Torgeir Husevaag / home / poker

Poker-projects (2004- )

> At the bottom of the pyramid (2009)

> SuperSystematic (2008)

> Poker-drawings (2006 / 2008)

> Conversations (2007)

> Freeze Out II (2007)

> Freeze Out I (2004)

Working with (the card game) poker as a starting-point allowed me to combine several themes I have been investigating in previous projects; mapping, categorizing, playing with language, and generating images by structuring randomness.

Poker has parallels to politics, finance, - every area involving power-struggle or negotiations. It’s a game about communication and psychology, where each player have to confront both his own mind and the dynamics within a group made up of individual personalities with different patterns of behaviour.

There is five basic acts in poker; bet, raise, call, check, and fold. Together they create a quite complex language, since each of these “word” have the potential to change meaning according to the context they are implied within.

A poker-player must change between being an (active) participant, and a (seemingly) passive observer. The participant communicates, tries to direct and manipulate, while the observer read patterns, analyses opponents, and tries to see himself from the outside.

My works based on poker translate these processes into visual imagery; performances focusing on group-dynamics, video and installations use the flow of values, as well as the game-aesthetics as their starting-point (green felt, focused lightning, hands, cards and chips in motion).

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In my drawings the above-mentioned five basic acts of poker (and their consequences) are translated into signs, directions and connections. A language created to describe the use of another language, - that of the game.