Terra Nova

Works for Live Art Denmark
2013 “Like/not like” at Samtalekøkken

Like/not like
At Samtalekøkken in February 2013, Jens Bäckvall and Christian Adelhorst Rossil, members of the performance collective Terra Nova, presented their open source project “Like/not like” in a performative lecture. Printed and laminated “thumbs up/down” symbols were passed out to the audience, and they were encouraged to like or dislike the presentation and the project at several times during the evening. The project is documented in a series of short videos on Jens Bäckvall’s Youtube channel. They mostly show Jens and Christian in jogging pants, working on different aspects of simplicity and minimalist movements. They also dance to Britney Spears.

About the Artists
Terra Nova were a group of full- and part-time performance-artists, who seem to have worked between 1999 and roughly 2016. Their artistic leader was Jens Bäckvall.

The group worked with interaction and manipulation of their audiences in intimate one-to-one scenarios, either in public space or within specially designed installations. A lot of the work was concerned with communication, existentialism and rituals as well collaborations with NGOs to highlight socio-political issues and agendas. They also worked with physical theatre and dance, and created several dance-theatre performances.

Their website has gone offline, but some info can still be found on this facebook page, with the last entries dating to 2018, which makes us think that the group might since have disbanded.

Om liveart_dk

Liveart.dk was founded in 2004 in Copenhagen to promote the discussion, documentation and development of live art in Denmark. The organisation is equally inspired by the imaginative and entertaining English Live Art tradition as by the theoretical and political German theatre tradition. We have organised 10 large international festivals of Live Art for kids and adults since 2004, and over 40 discussion events, books, video series, symposia and more in the field of live art, performance art, art criticism and documentation. We collaborate with theatres, music venues, art museums and festivals in Denmark and internationally.