Select work that might be included in an installation but also functions as a single screen.

Some are free to view online others can be viewed by appointment.

Human Resource The Musical

2023

Video: 06:22 min

IT FITS BEAUTIFULLY IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND, 2020, 06.51 min

Part of a video installation with clay figures made for BEK (Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts) 2020.

The installation is concerned with the seductive screen and appeal of the smartphone and its surface. Its carved place as an artificial limb. The tactile, haptic organ with the world within it – that is has become.

The title is a quote from Steve Jobs description of the size of the phone, from the Launch of the first iPhone in 2007.

Written, edited and graphics by

Maren Dagny Juell

Photography by Aleksander Andreassen

Voice over by Samantha Lawson

recorded at Notam

Commissioned by BEK - Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts

for Latent City 2020

THE PARTY, 2020, 09:41 min

A surreal post-apocalyptic home party placed in an undefined future where the location is fluid. This work focus on 3D printed replicas of various household plastic objects, common in 2012, which take on a new role in a post plastic future.

The party-host guides the party participants through a fragmented story about and relationship with objects. Reenacting a home party, in a world where this is not possible or relevant. Questioning ideas around Object Orientated Ontology and current collection and valuation of artefacts.

This work is part of Maren Dagny Juell’s video series Tutorials where she questions the role of advice and instructions through a mediated technological society.

In addition to the film, Maren produces a sculpture made of 3D printed objects as a display to be placed in the middle of an arboretum (in a forest) at the University of Biosciences (NMBU) in Norway. The plastic objects are printed in PVA, a material made of corn that composts when exposed to nature.

CAST

Host: Iselin Shumba

Man: Aslak Juell Kristensen

Women (from right to left):

Sarune Bartuasuite Kaupiene

Kuya Bae

Andrea Fritsvold

Yvonne Layne

CREW

Written, directed, edit and graphics: Maren Dagny Juell

Director of photography: Mattias Pollak

B Photo: Annicken Aasheim

Light. Jon Andre Hakavåg

Sound recording: Rune Baggerud

Sound designer/composer: Arild Iversen

Colourist

Make up artist: Kristina Kvam

Production manager: Hanne Rivrud

Production assistant: Miriam Hald

SUPPORT

Commissioned by KORO Norway

Supported by Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond and Forbundet Frie Fotografer

'Let's Make it Super Premium'. 2018, 06:00 min

A monologue based on quotes from advice given in video tutorials by Person Trainer instructors and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.  I play with the idea of video tutorial as a moving image format free from responsibility and full of easy solutions. The confident white male is promoting content of vailed emptiness and exposing the vanity of the tutor.

Actor: Per Bogstad Gulliksen

Camera.: Aleksander Andreassen

Sound recording: Ronny Vedal

Soundtrack: Octavcat

Assiants: Tonje Alice Madsen, Hanne Rivrud

Tutorial#10 Every Team Member, 2017, 02:28 min

The departure points of this work include instructional videos and management training tools, online self-actualisation and ‘mindfulness’ forums and tutorials on stress management. Collaging and  adapting elements from these and other sources the work gives birth to an elegant and attractive  yet unstable ‘subject’ who speaks with a double tongue, veering between the compassionately human and the digitally generated, and delivering a message that is simultaneously authoritative and incoherent, reassuring and vacuous. Piquing a range of anxieties around the instrumentalisation  of many aspects of contemporary life, the remodelling of ideas of autonomy and the invasion of digital technologies into human intercourse.

Actor: Melanie Smirou

Cinematography: Aleksander Andreassen

Make up: Kristina Kvam

Production Assistant: Ole Petter Ribe

Tutorial#6: It’s our ability to create stylish meals that separates us from the animals (Bear Grylls), 2016, 08:30 min

This work refers to instructional videos by survivalists.

Three men meet. They have a conversation made up by fragments quotations I have collected from instructional tutorial videos and on-line forums about survival.

During the meeting, they all make a flower out of gaffer tape, zip-ties and para-cord.

A flower is useless in a survival situation. I wish to question the reality of the whole situation and art-making as an activity. What is useful, what is human?

The work is initially made for an exhibition related to the tapestry weaver Frida Hansen (1855-1931) and also includes sculptures. I was interested in the gender roles assigned to textile craft and the purpose involved in these activities (craft clubs- craft as therapy). My project is a fictional account of  the male-dominated culture of survivalist, where knowing your craft and materials are highly regarded.