Fløien

Kalfarlien 18, a home on Fløien designed by Einar Oscar Schou in 1909 and now in need of restoration, could have been refurbished into a facelifted historical showpiece: Schou also designed the National Theater, and the Bergen Kommune recognizes the villa’s cultural heritage. But the villa’s owners resist a vision of history that obliterates traces of natural decay. RestOration: Kalfarlien 18 reimagines the decaying villa as an eco-home quietly rebuffing the rigged hunger for new stuff. RestOration: Kalfarlien 18 recreates aspects of the villa even as its purview stretches far beyond the villa. An ambient soundscape creates a “lived in” homey feeling and moves guests through our interactive installation, to be located in UiB’s Humanities Library. At the center is an e-waste sculpture built on the myth of Narcissus and Echo that triggers aleatory poems when guests touch the trash. A tablet game features the villa’s original architectural drawings and decorative design elements. RestOration: Kalfarlien 18 is an e-lit ecopoem. Whether it’s the faint singing of a woman in the shower, or the functional e-waste, or the satisfying click of an actual Kalfarlien 18 doorknob unlocking pieces of the tablet game—RestOration juxtaposes the care economy of a home with the dizzying pace and alarming toxicity of technologic obsolescence. (source: ELO 2015 catalog)