Digital Sneaky Waves

De-Romanticizing Icelandic Landscape

“Digitalization de-reifies and disembodies the world. It also abolishes memory. Instead of memory, we have vast quantities of data. In the place of the memory police, we have digital media, which does its job without violence and with little effort” (Han, 2022, p. vii).

Iceland lies within the subarctic climate zone; here, the consequences of global warming are not merely subjects of media debate, they are literally palpable. One need not ascend hundreds of vertical meters to reach the glaciers that are shrinking year by year, for their tongues still extend (for now) into the valleys. At the same time, due to these harsh climatic conditions, the region remains sparsely populated; within the discourse of the art world, too, it is positioned as a periphery.

“This exhibition adopts a circumpolar North perspective to position the North as the center. (…) Areas once understood as peripheries to major urban centers are now leaders, shaping the future of the world. Geographical adjacencies in the North matter now more than ever, especially as local and global priorities and initiatives become synonymous and interchangeable,” states the curatorial statement for the North Atlantic Biennale (DeSimone, 2021).

The very concept of art in Iceland carries a bitter undertone, for it is inextricably linked to the island’s colonial history: in 1662, the island was seized by the Danes, under whose occupation it remained for nearly three hundred years. Consequently, it was not until the nineteenth century that European traditions of landscape painting reached Iceland. Painters received their training in Copenhagen and brought that knowledge back home with them.

The wound of Iceland’s colonial past is still in the process of healing. From an artistic perspective, therefore, the Icelandic landscape serves not merely as a document of climatic transformation or as fodder for ecological discourse; it also stands as evidence of having been, and continuing to be, a colonial object, subject to both exoticization and mythologization. This exoticization persists to this day; only its instruments have changed, they are now digital and geared toward mass consumption. In a country with a population of 300,000, the annual influx of tourists (excluding the pandemic years) reaches around 2 million, a statistic that reveals an extreme disproportion.

In the information society, the pursuit of experience is geared toward surprise; yet its allure fades quickly, leaving one constantly in search of the next sensation. For today’s information society, reality exists within the dynamic tension between attraction and surprise. “As information hunters, we are becoming blind to still, inconspicuous things—to what is common, incidental, and customary; to the things that do not attract us but ground us in being” (Han, 2022, p. xi).

In their quest for the next “selfie spot,” tourists unwittingly expose themselves to grave dangers. At Reynisfjara Black Beach, for instance, fatalities occur frequently when people are swept away by so-called “sneaker waves”: waves that appear harmless but, once they strike, offer no escape.

Could the waves of the World Wide Web perhaps be a form of “sneaker waves” as well? Media theorist Vladan Joler likens monopolies such as Google and Facebook to gigantic black holes, entities whose sheer mass exerts such powerful gravitational pull that they devour both their users and their content (Extractivism Project).

In this context, the quest for surprise—and for the perfect image to share on social media, proves doubly perilous: the exposed data leaves indelible traces across the internet, while individuals simultaneously expose themselves to unnecessary physical risks and, in doing so, inspire their followers to do the same. Caught up in the frenzy of chasing the “big waves,” one becomes blind to inconspicuous things, those elements that demand a certain slowness, patience, and sensitive attention before they reveal themselves fully to the observer.

This article attempts to construct a counter-narrative to the Best Instagram Spots in Iceland culture, a de-romanticization of the landscape, and offers insight into the exhibition Immune, curated by Bryndís Björnsdóttir, whose participating artists use the landscape as a lens through which to examine political, social, and ecological phenomena. It is precisely these quiet, inconspicuous elements that transform “non-things” back into things.

According to Vilém Flusser, even information no longer possesses anything “solid,” tangible, or grounded in lived experience; rather, it has become something “soft.” Everything is increasingly transforming into “software,” thereby losing both value and significance. “We no longer dwell on earth and under the sky but on Google Earth and in the Cloud. The world is becoming increasingly intangible, cloud-like and ghostly” (Han, 2022, p. 1).

In his discussion, Vilém Flusser focuses on the themes of orientation and values; he categorizes the world into nature, culture, and waste, observing a menacing expansion within the cycle of creation, processing, and disposal. (Hanke, 2012, p. 27)

Can we become immune to this trend? The collaborative art project initiated by Bryndís Björnsdóttir, and exhibited at the Living Art Museum, bears precisely this title: Immune. Ironically, it was conceived prior to the pandemic; for a long time, travel restrictions prevented its realization, yet when it finally opened in the spring of 2022, it acquired an additional layer of association. In reality, however, the project addresses something else entirely: making visible the colonial traces embedded in the Icelandic landscape. It seeks to foster a re-evaluation—a relearning of perception—aiming to penetrate the “microspheres”.

The exhibition draws upon a research report authored by the scientists Eggert Ólafsson and Bjarni Pálsson, who were commissioned by the Danish government between 1752 and 1757 to compile a comprehensive report on the “Land of Fire and Spitting Lakes.” It was not until 1943—following the declaration of independence—that Icelanders were finally able to read for themselves what the colonial power had written about their country; prior to that, the report had been available only in English, German, French, and Danish.

The installation, created by Bryndís Björnsdóttir in collaboration with the collective The Many Headed Hydra, comprises a mélange of semantic layers. Upon entering the installation, one feels as though one is standing on the deck of a ship. Sailcloth hangs from the ceiling, while waterproof plastic stools are arranged across the floor, inviting visitors to listen to the sound installation Oceanic Feelings by Zahra Malkani, browse through the zine Harbour Failures, or view the performance piece Arctic Hysteria by Pia Arke.

Among the exhibited items are artifacts, specifically seashells, which the scientists are said to have brought back from their expedition, on loan from the Icelandic Institute of Natural History. Looking up, one finds oneself surrounded by wallpaper that evokes the sensation of traveling between Iceland and Pakistan; the prints allude to the nineteenth-century British explorer Richard Francis Burton, who, while presenting himself as a cosmopolitan, was, in reality, quite the opposite, showing little interest in the concerns of the people he encountered and often speaking of them in condescending terms. He authored several travelogues, including Ultima Thule: Or, a Summer in Iceland.

Yet this is a long sea voyage, perhaps one has not brought enough water, or perhaps a fever is raging, for the artworks conjure a hallucinatory atmosphere. As a visitor, one drifts between dreams, absurd states, and dystopian scenarios. The installation takes as its starting point grandiose projects poised to profit from global warming, such as the planned deep-water port in Finnafjörður, a town in northeastern Iceland. Its construction was scheduled to begin in 2022 and continue until 2040. The source of its projected profitability lies in the fact that, due to rising global temperatures, the retreat of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean will allow an increasing number of ships to use the Northeast Passage between Asia and the USA—even during the winter months—something that was previously impossible.

This artist collective—whose work centers on queer ecologies, myth-making, and situated practice in relation to the theme of water—seeks to examine, from a variety of perspectives, how capitalist expansion and impending catastrophe are inextricably linked to the fates of different global regions, whether in the Global North or the Global South.

In fact, I was fortunate enough to meet other artists who offered a glimpse behind the scenes, revealing what lies hidden beneath the layers of the Icelandic landscape. In doing so, I invite the reader to explore this for themselves online, rather than letting themselves be captivated by the “sneaky wave” impressions found in typical Instagram shots.

Anna Rún Tryggvadóttir — Garden & Ensnare
https://www.annaruntryggvadottir.com/garden-2017
https://www.annaruntryggvadottir.com/ensnare-2017

Elín Hansdóttir — Long Place & Trichromatic
https://elinhansdottir.com/LONG-PLACE
https://elinhansdottir.com/TRICHROMATIC

Hulda Rós Guðnadóttir — Labor Work
http://www.huldarosgudnadottir.is/werk-labor-move

Wiola Ujazdowska — VOR / WIOSNA Festival
https://slaturhusid.is/index.php/is/syningar/lidnar-syningar/42-wiosna21

Ólöf Nordal — Works / Practice
https://olofnordal.com/about/

References: 

Han, Byung-Chul. Non-Things: Upheaval in the Lifeworld. Translated by Daniel Steuer. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2022.

Flusser, Vilém. Dinge und Undinge: Phänomenologische Skizzen. Munich: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1993.

Hanke, Bob. “Vilém Flusser’s Digital Galaxy.” International Journal of Communication 6 (2012), pp. 25–35.

Down Иorth: North Atlantic Triennial. Reykjavík: Reykjavík Art Museum, 2021. Hardcover, 144 pp. English and Icelandic. Curated by Jaime DeSimone, Anders Janson, and Markús Þór Andrésson.