Sven Anderson
Dr. Sven Anderson is an artist, researcher, lecturer and architectural consultant based in Dublin. He is currently Assistant Professor of Film at Trinity College Dublin, where he is initiating a new master’s programme in digital arts and intermedia practices. His research and practice explore the intersection of digital arts, sound studies, architecture and critical spatial practices.
In 2021, Anderson was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Individual Fellowship to develop action-led research advancing the emergent field of urban sound design with the London-based research organisation Theatrum Mundi. He is the co-editor of the books States of Entanglement: Data in the Irish Landscape (Actar, 2021) and Signal Spectre System: A Late Evening in the Future (Verlag Für Moderne Kunste, 2018). Anderson holds a BA from Cornell University and a PhD from the Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media (GradCAM) at Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin). He has developed courses at the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) and has delivered lectures at universities and design institutions around the world.
Anderson co-curated Entanglement, Ireland’s pavilion for the 17th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (2021). Working with Heneghan Peng Architects and Gustafson Porter + Bowman landscape architects, he developed proposals for the Pulse National Memorial and Museum (Orlando, 2019) and the UK Holocaust Memorial (London, 2017). As an artist and architectural consultant, Anderson has 20 years’ experience leading international projects and research that explore digital arts and sonic practice in the context of architecture and urbanism. His work ranges from multichannel video systems and urban sound installations to self-initiated artist placements and public services, creating platforms to sustain collaboration between artists, architects, regional authorities and local communities. Anderson’s work has been exhibited at major arts venues from the Douglas Hyde Gallery (Dublin, 2018) to Secession (Vienna, 2019) and is featured in the permanent collections of the Arts Council of Ireland and the Office of Public Works (OPW).
2021 - 2023: Sound-Frameworks: Collaborative Frameworks for Integrating Sound Within Urban Design and Planning Processes is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Individual Fellowship (IF) that explores how to introduce critical considerations of sonic experience within the design of the public realm. The project is led by artist Sven Anderson and hosted by the London and Paris based organisation Theatrum Mundi. Sound-Frameworks extends Theatrum Mundi’s exploration of sonic urbanism, enacting a discursive space to accelerate dialogue between artists, architects and urban designers and to advance an understanding of how sound and listening can influence the design of our cities. Sound-Frameworks is supported by partnerships with Arup (UK), UrbanIdentity (CH), Struer Kommune (DK), the University of Oxford Faculty of Music (UK) and the Sound Studies Lab at the University of Copenhagen (DK). Sound-Frameworks has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101032632.
Sound-Frameworks @ Theatrum Mundi
Sven Anderson @ Theatrum Mundi
Sound-Frameworks @ CORDIS
Sound-Frameworks @ EURAXESS
2021 - 2022: Entanglement. An immersive media pavilion exploring the relationship between data infrastructure and spatial production in Ireland, presented as Ireland’s pavilion for the 17th International Architecture Biennale at Venice. Developed and curated by ANNEX (Sven Anderson, Alan Butler, David Capener, Dona Lally, Clare Lyster and Fiona McDermott).
Entanglement @ ANNEX
Entanglement @ The Venice Biennale
Entanglement @ Transmediale
Entanglement @ GIAF
2018 - 2019: A Visibility Matrix proposes a condensed counterpoint to the migratory, hyper-networked nature of visibility in contemporary culture by conjuring an offline matrix of video material presented in the gallery space for communal observation. Initiated by Sven Anderson and Gerard Byrne, the artwork speculates on an alternative to the composite formed by subject + smartphone + online-video-sharing-platform that has come to represent the current standard of visibility. It gathers content through an associative network of collaborators including artists, visual anthropologists, cinematographers, documentary filmmakers and others from across the globe. By shifting focus from the production of images for sharing online to their reception in a shared, fixed-time spatial context, A Visibility Matrix offers another window on visual excess, confronting its own situated spatiality in order to reflect the more universal conditions that it addresses. A Visibility Matrix has been exhibited at The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (2018); Le Printemps de Septembre, Toulouse (2018); Secession, Vienna (2019); and Void, Derry (2019).
A Visibility Matrix @ The Douglas Hyde Gallery
A Visibility Matrix @ Le Printemps de Septembre
A Visibility Matrix @ Secession
A Visibility Matrix @ Void
2019: Shortlisted proposal for The National Pulse Memorial and Museum International Design Competition. With Heneghan Peng Architects, Gustafson Porter + Bowman, Pentagram, Wannemacher Jensen Architects and Bartenbach LichtLabor.
2017: Honourable mention for the UK Holocaust Memorial International Design Competition. With Heneghan Peng Architects, Arup, Gustafson Porter + Bowman, Event, and Bruce Mau Design.
Ongoing: Continuous Drift blurs the boundaries between public sound installation, architectural intervention, and curatorial framework. Launched in 2015, this project features contributions from Bik Van der Pol, David Blamey, Karl Burke, Taylor Deupree, FM3, Russell Hart, Slavek Kwi, Brandon LaBelle, Mattin, Danny McCarthy, Dennis McNulty, Garrett Phelan, Sarah Pierce, Raqs Media Collective, Steve Roden, Dawn Scarfe, Jed Speare, Stalker/ON, Wolfgang Voigt, Mark Peter Wright, and Miki Yui. Continuous Drift was expanded with An Introduction to Work and Energy (2016) featuring works by Gerard Byrne, Josefin Lindebrink, Francisco Lopez, Haroon Mirza, Arnont Nongyao + CMC, and Minoru Sato and Balance (2017) with works by Peter Cusack, Moritz Fehr, Marco Fusinato, Jennie Guy, Christina Kubisch, and Hans Rosenström.
2015: Before the Flood is a film by Sven Anderson and Jennie Guy, created within the public art project Tolka Nights. The film explores a tangled solution to an (im)possible ecological event via a spiralling text adapted from writings by (or about) architects, planners and critics including Jane Jacobs, Rem Koolhaas, Mike Davis, Arata Isozaki, Victor Gruen, Santiago Calatrava, and Robert Moses. This contradictory narrative collapses a multiplicitous universal river upon the river Tolka (which passes through Dublin, Fingal, and Meath counties in Ireland), questioning the sanctity of place-bound narratives and the specificity of local landscapes. The film is narrated by the Irish architect and environmentalist Duncan Stewart. Vimeo password available on request.
2019: The Office for Common Sound (OCS) is a nomadic project space devoted to researching the role of sound within different communities. The OCS occupies street-front properties for durations ranging between two weeks to two months, using this concise timeframe to generate specific outputs in response to its surroundings, through methods developed in cooperation with a range of participants. The OCS at NCAD Gallery was open between April 29th and May 12th, and was developed in collaboration with Dominika Goralska, Colm Keady-Tabbal, Mateja Šmic, and Christopher Steenson.
The Office for Common Sound (Dublin)
The City of Participation
Office Politics
2018: When I go home, I cut through is a multichannel video installation first presented in Field Recording, an exhibition of works by Mit Jai Inn and Sven Anderson that explores how we position ourselves in order to observe and react to complex events and stimuli that unfold around us. Field Recording was curated by Jennie Guy and took place at Rua Red Arts Centre in October - December 2018. When I go home, I cut through is in the permanent collection of The Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon.
Field Recording @ Rua Red
Public Talk @ Rua Red
Screening Event @ Rua Red
2018: Developed as an editorial collaboration between Sven Anderson, Gerard Byrne and Peter Maybury, A Late Evening in the Future: Signal Spectre System reflects on Byrne's exhibitions developed with Anderson at FRAC des Pays de la Loire, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, and the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art. The book encounters the exibitions through layered collages presented alongside essays by Anderson, Maeve Connolly, Adrian Martin, Maria Muhle, and Tirdad Zolghadr.
Signal Spectre System @ Verlag für Moderne Kunste
Signal Spectre System @ The 100 Archive
2017: Stone Sounds - 4000 Years at Sinop Kale. The Stone Sounds exhibition explores a layered approach to sound, archaeology, and sense of place, focused on four locations in Sinop, Turkey. The project evolved as a collaboration between archaeologist Dr. Owen Doonan, artists Sven Anderson and Erkan Akliman, and exhibition design students at California State University Northridge. It was presented at the CSUN Gallery in Los Angeles (February 11 - March 2) and restaged at The Explorers Club in New York (May 4 - 6). Image: Screenshot of live feed documenting the Los Angeles opening.
2016: The Office for Common Sound opened its doors for the first time between May - June 2016, sited on Quinsborough Road, Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland.
The Office for Common Sound (Bray)
2015: Near and Far is a four-channel sound installation set within Derek Hill's private study, commissioned within the exhibition Years of Pilgrimage curated by Eilis Lavelle and organised with Orla Mc Hardy and Adrian Kelly. The exhibition includes a re-staging of Derek Hill's Collection in Glebe House and an accompanying temporary exhibition in Glebe Gallery. The event also features new commissions by Ian Gordon, Orla Mc Hardy & Stephen Vitiello.
Ongoing: The Manual for Acoustic Planning and Urban Sound Design. Pictured is one iteration of the project icon, based on locations of ambient noise monitoring stations extracted from a map of Dublin in 2013.
All content copyright (©) Sven Anderson, 2023.