letter-carpets

YELLOWFLOWERPOWER (2017) is the fifth film by Norwegian concrete poet Ottar Ormstad. Here again viewers encounter letter-carpets and a yellow y he identifies with. The work is based on slogans and song-titles from different countries at the end of the Sixties, presented in their original language, intentionally without translation.The texts are combined with photographs of sculptures from the Vigeland Park in Oslo/Norway, where Ormstad lives and shot the naked people exposed in stone and iron by sculptor Gustav Vigeland (1869–1943). This park is the largest in the world based on one artist and contains more than 200 works.The film also includes live video-footage of Charles Lloyd playing saxophone in front of a huge painting by Norwegian expressionist painter Edvard Munch (friend/enemy of Vigeland), as well as an unpublished photo of the young Mick Jagger, both shot in Oslo by Ormstad.Like in earlier works, Ormstad uses a strong sound in the very start for creating a period of silence at the beginning of the film.The animation is created in close collaboration between artist Margarida Paiva and Ormstad.YELLOWFLOWERPOWER invites viewers for an individual experience dependant upon the viewer's language background and tolerance towards non-translation.

Video HD 16:9, duration: 07:17Animation: Margarida PaivaSound: Hallvard W Hagen & Jens P NilsenConcrete poetry, cameras, piano and production by director Ottar Ormstad© Ottar Ormstad 2017

mooon (2015) is the fourth video made by Norwegian poet and artist Ottar Ormstad since 2009. Here again viewers encounter letter-carpets and a yellow y Ormstad identifies with and which he is known for.
Different from the other videos, letter-carpets are not projected on still images, but for the first time on live video footage Ormstad shot on his Samsung S4 during travels in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Vilnius and Berlin in 2014.
The video may be seen as a research for documenting water on the mooon.
Like in his video natyr (2011) he's using a strong sound in the very start for creating a period of silence in the beginning of the work. Other references to his earlier works can also be found: The 'eau-poem' in the first part is closely related to his web-poem svevedikt (2006), and his first video LYMS (2009). Ormstad also continues his multi-lingual project using words from different languages intentionally without translation. It invites viewers for an individual experience of the video and visual poetry that is based upon the viewer's language background.