”Knekt” is a project that deals with wood’s own response to external influences. Six logs of five wooden species have been pressed to breaking point in a 100 tonne hydraulic press where the wood’s own qualities govern the outcome. Here I only have control over how long they are exposed to pressure. Furthermore, the broken trunks are combined into a vertical sculpture. There are strong cracking sounds that I have recorded, and the recordings combined with six tree trunks in each sculpture remove any doubt that the trunks have been found broken in nature.

Trees may appear similar, but after working with wood for several years both in art, furniture production and various carpentry tasks, I see that the species are very different from each other. The project is almost a personal research project to gain more knowledge, while at the same time I want to share the results with others. The project is also a great release, as here it is the wood that controls the outcome, in contrast to furniture production and carpentry where I shape the wood as I wish. This personal liberation combined with the research on wood is the driving force behind this project.

Wood types have different structures of fibers in the trunk, and this affects both how they break visually but also the sound they make when they break, where some break gradually, while others break more abruptly. The five types of wood that I have used are Ash, Aspen, Pine, Birch and Spruce. I place one log at a time in the hydraulic press and press to the breaking point, just before the log breaks completely. The wood then ends up in a stage where you can still see the force needed to break the trunk. The trunks are up to 13 cm thick, and the finished cylindrical sculptures measure approximately 200 x 100 cm.

The audio recordings have not been processed in any other way than that I have taken the original recordings and combined them into one longer soundtrack. Here you hear both the cracking sounds and the background noise from the press. The soundtrack consists of different parts, where some are more intense and others more calm. There are also sections with only sound from one type of wood, and other parts with sound from several types of wood at the same time. Combined, the sound and broken logs removes the doubt of whether the logs was found in nature. It is clear that this was done in a provoked prosess.