative revisor, investigator and transformer of communication and our awareness of them.

Multi-art was an attempt to widen the circulation of artist's individual pictures. But a radical multi-art should not, of course, stop the mass production of works of art: it should proceed towards an artistic development of the mass-image.

MONUMENT is such a step. What has compelled TURE SJOLANDER and LARS WECK is not so much a technical curiosity as a need to develop a widened, pictorially communicative awareness.

They can advance the effort further in other directions. But here they have manipulated the electronic transformations of the telecine and the identifications triggered in us by well-known faces, our monuments. They are focal points. Every translation influences our perception. In our vision the optical image is rectified by inversion. The electronic translation represented by the television image contains numerous deformations, which the technicians with their instruments and the viewers by adjusting their sets usually collaborate in rendering unnoticeable.

MONUMENT makes these visible, uses them as instruments, renders the television image itself visible in a new way. And suddenly there is an image-generator, which - fully exploited - would be able to fill galleries and supply entire pattern factories with fantastic visual abstractions and ornaments.

Utterly beyond human imagination.

SJOLANDER and WECK have made silkscreen pictures from film frames. These stills are visual. But with television, screen images move and effect us as mimics, gestures, convultions. With remarkable pleasure we sense pulse and breathing in the electronic movement. The images become irradiated reliefs and contours, ever changing as they are traced by the electronic finger of the telecine.

With their production, MONUMENT, SJOLANDER and WECK have demonstrated what has also been main-tained by Marshall McLuhan: that the medium of television is tactile and sculptural.

The Foundation for MONUMENT was the fact that television, as no other medium, draws the viewers into an intimate co-creativity. A maximum of identification - the Swedish King, The Beatles, Chaplin, Picasso, Hitler etc, - and a maximum of deformation.

A language that engages our total instinct for abstraction and recognition.

Vital and new graphic communication. A television Art.

Kristian Romare, Sweden 1968

 

http://sjolanders.homestead.com/

 

 
 
 
 

 

 
TOWNSVILLE BULLTIN 
WEDNESDAY, JULY 17, 1991------------------------------------------TOPICS-----------------PAGE 5
 
 
 
Changes needed before we measure up to this Swede's expectations.
The man who would be Mayor
 
by Mary Vernon
 
 
Ture Sjolander is eager to become a citizen of Australia - but he rejects anything to do with Britain or the Queen.
"I love Australia, my greatest concern is that Australians don't love it enough. As soon it is possible to become a citizen of Australia without becoming a subject of the Queen then I will seize the opportunity" he said.
In the meantime ex-artist Ture, 54, will keep his Swedish passport and keep hoping for the social changes he sees as vital for Australia in general and for Townsville i particular.
"I am tired of art, painting has no relevance in this modern age" said Sjolander, whose work is exhibited in Sweden's National Gallery, Museum of Modern Art and other international galleries.
"All of society has embraced technology, to improve performance and to reach as many people as possible except for the artistic world. It is blinkered and tied to the principle of one-off paintings and limited edition prints.
"Perhaps it is still relevant in the Third World countries which have no access to technology but in the Western World  it is finished. It is like making only one hand-written copy of a book".
Ture believes that the art establishment, the galleries and curators are perpetuating an anachronism and he wants no part of it. His plan is to change the world - well, Australia at any rate.
 
He recently sponsored a public competition to find a new name for the combined city of Townsville/Thuringgova. The winner of the $500 prize was Don Talbot of Cranbrook whose suggestion was "Queensland City".
"There are many things I would like to see in Australia," he said. "We must throw off the British colonial system. The majority of Australians are not of Anglo Saxon origin and they do not want to be part of the British system. Having the British queen as the queen of Australia is ridiculous.
"And the constitution of Australia - it is based on the Magna Charta and it is not appropriate to Australia today. " We must embrace multiculturalism and on that foundation build a strong, self-sufficient country like America. "The minority cannot lead the majority. I believe that on the declaration of the Republic of Australia most of those 700.000 who now hold permanent resident visas, like me, would flock to become citizens."
He first came to Australia 1982 when he visited all the capital cities and the outback and begane his love affaier witk this country.
His biggest shock on that first trip was meeting the great Australian mateship tradition and completely misinterpreting it.
"I had only recently arrived in the country, I was in Canberra and I was thirsty. I found a bar and went in, but when I saw it was full of about 200 men drinking together and no woman I turned round and hurried out. I thought it was the biggest homosexual club I had ever seen"
He laughs now over his mistake, but still believes we must let go our convict past, in which he thinks the mateship tradition is rooted, to grow and expand in a truly Australian way.
After his first trip he come back again on his way to a film project in Papua Guinea. He met his future wife, Maria, a Filipino-born Australian in Sydney and, after tidying up his affairs in Sweden he arrived to settle and marry her in Australia in 1988.
"We came to Magnetic Island for our honeymoon and liked Townsville so much we stayed."
Although they have now separated, Ture continues to live in Townsville with his 20-month-old son, Matu because he thinks it is an ideal place.
When he first arrived, he found that people were much friendlier if they thought he was a tourist. They would welcome him and offer help. If he said he lived here, their concern and interest shut of immediately.
"S I started to pretend that I was a tourist and people in shops and buses and taxis were  extremely friendly. When I saw the same person again I would tell them I was back again on holiday."
Ture has abandoned this game now and hopes for a political future.
 
His concerns are many and he is passionate about them all. Ture Sjolander not one to remain uncommitted even though some of his views may seem contradictory.
On the one hand he is concerned about over-developement of Townsville. He feels that it is a good size now and double the population, as some developers have promised to do would destroy the lifestyle many find attractive.
"We don't want another Brisbane or Sydney here. Europe is full of cities which have followed this route and have been ruined by over-development and over-industrialism.
"We don't want that to happen here".
He believes it would be preferable to spread developement around among the various North Queensland centres, so that all can grow a little , but not too much.
 
But on the other hand he is keen to see developement on Palm Island.
" I believe that Palm Island could be a great tourist tourist attraction. It is so naturally beautiful, and so close to the reef. "We should negotiate with the community there to build up tourism, to build a resort, maybe to stage an annual festival there. " It is a great resource and on which is not being used".
 
While he waits for the republic and his chance at Australian citizenship, Ture spends his time caring for his small son. "I have a single parent's allowance, which let me stay home and look after Matu. Besides that, I have royalties from my books and artworks which are on public display in Sweden. " Under Swedish law, artworks are treated the same way as music and books here. If they are on show royalties are paid to the artists for the privilege"
 
 

 
 
THE COURIER MAIL
  BRISBANE,  AUSTRALIA,  
SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 1992
 
 
 
 
ARTIST TO FINE TUNE THE RELEVANCE OF ART
By Sonia Ulliana
in Townsville
 
 
 
ARTIST Ture Sjolander will spend $10.000 of taxpayers' money raising the ire of north Queenslanders.
Mr Sjolander, of Townsville, a Swedish expatriate, says he will expose the harsh realities of the social issues affecting the area i a series of two-minutes segments of "electronic art" to be aired weekly on television.
he will buy the air-time with a State Government arts grant.
"This is not a paint brush, it is a power tool," Mr Sjolander said.
"I will criticise all the things that people ignore or don't want to think about to make them aware through art. "So much art doesn't touch people anymore, or has no relevance."
Mr Sjolander, a passionate and outspoken man, has been involved in art from painting to videoproduction, since 1962.
He has written several internationally published books, including Garbo, a pictorial biography of movie star Greta Garbo, and was commissioned by the 70s Swedish rock phenomenon Abba to create a tapestry.
Mr Sjolander was also commissioned by silent screen star Charlie Chaplin to produce an art portfolio.
In Townsville he is seen as a controversial figure.
He recently held a public competition to create a new name for the combination Townsville city and Thuringgova shire under the Electorial and Administrative Review Committee's amalgamation recomendations.
The winner was Don Talbot, who received $500 for his suggestion of "QUEENSLAND CITY".
The competition provoked debate around the town.
 
With the help of his Creative Development Grant, Mr Sjolander hopes to tackle a host of controversial issues; Townsville General Hospital's Ward 10B - subject of the Carter inquiry into the treatment of mentally ill patients, violence among Aborigines on Palm Island, X-rated videos, tattoos, politics and religion.
"These are all the things that happen in this area and they should be expressed in art to reflect the area," Mr Sjolander said.
He believes art in the modern world should be expressed using technology and says that paintings are out-dated.
He has even devised a plan to exhibit art on the walls of Townsville Airport terminal "for all the world to see".
The large vacant walls in the terminal should be used to hanf paintings and tapestries, and sculptures could adorn the flight deck, the first-class lounge and the departure lounge, he said.
His proposal suggest that the artworks be acquired on a six-montly basis and artists may have them on for sale.
"Art can be anything at all," Mr Sjolander said.
"So there is no limit to what you can do."
 
 

 
Text from
Townsville Bulletin
 
Friday, November 29, 1991
NEWS
(page 5)
 
 
 
 
Local artist paints picture of a unique airport environement
 
 
 
A PILOT project to display art on the vacant wall spaces at the Townsville airport has been proposed by local artist Ture Sjolander.
 
Acting Townsville airport manager Phil Roben said the suggestion was interesting and a meeting to discuss the matter would be held next week. " I believe such a display could complement the terminal very well," he said.
Mr Sjolander believes that as the airport is the first point of contact for businessmen, domestic and overseas tourists and returning residents, there was no reason why the airport itself should not become an attraction.
"I propose that the large vacant wall spaces be used for a semi-permanent art display which could include a number of large paintings and tapestries. " In addition to this, a small number of free standing sculptured piece could be easily be accomodated."
Mr Sjolander believed the flight deck, the first class lounge and the departure lounge were other attractive areas where graphic and smaller size artworks could be displayed.
"These could be accomplished with minimal installation of lighting and hanging equipment," he said.
"The pilot project for Townsville airport can be realised with very little outlay, mutually benefiting the professional contemporary artists of North Queensland and the Federal Airports Corporation".
 
From this experiment could evolve the creation of a unique airport environement which could become the blueprint for others, Mr Sjolander said. He also envisaged the formation of an art investment consultancy group under the airport corporation for future interstate exhibition exchange.
 
Support for the venture has been pledged by Perc Tucker Gallery director Ross Searle and artist  and James Cook University art teacher Anne Lord, both of whom have expressed wish to join Mr Sjolander on the selection committee for the first exhibition.
 

 
 
 
 
    From:
Men in Business - Advertiser, August 3, 1989
 
 
 
Sjolander a pioneering artist
 
Mr Ture Sjolander's artistic work represents more than one technique, from traditional tapestry work to visualisation of electronic computing.
He is a pioneer in video-art. His work contributed to the development of the video-synthesizer.
Mr Sjolander has earned an international reputation for his multimedia art work since his debut in 1960.
"Mr Sjolander has also served as a member of the board of the Swedish Artists Society," former Minister for Cultural Affairs in Sweden, Mr Bengt Goransson.
"He is represented at the Museum of Modern Art, Stcokholm, the Swedish Government, the City of Stockholm and the Royal Fund for Swedish Culture have awarded him grants for his work."
He received the top grant for scientific art research from the Royal Swedish Academy of Art.
Mr Sjolander has produced television programs for Swedish Television including The Role of Photography, Time, Monument, and Space in the Brain.
He is skilled in all kinds of printing techniques and is also a professional photographer.
Mr Sjolander has written several internationally published books.
For example he wrote a pictorial biography of Greta Garbo titled: "GARBO", for one of the largest publisher in America, Harper and Row (Harper&Collins) and the book had world-wide distribution.
He initiated work on a pictorial essay on Charlie Chaplin. The dummy work was purchased by Charles Chaplin and the finished work was titled "My Life in Picture", 1973.
He was also commissioned by Chaplin to produce an art portfolio which was signed by both Chaplin and Mr Sjolander.
Mr Sjolanderwas commissioned by the Swedish band ABBA, to produce graphic prints and a tapestry used in the sponsorship of the 1977 America's Cup.
 
He established an electronic picture laboratory in Stockholm, VIDEO-NU, for artistic research and was the administrator of the laboratory from 1980-1986.
Mr Sjolander has created monumental sized interior artwork for large industrial complexes in Sweden using various techniques.
He has had a large number of seminars and exhibitions throughout Europe and he participated in the Fifth Biennale in Paris.
He has given lectures throughout world on art and technology, includinga lecture last year at the Australian Film Institute in Sydney.
One of the topics of his lectures is possible establishment of multicultural communication by satellite.
This would include a three week international TV high tech and arts festival, the commersialisation of peace via satellite and the formation of an internatinal lobby group to connect all Television systems of the world.
He is presently involved with negotiations with Uplinger Enterprises (USA), the organisation which organised Live Aid and Sport Aid, about establishing an annual three week satellite link up.
Campaign co-cordinator of One World or None, Janet Hunt said the idea was marvelous. "The idea is a logical extension as we move into the 21st century and we certainly support it." Jane Hunt said.
Mr Sjolander has conducted research into Townsville's history and the city council have received a proposal to revise the history of the city.
His research has shown the first European to land in Townsville arrived 49 years earlier then previously believed.
The discovery may be celebrated with a special Townsville Day and a 220 year celebration in 1990.
He is also skilled in radio productions and TV production.
Mr Sjolander is interested in establishing an international artist's centre in Townsville to display exhibitions from international artists.
He is a member of the Perc Tucker Regional Art Gallery and believes i Fusion Business.
He is neither political nor religious but believes in authentic humanity.