from Civil disobedience - လ​ူ​ထ​ု​မ​န​ာ​ခ​ံ​မ​ှ​ု part 2​/​4, released February 24, 2021
Harald Fetveit has a central position as performer and organizer in the Norwegian scene for noise and experimental music. He runs the organization Dans for voksne, which has in turn led to yet another current sound project he is involved in: DNA?AND?. He is educated in visual arts, where he made the most out of it in the 1990’s, when he also stood behind Norway’s at the time most comprehensive site specific art event, Prosjekt i Gamlebyen. He has later worked within the field of performance art.

As a musician, his focus has always been on the moment of the live performance, the physical experience of sound and humans and the collective listening. He began playing noise in the mid-eithties, and has explored different sides of the genre throughout the years. Today much of his music has a characteristic, harsh drive, often full of ruptures and rapid dynamic changes and is made for max volume and live performance, performed solo, in duo with Agnes Hvizdalek, Dario Fariello, or the tap dancer Janne Eraker with whom he has toured in Japan, Korea, South East Asia and/or Europe, or with Thomas Oxem as Skævv. He has also collaborated with people like Hankil Ryu, Mattin, Taku Unami and Lucio Capece.

He founded Dans for voksne in 2003 in order to give Oslo’s experimental sonic scene a habitat to grow in. DFV is a production unit for anything related to sound experiments, and has held more than 400 concerts, often featuring internationally acclaimed artists and unexperienced debutants at the same time. DFV has also hosted a variety of workshops, made sonic art for deaf people, organized a winter expedition to the Russian settlements on Spitzbergen besides facilitating collaboratioins in Singapore, Berlin and Rotterdam and running the free improvisation collective DNA?AND?, where youngsters with Down syndrome play with professional musicians.

DNA?AND?’s music has a different vibe from noise and most other musics. But the importance of real-time presence remain: Whereas a “normal” improvisation setting has some sort of foreseeability about it, improvisation sessions with the youngsters can take any direction at any time. The accustomed language of improvisation disintegrates under the merciless hammer of the now, and must continuously be reinvented to stay valid and meaningful.

DNA?AND? was started in 2013, and has revolved loosely around Anla Courtis, Bjarne Larsen, Stina Moltu and Harald Fetveit. The most recent line-up includes Vilja Ellefsen-Larsen, Vilde Erikstad, Sambou Samateh, Ola Skarsæterhagen, Mats Aase Henriksen, Liz Zelda Røyneberg, Lene Høie, Isaaq Ibrahim and Paul Stafne-Pfisterer.

The collective has played at Le Guess Who and Sonic Protest as well as at various Norwegian festivals. It was also accepted at Norway’s National Art Exhibition. The collective has released a double CD, has appeared on several compilations and collaborated with notabilities like NU Unruh (Einstürzende Neubauten), Hans Magnus Ryan (Motorpsycho), Hamid Drake (Herbie Hancock), Ole Henrik moe and Kari Rønnekleiv.

His visual arts have revolved around photography and site specific installations. His earliest notable work being an installation in- and about the German town Weimar, where he worked with searchlights and cast a model of the entire town in human blood. He has spent more than fourteen years taking photos of the inside of an empty box, and is currently interested in glacial erratics. As with his sonic works, his visual art practice also revolves around the presence of the now, which seems to have made his path into both site specificity and the shutter times of the camera, as well as his interest for the performative.

Prosjekt i Gamlebyen was co organized with Christel Sverre and Ketil Nergaard during a two years leave from the education and realized over ten days in may/june 1994. The project sported an anthology featuring 17 writers, a site specific exhibit all over Oslo’s old town with works by 87 visual artists and 5 performance groups, and was fused with a music festival with 28 acts over 10 days. The aim of the project was to break up Oslo’s then insular art world and make connections across different artistic expressions, as well as to establish an institutionally independent scene. The project was revisited in 2018 when the Munch Museum made a seminar about it.

After graduating from the Art Academy in Oslo in 1996, he worked with the experimental theatre group Verdensteatret before he went on tour with the performance group Baktruppen and worked with them for almost three years. He has also appeared solo and in collaboration with former Baktruppen member Tone Avenstroup, as well as in improvised dance performances with Marius Kjos from Verdensteatret and Caroline Walström Nesse. In this period he also ventured into light design for contemporary dance, and occationally worked with scenography, and made himself a way on the underground techno scene under the DJ-moniker Skiftende Skydekke.

Some of his work naturally revolves around making experiences and thoughts from the different fields of arts function together.

haraldfetveit.no