张思扬
On February 27, 1900, under a cloudy sky that threatened rain, Birkeland ascended to an observatory on Mount Hald to study geomagnetic storms. During a night of barbiturate-induced paranoia, he observed geomagnetic pulsations occurring simultaneously across 44 global events—the aurora borealis glimmered over Norway, and solar winds rippled through every current. The auroras shone for 17 years. In the summer of 1917, during a visit to an old friend, his plane was diverted by interference from high-altitude currents. While waiting, he wandered into an abandoned house atop a mountain. On June 17, he died in Tokyo's Seiyoken Hotel, having consumed 10 grams of barbiturates instead of the recommended 0.5 grams. Beside his bed lay a revolver.
"How to Create the Northern Lights in a Bedroom" enters this story through a fissure in the moments before Birkeland’s death. The eight-channel video installation is projected in a darkened bedroom. These images, heavy, slow, and protracted, create a contemplative "vacuum," seeking to glimpse an inner turbulence. If the aurora borealis is a visual spectacle born of immense energy, then the imagery—blurred nocturnal walks, a hand slowly rolling dice, a weathered doorframe, and pen strokes circling a small tower—focuses on the hidden language in the darkness.
The year 1900 is not just a temporal marker but an epistemological fracture point. The global magnetic storm of that year concealed destructive forces lurking at the edges of sensory perception. Birkeland's imagined nighttime ascent is not a physical trek but a descent into the abyss of his soul, where he touched the precarious boundary between genius and madness, the knowable and the fundamentally unknowable. His death in 1917 became intertwined with the same invisible electromagnetic forces he sought to understand—forces that ultimately propelled his self-destruction.
In the suffocating darkness of the bedroom, fleeting images flash like half-formed memories or ominous portents. The bedroom, a traditionally private and fragile sanctuary, is transformed into a terrain of foreboding, a space resonant with memory, where the boundary between the inner and outer worlds dissolves. It becomes a site of confession and an existential stage.
This work is not conceived as a sentimental commemoration of a historical figure. Instead, it is a poetic meditation on the human condition. By situating these ephemeral images in the bedroom’s infinite darkness, the installation evokes an intimate and introspective encounter, allowing the viewer to experience both the allure of the aurora and the fragility of human existence.
Within this silent magnetic storm, we are invited to reflect on the scientist’s demise and his enduring yet perilous pursuit of the aurora, magnetic fields, and solar winds.
“如何在卧室制作北极光“的叙事源自克里斯蒂安·贝克莱（Kristian Birkeland）——这位挪威物理学家的一生，特别是他那充满争议和谜团的最后时刻。作品尝试以一种诗意的方式，重构一段贝克莱生命中未被记录的旅程：在一次偏航中，他走上了一座山。
1900年2月27日 一个可能要下雨的阴天，贝克莱来到哈德山上的观测站，进行磁暴现象的研究。在一个巴比妥导致偏执症 发作的夜晚，他观测到了在整个地球四十四个事件中同时发生的地磁快速震荡——极光出现在挪威，太阳风暴震动了所有的电流。极光闪耀了17年。 1917 年夏天 在拜访老友的旅程中，他的飞机受高空电流干扰导致了偏航。等待中，他去往了 山顶上一座废弃的老屋。 6月17日 他在东京青训酒店身亡。他服用了10克巴比妥，而不是推荐的0.5克，床头放着一把左轮手枪。
“如何在卧室制作北极光“使用影像从贝克莱死前的一个裂隙切入这个故事，八个通道的影像通过幽暗的投影被安装在一间黑暗的卧室内。这些影像沉重，缓慢，冗长，制造了一片沉思的“真空”——试图窥见内心的某种暗涌。如果说极光是一种在巨大能量冲击下的视觉奇观，那么影像中模糊的夜间行走、缓慢掷骰子的手、破旧的门框、不断围绕小塔画圈的笔迹，它们更注重那些隐藏在黑暗中的语言。它是一次挖掘，一次对个体在面对无法理解的力量时的孤独的呈现，以及对那些微妙地、有时是猛烈地编织我们现实的不可见能量的审视。
1900年不仅是一个时间节点，更是一个认识论的断裂点。那一年发生的全球磁暴，潜藏着破坏性的力量，它们存在于我们感官所能触及的边缘。贝克莱被想象出的夜间攀登，并非一次实际的跋涉，而是一次对他自身灵魂深渊的探访，他触及了一条界线。他在1917年的逝去，与同样不可见的电磁力产生关联，他试图理解的力量最终成为了他自我毁灭的推手。在卧室令人窒息的黑暗中，短暂的影像如同半成形的记忆，或是不祥的预兆般闪烁。卧室，这个通常是私密和脆弱的庇护所，被转化为一处预兆的地形，一个与记忆共鸣的空间，一个内外边界消融之地，并最终成为忏悔的场所和存在主义的舞台。在这无声的磁暴之中，我们被邀请去沉思这位科学家的陨落，以及他对极光，磁场和太阳风暴那份持久而危险的追求。