Yet, It Moves!

Experience the spectacular encounter with art and science in CC’s large new exhibition Yet, It Moves!  The pathbreaking research and exhibition project featuring a stellar array of Danish and international artists presents works at CC and in urban spaces across Copenhagen exploring the universe’s only constant: movement!

Over two years, specially selected artists have been working with some of the world’s most prominent research institutions. Now, the result is a range of spectacular works unfolding the theme of motion as an omnipresent phenomenon and raising our awareness of the many complex movement patterns we are all entangled in.

Nothing stands still. Even things we consider immutable are in constant motion – within, above and all around us. Motion is a fundamental premise of everything in the universe, from the tiniest atomic particles to the human body and the macrocosm of the stars. Recognized in glimpses, this greater, moving whole is embodied in spectacular artworks giving shape and form to complex phenomena like black holes, star formation and gravitational waves – from the macro scale of the expanding universe to the micro scale of atomic explosions and particle.

Ryoji Ikeda, data-verse 1/2/3 (2019-20). Commissioned by Audemars Piguet Contemporary. Installation view Yet, It Moves!, Copenhagen Contemporary (2023). Photo: David Stjernholm.

Works from Cecilia Bengolea, Nora Turato, Ryoji Ikeda, Black Quantum Futurism and others

The exhibiting artists are Ryoji Ikeda, Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Jenna Sutela, Ligia Bouton, Helene Nymann, Nina Nowak, Jens Settergren, Black Quantum Futurism, Cecilia Bengolea and Cecilie Waagner Falkenstrøm. Since 2021, the artists have engaged in dialogue with researchers at the exhibition’s four scientific research partners: DARK at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen; Arts at CERN in Geneva; the Interacting Minds Centre at Aarhus University; and ModLab (Digital Humanities Laboratory) at the University of California, Davis. This meeting of the minds has produced artworks with perspectives ranging across fields like astrophysics and quantum physics, brain and cognitive sciences, anthropology, and technology and performance studies.

In CC’s biggest hall, the world-renowned Japanese artist and composer Ryoji Ikeda will present his monumental trilogy dataverse for the first time in Scandinavia. In three giant video projections, Ikeda composes a sensory explosion of images and sound, sampling open source data on motion obtained from scientific institutions, including CERN, NASA and the Human Genome Project. The huge audiovisual installation represents three worlds: the microscopic natural world of atoms, molecules, DNA and cells that is invisible to the human eye. The human world we live in on Earth with our brains and bodies, other organisms, cities, climates, internet, air traffic, satellites and so on. And finally, the macroscopic world – from our planet to the solar system, galaxies, the observable universe and potential multiverses.

It is dizzying to think that all life originates from the same point in the earliest beginning of the universe, and that all parts of it are linked together by movement. Explosions of elements are constantly taking place in the universe. Giant stars blow up, forming the heavy elements and particles that we and everything around us are made of.

In Pond Brain, the Finnish artist Jenna Sutela offers a sensual experience through the image of the human brain as a pond teeming with processes and communication pathways, accompanied by a soundscape of processed recordings of cosmic motion that links humanity to the universe.

Jenna Sutela, Pond Brain (2023). Installation view Yet, It Moves!, Copenhagen Contemporary (2023). Photo: David Stjernholm

In 3D animations, VR, AR, sound and immersive installations, the acclaimed Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen creates poetic interpretations of overlooked natural phenomena, often in collaboration with biologists, composers and writers. Kudsk Steensen’s large-scale installation for Yet, It Moves! reflects his interest in time, wetlands and the states of water – from liquid to crystal. The work studies the complex forms of life inside a glacier in Switzerland, and poetically records the slow movement of nature in the rare and unique ice formations and their current decline.

The title of the project is a statement attributed to Galileo, who was forced by the Catholic Church to deny that the Earth moves around the sun, which would have robbed the Earth of its spot at the centre of the universe. Galileo bravely defended his theory, declaring, “Yet, it moves!” He was referring to the now universally known fact that, no matter what humans do, the Earth still moves as part of the greater movement of the universe, affecting us and the world we move in every day.

Yet, It Moves! extends into the cityscape

The exhibition project will stay “in motion” with new works and conversations introduced over its run and will extend into the cityscape, including the inner city, Copenhagen Airport, the borough of Nørrebro, the Inner Harbour and Søndermarken Park – places where Copenhageners move around every day.

The 17th of August CC presents four major art installations across Copenhagen by the artists Jens Settergran, Cecilia Bengolea, Cecilia Waagner Falkenstrøm and Black Quantum Futurism at Refshaleøen, BLOX Havnepassage, Sifs Plads and by Søpavillonen, at Peblingesøen. Experience the artistic interpretation of the many intricate movement patterns giving shape and form to complex phenomena like exploding stars, time as a spatial dimension and how we interpret our ever-moving surroundings. Read more about the works here.

Helene Nymann, Hippocampus Hippocampi (2023). Installation view Yet, It Moves!, Copenhagen Contemporary, Skuespilhuset (2023). Photo: Farzad Soleimani.