EARTHBOUND - SURFING THE APOCALYPSE

Back in 2008 I relocated from Oslo to my hometown of Tromsø, after 20 years of absence from my roots. The change of location also marked a change in my creative desires, and even though I’ve always liked writing and telling stories, this had up to that point only showed up in short texts on sporadic vinyl releases or concepts behind whatever impulsive work I’d presented through my career.

The decade leading up to the late noughties also had me fascinated by the well of conspiracy theories that flooded the internet at the time. It felt like a lot of people who were not used to apply their creative powers to anything in particular suddenly had a way to express themselves through storytelling based on connecting dots of information, and “play” with reality and history in an unprecedented way.

I found this so interesting that I started writing my own tale in the same manner, using historic events to make up a different angle of perception on everything from religion and geopolitics to music, and created the main character “Vix”, who was a recluse music blogger with one single, mysterious friend called, well, “Mr. Friend”.

I then sent Vix on a mental journey that eventually connected him to a disclosed race into the Arctic by two teams of agent-like types searching for the key to the past.

I posted the story chapter by chapter on the project website, but also made sure there were traces online that somehow could “prove” the existence of Vix and other characters from the story. This made me end up with having to admin a handful of Facebook and Twitter accounts, in addition to having to write Vix’ music blog, and also make all the music he posted under a tenfold of fictional artist names. I also built several installation art pieces that later were exhibited at events connected to the project (see video below).

The story is available as an eBook that you can buy at the link below, and the soundtrack was later released as a compilation CD through Love OD Communications.