Mix :: Experience from arranging events, a short biographical and chronological overview

There is no single and complete overview of what events I've been involved in since the seventies. This page serves, though, as a portal to related pages which may provide some kind of a picture of my experiences.

Earlier in life I decided upon non-common and non-popular cultural expressions. I thought culture evolved as experimental scenes challenged the establishment, and consequently worked mostly with oddities in sub-cultural movements. Here we go:

Concerts and sub-cultural art

From March 1978 until 1981 Hard Rock Kafé staged approximately 50 concerts, of which seven were larger all night events. I used to be a musician, an organiser and a quite visible person at this scene. Then I switched to working with New Age-stuff for Manu-Mu and got my first experience with an extensive programme as The Festival in Trondheim 1980 lasted a whole week.

Thereafter I became engaged in Uffa. While building a new centre we also arranged more than 100 concerts in the years 1982 to 1989, whereof 11 larger all nighters.

From 1984 on I gradually turned from performing to doing sound engineering, paper work and organising the venue. In the mid-eighties one could experiment with (and try out) unusual combinations of expressions in Trondheim. I had the opportunity to work with students of architecture, clothes' designers and people on the new performance art scene, which was evolving at the Trondheim Academy of Fine Art—a lively mixture of stagings including some art installments, multimedia and studio work. I do not have one reference covering my engagements during those years, but some papers were gathered some years later.

Layout and PR

After ten years of voluntary work I got myself some education. New impulses made me leave the punk rock scene, but I was not able to let go of voluntary work for organisations. Since 1978 I had been working on texts and done layout: editing and producing flyers, posters and fanzines.

By 1987 I was thrilled by the new possibilities which computers offered in handling text and layout. At the Trondheim Film Society I got familiar with public relations: My main task was to further heighten the standard of the semester magazine, and we made posters which locally were collectors' items. Besides daily management we also organised film festivals and marked the society's 30 years' anniversary.

Years of voluntary work in Trondheim were coming to an end, I was attending classes at the university but needed new challenges...

Common cultural expressions, new hunting grounds

The studies at the university were interesting but I wasn't ready for all the abstract theory, yet. Earlier on I had been working mainly with sub-cultural expressions. After two years of cleaning and digging ditches in Longyearbyen I was made manager of materials for the standing committee on cultural affairs in Svalbard, where I got the opportunity to work with "common" and popular expressions.

I did sound engineering on anything from karaokish entertainment and mini-gospels at the church to sound on a friendship handball match between Norway and Russia—as well as to work on Eastern European equipment in the Russian settlement Barentsburg. I also filled the position as chief technician for the Sun Week of 97, with responsibility for 20-30 events over five days. In the winter of 1998 I went to the mainland to read some more theory and a get myself a non-practical, non-political and formalized platform.

Back down I studied Cultural Administration at the Telemark University College in Bø. Having relevant first hand knowledge of contemporary cultural history made the theory quite accessible. After a year my money was spent so I began working with youth again. The Youth Team in Ytre Namdal had an interesting multi-vocational project organisation. The tasks were mainly to prevent drug abuse and to manage a youth centre. As much as 85% of the target group was reached through one of our events, and we missed the budget goal for 1999 with as little as 1.5‰. But projects do not last. In the autumn of 2000 I did some work for Theatre Osiris in Trondheim, a small but very popular one-man theatre.

Thereafter I went down South. At the Grimstad House of Culture I co-ordinated the maintenance of technical equipment and prepared house and gear for guest technicians and artists. Approximately 2.300 film screenings each year was a strain on the worn down equipment, but we prepared the house for three short film festivals during my period. We also served anything from the national touring theatre, national pop stars and Ibsen schemes to the Great Garlic Girls and local revues. In my spare time I did some sound engineering again, but most of my energy was needed at work.

Thereafter I sidestepped some before a year as deputy manager of culture and museum in Røyrvik, in the hills bordering Nordland and Sweden; Eventually I got the opportunity to do merely administrative tasks, a role in which I thrived. Thereafter I tried to be the 'creative manager' at the Dairy House of Culture in Odda.

These days, until mid 2010, I'm undergoing a rehabilitation program to reenter professional life outside of the culture scenes.