HEDONIC TREADMILL

Magnus Myrtveit & Andrew Read

Friday 26.06 20:00-22:00

Hedonic adaptation is a process or mechanism that reduces the affective impact of emotional events. Generally, hedonic adaptation involves a happiness "set point", whereby humans generally maintain a constant level of happiness throughout their lives, despite events that occur in their environment The process of hedonic adaptation is often conceptualized as a treadmill, since one must continually work to maintain a certain level of happiness. Hedonic adaptation can occur in a variety of ways. Generally, the process involves cognitive changes, such as shifting values, goals, attention and interpretation of a situation. Further, neurochemical processes desensitize overstimulated hedonic pathways in the brain, which possibly prevents persistently high levels of intense positive or negative feelings. The process of adaptation can also occur through the tendency of humans to construct elaborate rationales for considering themselves deprived through a process called "abundance denial".

Andrew Read is an Australian-born artist working between Melbourne and Berlin. Encompassing a range of material outcomes, including painting, sculpture, video, photography, and installation, Read uses his practice to playfully scrutinize the everyday language and images which shape our perceptions of the world, of one another, and of ourselves. Read graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2015. Selected exhibitions include: Breaking the habit of being yourself, Disorganised Gallery, Melbourne (2020); Soft Limit, DAVID, Melbourne (2019); Pictures & Words, Bus Projects, Melbourne (2019); I like Anything, Tans Martial Arts, Melbourne, (2018); A Billion Bucks, The Honeymoon Suite, Melbourne (2016); Material Image Solutions, Fort Delta, Melbourne (2015); Habitat, CalArts Student Gallery, Los Angeles (2015) and Reciprocal Failure, Goodtime Studios, Melbourne (2014). In 2015 Read was shortlisted for the Majlis Travelling Scholarship. Read was also the co-director of the artist-run space, DAVID, in Melbourne (2018-2019). Magnus Myrtveit (1989) is an artist based in Oslo. Magnus is the founder and director of the Scandinavian Institute of Culture, currently in the form of an exhibition space managed from a 28-foot sailboat in Oslo, Norway until September 2020, or whenever another space or funding is acquired. The form of the Institute may change based on the amount of cultural capital acquired, or molded by resistance to outside pressure, and as such, the only function of the Institute is to survive. Magnus’ work references temporality, autonomy, materiality, history, the banality of modernity and humor. Magnus holds an MFA from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. K4 Galleri is an artist-run gallery space for video art and moving image based in Oslo. K4 Galleri is supported by Arts Council Norway.