Mike Sperlinger

I am a British writer and curator, based in Oslo since 2013.

My own studies were in literature and philosophy (my Masters was in Aesthetics & Art Theory) and I’m still interested in how both those fields relate to art – especially when it comes to how visual artists use writing. I have taught theory and writing in several art schools around Europe, including Goldsmiths (London) and the Piet Zwart Institute (Rotterdam).

Before I came to KHiO, I was Assistant Director of LUX (www.lux.org.uk ), a London-based organisation for artists working with the moving image, from 2001-2013. I worked with a huge variety of artists from around the world, on projects ranging from film restoration to publishing, screenings and exhibitions. I have held other positions since, including as Head of Programme at the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (2024-25).

Most of my own writing has been about the intersection between art and film, or art and writing. I’ve written for magazines like Afterall, Dot Dot Dot and Texte zur Kunst, as well as catalogue texts for artists such as Ed Atkins, Ghislaine Leung, Laure Prouvost and Mari Slaatelid. Often my writing has been done in close dialogue with artists and sometimes even as part of artworks. I’ve also edited several books including Afterthought: New Writing on Conceptual Art (2005) and Kinomuseum (2008). Some of my texts are available online here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mike-Sperlinger/publications

A lot of my curatorial work has also been with the moving image, from small salon-style screenings to gallery and museum exhibitions. Recent examples include the exhibition Counterimaginaries (2023) at Tromsø Kunstforening and a congress of international nomadic screening collectives called The Social Life of Film in Copenhagen (2024). But perhaps the curatorial work which has been most important to me personally has been with the artist Marianne Wex (1937-2020), who made an extraordinary photo/collage project about male and female body language in the 1970s. I made three exhibitions with Marianne over the course of a decade, one in the UK and two in Germany.

One of my closest collaborators was the artist, curator and writer Ian White (1971–2013). I now run White’s artistic estate and have done several projects including editing a book of his writing, Here Is Information. Mobilise (2016) and co-curating an exhibition of his artworks, together with Kirsty Bell, at Camden Art Centre (London, 2018). More information can be found on the estate’s website: www.ianwhiteestate.org

What I am working on now / current interests

One of my main interests is film and particularly alternative, experimental moving images. I founded my own non-profit organization in Norway, PRISMS (www.prisms.no), to develop new projects. One recent project I’m particularly proud of is co-founding The Social Life of Film, a combination of congress and film festival, which initially took place in Copenhagen in 2023 but has now taken on its own life as an annual gathering staged in different countries by different hosts.

At the moment, I’m broadly interested in processes of simultaneity, retroactivity and ‘relevance’: how the meaning of an event or gesture can be radically changed when it is considered it in relation to others taking place at the same time (but ‘elsewhere’), or subsequently. I recently edited a small publication for OCA about the Norwegian science-fiction author Tor Åge Bringsværd’s short story The Man Who Collected the First of September, 1973; Bringsværd’s story is partly a fable about what it would mean to try to think about present events from a truly global perspective – but the story itself also has a bizarre publishing history, in which translators often updated the story and its contents to correspond with the moment of its translation. A very different example: I’m currently researching the work of the Iraqi artist Rashad Salim, who was once a crew member of the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl’s Tigris expedition (1977-78) but who has recently returned to develop more grassroots form of boat-building in Iraq; his work forces us to completely reexamine inherited ideas of archaeology, ‘exploration’ and internationalism, for example, from a non-Eurocentric perspective.

I’m also working on a book about what I call ‘occasional criticism’, which is to say film writing which takes into account the occasion and circumstances of watching a film, as much as the film itself. That has meant exploring oblique connections between some very different kinds of film criticism and filmmaking –Dorothy Richardson, Roland Barthes, Samuel Delany, Yoko Ono, Fatou Åsbakk, TV blooper shows etc. – as well as some unfashionable currents in philosophy like ‘occasionalism’ and sophism.

Pedagogical approach and expectations of students

I am not a main advisor, but I do a lot of tutorials – they are an important way for me to get to know you and your practice in more depth. You are always welcome to sign up for a tutorial to talk about anything you are currently thinking about or working on (it doesn’t need to be writing- or theory-related). And if you would like to meet but don’t see any tutorials advertised, just drop me an email and we will find a time.

In terms of my seminars: these are normally based around a particular topic or question, and involve a combination of reading, lectures, exercises and discussions. My courses will be planned so that you know in advance what is expected of you and assignments of reading/writing will be relatively short, so you have time to work on them alongside your other courses and studio work. In return I ask you to come to class punctually (and to let me know in advance when you cannot attend), to do the required reading (even when it is challenging), and to try to be an active part of discussion in class.

I teach mostly in English, but I speak some Norwegian too. At school we are often speaking in a second language, as well as reading texts which are difficult. My seminars are not about mastering the texts we look at, but rather finding ways to approach unfamiliar ideas in honest and creative ways, as artists rather than theorists – come prepared to share questions, doubts and speculations.