Superposition Catalogue

SUPERPOSITION
- The gaze as platform for renegotiation
Anne Thomasen
We all experience the world through a gaze - a gaze made up of
habitus. This is exactly what art critic John Berger emphasise when
he writes “The way we see things is affected by what we know or what we
believe” ” (John Berger. Ways of Seeing, , p 1). The binary decoding in our
gaze, which comes before both language and writing, is fundamental
to our individual understanding of the visual. When Mette Colberg
examines the qualities of glass through her production of and her
work with her crystal-like lenses, it is precisely to influence our gaze
and make us aware of the implicit choices that lies within it.
Colberg has questioned the dualistic nature of glass as both a form
and a filter, since she started working with the material back in 2003.
With the exhibition SUPERPOSITION, , Colberg explores how the
world we live in is understood through perception, and how visual
shifts can create a foundation for new understandings.
The term superposition is known from quantum physics and is used to
describe the quantum mechanical phenomenon where particles can
exist in multiple places simultaneously when they are not captured
by a gaze. This thinking is reflected in the innate qualities of glass
as something we can both look at but also look through. When we
look at glass, a clear presence and a clear absence arise - a scenario
that can be understood as the superposition of glass. Both states are
part of reality and are central to Colberg in her work, where glass is
examined as both pure form and photographic filter.

Colberg’s fascination with photography as a tool for research and as
a medium is expressed in the exhibition through the use of cropped
angles, glass and light. She uses photography as a view point that
creates a focus on our understanding of our perception of materiality,
space and time. As Berger discuss in Ways of Seeing, , the camera served
as a tool for the early human understanding of the subjectivity of the
gaze firstly in terms of our physical position.
“The camera isolated momentary appearances and in so doing destroyed the
idea that images were timeless. Or, to put it another way, the camera showed
that the notion of time passing was inseparable from the experience of the
visual (except in paintings). What you saw was relative to your position in
time and space. It was no longer possible to imagine everything converging
on the human eye as on the vanishing point of infinity” ” (John Berger. Ways
of Seeing, , p 11).
This argument gives us an even clearer understanding of the gaze as
something, that is formed by several parameters - our habitus but also
by our physical conditions considering time and space. So, people
sharing almost the same background would possibly still experience
a visual manifestation differently based on when and where they
are situated physically. The importance of physical circumstances is
especially experienced through Colberg’s textile and foil works, as
they seem different from every direction and at every time of the day.

As you move around them, they change the space you are in making
you question the room you are situated in as well as your gaze. The
delicate textile works are from some angles perceived as saturated
and from others translucent, and in their overlap new visual changes
appear. The foil work in the window transforms both the street and the
buildings, while the day light throws the work’s colours and shapes
into the exhibition space and transforms both walls and floors. You
clearly understand how one object can be seen in many different
ways and also how you can sometimes control parts of this difference.
Furthermore, there is the issue of choice connected to the human
gaze, which Berger also discusses. “We only see what we look at. To look
is an act of choice” ” (John Berger. Ways of Seeing, , p 1). The option of
choosing not to see – choosing not to relate yourself is by far the most
powerful, as it offers people the possibility of neglecting what is in
front of them.
The exhibition SUPERPOSITION seeks to emphasise the choice in
our gaze, and reminds us of the processes behind our apparatus for
understanding and when these processes can be influence. When we
look at an image depicting something we can’t recognise and don’t
have a language for, the opportunity for cleansing our reading of that
image from our bias arises.

The urgent discussion of how not to adopt bias from our physical
world into the digital is interesting in this context. Hegemonised
ideas of gender, race, sex and religion is being carried on into digital
algorithms and artificial intelligence without much understanding of
the oppression they hold. Why is this happening when we finally have
the technology to tackle how our history will haunt our future? In the
hope of a fairer future we need more platforms for renegotiation of
our human bias both in psychical and digital space. Some researchers
are suggesting that AI could be our way out of biased decision making,
if used correctly, as machine learning algorithms only consider the
parameters presented for them (Silberg, Jake and James Manyika.
Notes from the AI frontier: Tackling bias in AI (and in humans), , p 2).
Like the digital Colberg’s lenses can possibly be seen as a potential
physical platform for renegotiation of biased readings of the visual.
Through the lenses the camera opens a gap to another world, where
perception can happen in the offset of our binary understanding of
what we already know. This creates the potential for assembling a
new language where people can connect and have a shared sensuous,
aesthetic experience.
References
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing, , 1972, Penguin Books Ltd
Silberg, Jake and James Manyika. Notes from the AI frontier: Tackling bias in AI (and in
humans), , 2019, McKinsey Global Institute

THE NECESSARY ‘BOTH, AND’
Mette Colberg’s material is glass. Nevertheless, her exhibition at
Officinet in the Danish Crafts & Design Association predominantly
consists of photographs created using camera lenses that she casts
in colored glass. In her works and in her practice, she insists on the
value of a dynamic ‘gap’ between static positions. It offers freedom
and opportunity –– and it’s okay if things get a little difficult.
Interview by Kirstine Autzen.
K: Your work for the exhibition ‘Superposition’ consists of photographs
made with colored camera lenses, which you’ve created in your workshop,
mounted onto your camera, and then used to capture spatial models. The
exhibition shows images printed on different media; textiles, paper, and foil,
all closely related to the exhibition space. Tell us about the inspirational
background of the exhibition?
M: The point of departure for the exhibition is the quantum
mechanical phenomenon ‘superposition’ in which a single particle
can occupy multiple places at the same time –– that is, before you
try to document its presence. When you start to measure, it ‘chooses’
one place, a position. The particle exists in what physicists call a
‘superposition’: a state where the particle occupies multiple places at
the same time, and where each of the places has its own probability
for how it likely it is that the particle ends up in that particular space
when a measurement or another disturbance from the surrounding
world makes the particle’s superposition ‘collapse’ into one single
position within the space. When this dynamic is transferred to glass,
you can play with the idea that transparent glass is in a similar kind of
‘superposition’; when you look out of a window, you’re simultaneously
looking at the glass and through the glass. But you will automatically
focus on either looking at it or through it. This creates a simultaneous
presence and absence in the material, a duality, that I’ve been working
with these last few years.

Similarly, the photograph has the same duality; when you’re looking
at a photo the image is very present, and yet, at the same time the
situation itself is gone. In my images, I’m looking for a gap that
contains both presence and absence, lense and motive. A gap where
I capture a bit of both. It’s kind of similar to the hunt for the particle;
I try to capture multiple states in one image.
I use my working process with the glass to decipher and understand
the world. When I came across the superposition phenomenon,
certain pieces fell into place. When I recognize a phenomenon from
glass in other materials and disciplines, it gives me a sense of cohesion
in the world. We all come with our unique perspective on the world
–– ‘optics’ through which we see the world –– because we don’t have
the same upbringing, gender, religion, culture. There are a billion
versions of the reality that I experience. It’s incredibly liberating to
have your own version of reality and your own perspective on reality,
but at the same time, that’s also how conflicts arise. For me, it’s also a
good reminder to work with a ‘both, and’ every day. Opening peoples’
eyes to these thoughts and ideas is an inherent mission in my work.
K: Could you describe your process?
M: I start off by picturing a lens, which makes me see the world in
a way that I can’t see with the naked eye. I begin using a sculptural
approach and I make models in plaster and wax. Then I cast a plaster
mold around the model, melt out the wax, and cast the glass in the
plaster mold. When the casting process is done, I can start grinding,
polishing, and fine-tuning the glass and that’s when the photographic
process begins.
For this project, I was looking for a form of tactility in the images,
and I started out by taking photos of textiles, but the final form of
the lenses have a lot to say in terms of choosing a motive. That’s why
I ended up working with space. I’m never in complete control over

how the photos turn out. Even though there’s a part of me that wants
to control the work from start to finish, I know that it’s in the tension
field where the materials are allowed to work that interesting things
start to happen.
When I started off, the lenses were just tools. Now I understand
that they’re also works of art in and of themselves. They constitute
the foundation of my entire exploration, and that’s why they have a
central role in the finished work as well as in the exhibition. If I take
them out, there’s something missing in the equation. They’re small in
terms of scale, but they have great significance.
K: You grew up in Bornholm and you were educated in Sweden. Can you
give a brief account of your journey to working with glass?
M: Throughout my entire Bornholmian childhood, I’ve been observing
and looking at glassblowers. It was magical how they were able to spin
totally liquified glass - like honey - onto the pipe and blow air into
it: a mix between a great level of control and something resembling
play. Adding to that, I have a strong connection to Sweden because
I’ve completed more than one education there. In Sweden, there’s
a certain pride around glass craftsmanship and they have schools
that educate specifically with the material in mind and on learning
that working with glass is a demanding education –– I couldn’t tell
you how many times my teacher came over and put a hand on my
shoulder to say ‘Patience, patience.’ That’s what it takes.
In time I came to miss an interplay with a more exploratory approach
to glass as a material and in my art education I was fortunate enough
to have professors who were able to empathize with my search. It
turned out to be a huge gift because we could talk about glass as
something other than form and function. It occurred to me how much
glass there is everywhere and what kind of significance it has for
society –– in technology and architecture, for example. It opened my

eyes to things I had previously taken for granted. Glass is an almost
mythical and ordinary material at the same time. There are so many
instances where glass is the reason that we have the things we have
today and can do the things we do. A smartphone has a glass screen,
which makes it possible to see the people you’re talking to, and the
internet runs through fiber optic cables made from glass. It became
a revelatory experience for me and it gave me new perspectives on
my approach and my way of looking at my craft. It heightened my
understanding of artistic craft and the knowledge we accumulate.
You can elucidate and create new perspectives on phenomena through
artistic craft. When I work with my lenses, I disrupt the transparent
glass to make the world more abstract and challenge the senses. I’d
like to challenge the idea that there’s one ‘real’ world that we can
observe. The lenses and the filters function as an obstructing layer
that questions the recognizable.
K: Would you say that the same gap is present in your occupational status
with you being a visual artist as well as a craftswoman? You have a basis
education in crafts, but your postgraduate education was an MFA. Is that
an educational ‘superposition?’
M: I guess you could call it that. It’s definitely a position where I move
in multiple areas simultaneously. I like the spaces between categories
where there’s often a greater degree of freedom. You might have to
fight a little harder and not being able to recognize yourself in a single
discipline can be confusing. I exhibit my work simultaneously within
the disciplines of crafts and visual arts, and I’d like to contribute to
pushing the boundaries of crafts. In the same way, it’s sometimes
hard to convince other people that this is glass art even though
it’s print on paper. To me, it’s obvious that my photographic work
wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the glass. It seems as if there’s a wider
degree of acceptance within visual art even if crafts has developed
substantially as a discipline in recent years. In Denmark, crafts can

have a diminished role, unlike its role in Sweden. Crafts has a very
strong standing there. My dream is that crafts gets that same strong
position in Denmark.
K: Does that change require working in a different way?
M: Maybe you need an attitude that’s a little bit more devil-maycare.
When I was taught to blow glass, the bubbles in the glass were
considered a mistake, but there’s an image in the exhibition, which
has a bubble and in it you can see that a bubble can function as
a tiny lens. Everything depends on the perspective. You have to be
daring and say: ‘I know my craft and I’m brave enough to challenge
it’, without being afraid of being a bad craftsperson. Sometimes the
technical part of the craft can dominate the process to the point that
leaves little room for the conceptual and the artistic.
K: Could that come from a need to get recognition, the wish to be technically
proficient? The recognition also gives you authority and it can provide
a good platform to speak from. If you choose the more unstable position
between categories, that you mention in relation to the images, your position
is more unclear, less safe and you’ll need to fight more?
M: It’s definitely more demanding when your work spans more
categories like it does in my case. However, at the same time I also feel
that there’s a great level of freedom in it. Not to mention a need for it.
It’s important that we don’t just reiterate, we need to find new ways of
approaching and working with the material. Crafts practitioners are a
category of inventors finding new ways of doing things. If you always
aim for the ‘correct’ method in a work process, it could overshadow the
artistic intention, but also the potentially innovative and perspectiveforming
layers that crafts contains and makes it a really exciting field.

Mette Colberg (b. 1981, lives and works in Copenhagen) graduated
from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Schools of Architecture,
Design and Conservation at Bornholm and Konstfack University
College of Arts, Crafts & Design in Stockholm, Sweden. Her work has
been exhibited both in Denmark and abroad since 2006 at exhibitions
such as the Bornholm Art Museum, Cisternerne, Glasmuseet Ebletoft,
Kastrupgårdsamlingen, GlazenHuis, Lommel, Belgium, TALENTE in
Munich, Germany, NAU GALLERY, Stockholm, Sweden and Malmö
Form- & Design Center, Malmö, Sweden. Colberg is included in
collections at The Swedish Arts Foundation, SAK, and in 2018 she
was commissioned to do a public assignment for Region Uppsala,
Sweden.
Text: Anne Thomasen
Interview: Kirstine Autzen
Translation: Ulrik Nørgaard
Installation photos: David Stjernholm
Atelier photos: Kirstine Autzen
Layout: Mette Colberg & Kasper Nørlund
Print: Kandrup Bogtrykkeri
The catalogue was published on the occasion of
the exhibition SUPERPOSITION, 2020.
The exhibition was supported by:
The Danish Arts Foundation
The Danish National Bank’s Anniversary Foundation Of 1968
Grosserer L. F. Foghts Foundation
Knud Højgaards Foundation
Ellen & Knud Dalhoff Larsens Foundation
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