Loesje goes underground

The Oslo Sporveier

In November 1997, the Oslo Sporveien decided that it was about time to improve their image and ask the Academies of Oslo to decorate some of their stations with Art. This was triggered off by a student who stuck ceramic salamanders on the walls of some of the stations. It goes without saying that Oslo Sporveier was expecting bronze sculptures or other more permanet decorative works.

Three proposals:

My immediate reaction was to look at the problems within the Oslo Sporveier where one finds a stagnant situation, for which I found three solutions. All three indicate my need for constant change, initiative for the passive traveller and which may result in more innovative mentality.

1. In the five years that I have passed through Oslo, I have been horrified to discover that the center commercial billboards in the four main stations had not changed once. Worst of all 75% of the advertisements consist of promoting health clinics, dealing with body manipulations such as silicon transplants and other bodily improvements. This illustrates Norwegian monopolies and little room for experimentation. It's obvious that the advertising agencies have yearly or more contracts, with little interest to improve or compete against each other.

I phoned these companies and pleaded them to change their ads. They simply replied with ¨the ad works fine and it's too expensive¨. I asked Oslo Sporveier to change the contract s and that it should be made compulsory that all ads must be changed every month. They should allow for younger companies to advertise. There should be a preference for quality of the images and message over money. This would result in a more innovative and dynamic image. It would not cost them anything and would allow for more employment and improve advertising as such.

2. In the passage of the central station between metro directions going east and west there is a long row of diplay windows (10 meter). Within one sees a pathetic attempt at promoting travel by rail. Once again this display has not been changed in the last five years. Possible solutions are to let galleries or commercial companies display their works there.

Both these points where used to introduce the art projects in the meeting between the Art academy and Oslo Sporveien. They indicate a need for change in whatever form, that permanent works rarely apply to the changes in society and that it's necessary to find solutions which follows a dynamic mentality.

3. My third proposal was Loesje Everyday I take the metro, 20 minutes each way and we all know about the impersonal sensations we get when traveling by public transport. It screams for a need for personalisation. It screams for a need to stick your head out of the crowd. In the beginning I started to write very personal little statements on scraps of paper and leave them on the chair for people to read, so they would get the feeling as if someone had by mistake lost a private text to somebody. These texts would sometimes come in form of small thougts about my day, things I want to do, feelings at the time. They would generally be directed at a friend, family, girlfriend.

My aim was to simply continue doing whether someone paid me or not, however when one is offered the possibility for bigger possibilities, I though of Loesje.

One must remember that I would only stay in Oslo till June 1998 and that as soon as I was gone, my messages would stop and there would be no one to talk to the people.

During Chirstmas, I was back in Amsterdam where I found myself smiling to a poster of Loesje. So why not simply hang up Loesje posters instead?

They say what I would like to say to the people, in fact they do a better job and they would be able to continue the work much longer than myself.

Loesje is what I love about Amsterdam and it's that Amsterdam feeling that I miss in Oslo so why not slowly bring in that Amsterdam mentality to Oslo, through Loesje. And slowly Norwegians will write into Loesje and the texts will slowly become more Norwegian.

The projects accepted by Oslo Sporveier

1. Four buses will have their side windows filled half way with water, so the passengers will look at the passing landscape through waves.

2. The wall of one of the stations will be covered by small butterflies

3. The ceiling and part of the tunnel of one of the stations will be decorated with long swirling neon lights.

4. A text with «you go your way I go mine» will be carved on one of the stations.

5. Long strings of light will hang from the ceiling of one of the stations

6. Loesje posters to be hung up in all the carrigages of the Oslo underground for one year.