Kristian Skylstad explores human interrelations and the feelings of the individual through staging various forms of boredom, apathy, cynicism and powerlessness.
Kristian Skylstad (Born 1982 in Oslo) is a Norwegian artist who works mainly with photography, poetry, collage, video and sculpture. His work often revolves around the behaviour and emotions of the individual, distilling his pervasive sociological inquisitions into textual and photographic work unbound by context. Skylstad’s work is associated with a generation of young Norwegian artists who in the 2000’s emphasized the conceptual and post-media, evoking the spirit of The New Wave and Infrarealism. The recent years, his primarily concern has been the aftermaths of genocide, which has led to extensive studies and photographic projects in Silesia (Poland) and Cambodia.
Kristian Skylstad has taken part in the establishment and management of several artist run gallery spaces in Oslo. His artistic practice is combined with teaching and journalism, mostly connected to film, photography and contemporary art. He is represented by OSL Contemporary. He is a founder and member of Noplace (Oslo).
Mallory
HD Video / 07:20 min / 2018
Lets make a deal, Mallory, a deal that will spike up our friendship. With complete certainty. You are going to sleep as a homeless for three days, Mallory, for three nights and days. And I… I will keep from watching the road whenever I cross it, for thirteen days, Mallory. Thirteen days. It’s that kind of deal, Mallory. Lets make that kind of deal, for once.
— Louis Scherfig
The Photographer
HD Video / 29:11 min / 2017
Non Deus Ex Machina
HD Video / 10:00 min / 2015
In ‘Non Deus Ex Machina’ Hans Skovholt & Kristian Skylstad has created a Hamsunian meditation based on the engine of the game Skyrim. In the 3D video a first person character is wandering through different romantic landscapes, watching the scenery, listening to the birds, alone, through all the four seasons. By removing the foes of the original game the video becomes meditative in the most post-modern way imaginable, suggesting a silent critique of the necessity of violence in contemporary entertainment, while at the same time siding with inertia as strategy. A credible walk simulator has never been created, and would be quite a paradoxical cultural entity if ever generated. The thought of moving through nature is quite the opposite of virtual reality. This movie suggests the now dominating cultural marker, which videogames has become, as a tool for tranquility and pure perception, but also that any movement through space is virtual, because there is almost no place untouched by human hands, tools or ideas.
Violence of Silence
HD Video / 01:37:44 min / 2011
You have neither the patience that weaves long lines nor a feeling for the irregular, nor a sense of the fittest place for a thing. For your intelligence is not one thing among many. You worship it as if it were an omnipotent beast, a man intoxicated on it believes his own thoughts are legal decision, or facts themselves born of the crowd and time. He confuses his quick changes of heart with the imperceptible variation of real forms and enduring Beings. You are in love with intelligence, until it frightens you. For your ideas are terrifying and your hearts are faint. Your acts of pity and cruelty are absurd, committed with no calm, as if they were irresistible. Finally, you fear blood more and more. Blood and time.