My interest in creating sound and music started with my introduction to reel-to-reel tape recorders in the early 70´s. I started to make recordings of my friends and we made several ”radio-plays” for our own amusement. Backwards playback and speed manipulations as well as the”sound-on-sound”capabilities of the Tandberg recorders were the possibilities I innocently explored back then.
With the introduction of the Sony recording walkman in the late 70´s I suddenly had a portable recording unit which I brought with me at most times. I then started to experiment with simple cut-ups and intersections, trying to make new meanings emerge from the recorded material.
In this period I also joined several bands and started to make recordings of my own music.
As I finished my education as a sound engineer in the mid 80´s, analog tape still was the only professional format of choice, and a one year engagement at the DNS (a theatre in Bergen) made me develop editing skills with razorblade, scissor and tape.
In the early 90´s, working with the Music Factory and Ultima festivals I was lucky to work with acknowledged composers, musicians and artists utilizing electronics. Introduced to the programming environment MAX
(now Max/Msp) I have ever since applied its potential in my work .
Being for some time a mixing-technician at NOTAM gave me an opportunity to further study sound synthesis in addition to work with the cutting-edge technology of the time.
The ability to program tendencies in how the computer act upon sound-events in order to create changing music and soundscapes is interesting. I was given opportunity to make my first sound-installations as a composer, working with manipulation of pre-recorded sound.
The first major staged performance in which I utilized some of these techniques was the show Tigergarden after co-founding the performancecompany Mobile Homes with Zoe Christiansen. Numerous staged performances and installations have followed up to this date.
About the same time I was engaged by Nationaltheatret in Oslo. Sound-work in the theatre have special conditions that must be met, different for each staging. There are limitations but also challenges.
Whenever possible my work with sound for installations, performance and theatre takes point of departure in recorded environmental and real-life sounds. The listener is transported seamlessly or abruptly into different environments. These environments often contrast each other; appearing as very natural or in opposition- unreal, at times engulfing the listener or being a pin-point moving or static auditory source.
