‘For De Gangene Jeg Skyter Deg’ translated from Norwegian as For those times that I shoot you by the spacepop band called Verdensrommet (Outer Space) goes through so many simultaneous moods, slowly chugging away at your sensibilities, playing with you, making you wonder (if you don’t understand Norwegian perhaps) as to what the ‘shooting’ means. Shoot you with a camera? Shoot you down with a look? Even if you don’t understand the lyrics, the gunshots near the end of the track confirm your fears. Maybe then again, this is just metaphorically ending your worst nightmares or simply firing in self-defense when absolutely essential. The possibilities, while not endless are too many to get into details about. So, it is best to enjoy the many shades of this track which will at once jolt you to life and in the next second lull you to sleep as it slowly encompasses you and tightens its grip around you almost dragging you into sweet surrender, with your arms unwittingly wide open:
Verdensrommet started in 2011 as a songwriter project between Andreas Høvset and Vetle Vik Gundersen, who were both entering their final year at high school in Telemark. After recording a demo, they decided to give it to Matias Tellez at his band, Young Dreams’, gig in Oslo that summer. He liked it, and invited Andreas and Vetle to Bergen to record the songs in his studio. In addition to their latest song posted above, I was particularly impressed with the song ‘Nytt’ whose video and song link are posted below:
Karan Khurana
Karan Khurana ( Born in 1982, Mumbai, India) makes photos and mixed media artworks. By using popular themes such as pointlessness, old monuments and nightlife, Khurana creates intense personal moments by means of rules and omissions, acceptance and refusal, luring the viewer round and round in circles.
His photos don’t reference recognisable form. The results are deconstructed to the extent that meaning is shifted and possible interpretation becomes multifaceted. By applying abstraction, he touches various overlapping themes and strategies. Several reoccurring subject matter can be recognised, such as the relation with popular culture and media, working with repetition, provocation and the investigation of the process of expectations.
His works are saturated with obviousness, mental inertia, clichés and bad jokes. They question the coerciveness that is derived from the more profound meaning and the superficial aesthetic appearance of an image. By parodying mass media by exaggerating certain formal aspects inherent to our contemporary society, he makes works that can be seen as self-portraits. Sometimes they appear idiosyncratic and quirky, at other times, they seem typical by-products of consumer-oriented superabundance and marketing.
His works often refer to pop and mass culture. Using written and drawn symbols, a world where light-heartedness rules and where rules are undermined is created.
Karan Khurana currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany!
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