Andri Snær Magnason is one of the people interviewed in a new radio documentary on BBC 3 by Nina Perry:
A feature by Nina Perry exploring the environmental, cultural and musical significance of the icy landscapes of Greenland, Iceland and the Highlands of Scotland. Featuring the words of an Icelandic writer, a Greenlandic fisherman, a drama therapist and an ice-climbing fiddle-playing mountain rescuer interwoven with spectacular recordings of the ice sheet as it calves and a specially composed musical soundscape.
My newest publication – Rethinking Dreamland – is now to be found the debate forum RETHINK SOCIALITY.
RETHINK is an art project that thematizes climate changes through Nordic and international contemporary art. The project is part of the official cultural programe for COP15 in Copenhagen. REFLECT is RETHINK’s online forum where debaters from the all over the world engage in debates on climate change, art and culture. The writers are artists, philosophers, scientists, politicians and business people with different views and knowledge about how climate change affects the way we live and view the world.
REFLECT presents a broader cultural debate on the consequences of climate change. Climate change is fundamentally interdisciplinary, transcends borders and interfaces with many domains including politics, art, technology, nature, sociality, philosophy etc. The debaters explore how climate change leads to new understandings and definitions of some of these established domains, and how they interfere with one and another. They share their views on the dilemmas confronting our society today.
Now you can see Dreamland in Reykjavik at the Nordisk Panorama short film and documentary festival. It will be in Regnboginn (Rainbow) theater saturday september 26th at 10 AM and Sunday at 6 PM. Here are the films in the competition: Here is the link to Nordisk Panorama:
Here below is the list of films competing for the prize of Best Nordic Documentary at Nordisk Panorama 2009 in Reykjavik.
Imagine seeing a tourist promotional video. A beautiful fjord, magnificent Peer Gynt by Grieg soundtrack and you see the slogan: “The worlds most beautiful adventure”. Then you go to Stavanger in Norway – and you take the cruise with Rodne Cruises and they try to recreate exactly the tourist promotional experience – with soundtrack and everything. You get exactly what you payed for – by blasting Grieg – the tourist promotional ad has been “recreated” in reality – it becomes more than reality and better. They totally meet your expectations.
In one of my favorite books, Travels in Hyperreality, Umberto Eco travels through the hyperreality of American Tourist destinations. He describes how reality is recreated in museums, theme parks and the Disneylands of America. How they constantly meet your expectations by creating destinations that are better than art, better than history, more natural than nature. You can see the Venus de Milo, with arms and everything. This also applies to the largest pyramid in the world – it’s in Las Vegas. The goal of the architect was simple – if you have been in the Las Vegas pyramid, you will be disappointed by the pyramids of Egypt. They will be smaller, less “real”. This video is the Norwegian version of Hyperreality. It is not enough to be actually in “The worlds most beautiful adventure”. You must be stimulated even more – by blasting Greig at 200 decibels – they give you the true Norwegian Fjord experience – the most beautiful moment of your lifetime.
Dreamland will be published this year in Japan by NHK and in Denmark by Tiderne Skifter. The Blue Planet will be published in China in the next days and it has just been published in Lithauenia by Sara. Next year Lubbe publishers in Germany will publish LoveStar and they have proposed a marketing slogan: ,,Imagine in Icelanders ruled the world”. In short the book is about an Icelandic corporation that expands so greatly that it causes the end of the world. It came out first in Iceland quite before the crash, even before anyone here had a private jet and quite a lot has unfolded since making it very interesting to see how the german readers will find it. Here is a small chapter from the book in a New York book blog. Dreamland the movie will participate in Nordisk Panorama here in Reykjavik, it will have it’s international premier in november in Amsterdam and in january it will be in the Göthenburg film festival. In Reykjavik you can see the film in September at Nordisk Panorama. Andri Snær Magnason is now attending Kapitell in Stavanger, 17th and 18th of september with Sjon and Hallgrimur Helgason. Oct 2-5 he will be in Festival Internationale in Italy.
The Blue Planet by Andri Snær Magnason has just been published in Vilnius. Here is the information in the Lithuanian:
Apysaka / Iš islandų kalbos vertė Jurgita Marija Abraitytė; dailininkė Áslaug Jónsdóttir. – Vilnius: Žara, 2009 . – 94 p.
Mėlynoji planeta buvo labai ypatinga: joje gyveno tik vaikai. Žinoma, ten dar buvo žvėrelių ir augalų, bet visur, kur tik pažvelgsi, bėgiojo tik įvairiausio dydžio ir formų vaikai: ir maži, ir dideli, ir stori, ir ploni, o kai kurie netgi tokie keisti, kaip ir tas keistuolis, kurį pamatai pasižiūrėjęs į veidrodį.
Kadangi planetoje nebuvo nė vieno suaugusiojo, vaikai buvo visiškai laisvi. Niekas jiems nenurodinėjo, ką jie turi daryti. Joje dėjosi tokia nesuskaičiuojama gausybė keistenybių ir nuotykių, kad joks suaugęs žmogus nebūtų galėjęs joje gyventi nežildamas ir nedžiūdamas iš streso ir rūpesčių.
Andri Snær Magnason and Rebecca Solnit speak about Iceland, Dreamland and some other issues in this one hour show on Wisconsin Public Radion. Here is the web page of the show where you can stream the broadcast. And here is where you can download the MP3. Just look under the date of the show–6/3/09. The trailer for the film is here.
Kobra is one of the best television programs in Sweden. The last episode was about the collapse of the Icelandic economy and the response of the artistic community. Sigurros, Kira Kira, Andri Magnason with Dreamland and Steinunn Sigurðardóttir. You can see it here – most interviews are in english.
