• Location: Private showings, Svendborg and Nyborg, Denmark
• Date: Created around 2015, shown privately in 2016 and later
• Role: Artist

Concept: Driven Pheasant is a multimedia installation that explores the intersections of digital and physical worlds through layered textures, projections, and found materials. The work features a GoPro video of a pheasant hunt, superimposed onto a mixed-media canvas titled Pheasant killed by text. With acrylic, translucent plastic, and real pheasant feathers, the piece navigates themes of nature, communication, and media culture. The installation highlights various forms of communication, such as the shooter’s commands to his dog—“Rob, get out, get out Rob”—which add an element of immediacy and engagement, echoing the complex exchange between human and animal during the hunt.

Key Elements: The projected video interacts with the translucent feathers and plastic, casting shadows and revealing the underlying wooden frame. This dynamic setup creates a layered intermedia space where each component shifts depending on light and viewer positioning. The work reflects on multiscale communication systems and the fluid boundaries between different modes of interaction. The video used can be viewed here.

Collaborators: After showing this work privately to Susanne Kern, then-president of the Sydfynske Kunstnere association, I embarked on a series of collaborations that culminated in exhibitions at SAK Kunstbygning. The positive response to Driven Pheasant led to new opportunities to exhibit works with less complex setups, stimulating broader engagement with my practice.

Audience or Impact: This installation has shaped my approach to multimedia and intermedia art, exploring how visual, auditory, and physical elements can mediate experiences and perceptions. Driven Pheasant exemplifies layered communication, making visible and tangible the perceptual process and connection between viewer, artwork, and broader cultural themes. The piece serves as a foundational exploration in my work. I am grateful to Professor Michael Shanks of Stanford for his media archaeological analysis of Driven Pheasant, which significantly informed my understanding of the work. Our shared attempts at documenting the installation underscores its importance.

Below are elements of the piece which when assembled is ‘Driven Pheasant’.

Above: Sample recording of the assembled work “Driven Pheasant” (30 second, total duration of work 12 minutes). “Driven Pheasant” needs to be viewed live in order to fully be perceived. This sample recording is not a complete or direct representation of the piece, but the recording does give an impression of the evocative effect of the work. The recording has an extra layer in the form of a mirrored effect.

Above: Painting ‘Pheasant Killed by Text’, which is the background on which the GoPro footage is project. For more detailed views of the painting, see here.

Below: GoPro camera recording of Pheasant Shooting at Powis Castle January 14, 2012. Found footage, grabbed from the internet. This is projected onto the painting in the full showing of “Driven Pheasant”.