Artificial
Typology / scenography
Location / Storsalen, Studentersamfundet, Trondheim, Norway
Date / jan. - oct. 2025
Status / built
Keywords / exploring artificialness, kitch, fun, surface, layers of light
At first glance, Storsalen glows sugar-sweet, dressed in pink, red, blue, and gold. Layers of scenery recall the old theatre, where flatness pretends to be depth.
But sweetness deceives. All is surface, facade – as fleeting as Antoinette’s cakes, as inflated as Versailles’ mirrors. The Baroque was power staged: folds, ornaments, palaces, feasts. Beauty was never innocent, but political.
Here, too, artifice piles up. Aesthetic turns hollow, naivety clings to its mask. Today, it is everywhere; on red carpets, in social feeds, and more troubling, as a symbol of power.
