Carl Henry Ek

Can a room be both analog and digital? Imagine a meeting with a group of people. Some are in a physical room and some participate digitally. The simultaneous analog and digital meeting is no longer an ordinary room, but something much larger. There is an undertone of digital presence in the analog space, and the place that we humans interpret as the “real” space only exists as binary numbers for a computer. Spatiality has thus both expanded and collapsed. The artwork Cloud Based Default Network is a spatially dynamic video work composed of several screens that takes shape in Smålands Konstarkivs Lada 3 at Vandalorum.

Ek works primarily with video, installation and painting in his artistry. His practice explores the new digital technology and its paradoxes as well as the concept of nature in a digital landscape. Ek uses the sea as a material and allegory to approach complex systems such as; logistics, AI and cloud storage.

Carl Henry Ek (b. 1992) was born and raised in Korsberga outside Vetlanda, Småland. He now lives and works in Stockholm and Gothenburg. Ek holds a master's degree in fine arts from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and has previously studied at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and Valand Academy in Gothenburg. He has had a residency at Not Quite Konsthall in Fengersfors where he also exhibited the exhibition Sea is Stainless (2019). In 2022 he was awarded the Paul Pettersson Prize.

Thanks to: IM Vision, Värnamo Municipality, Region Jönköping County and Region Kronoberg