I usually set up the concept or the "script" to a new piece much like a composer would write out a score before handing it out to be performed. In that sense my practice rarely relies solely on chance or improvisation.
I am interested in the impression of simultaneity and the tensions this creates between the ideas of structured composition and spontaneity. Coming from a musical background, I create translations from one medium to another, in order to understand the parallels between performed and lived experience.
"My practice crosses a range of media, I transform sound and music into visual and physical forms both literally and idealistically through collage, sculpture, painting, installations, and video. This process is also reversed i.e. ideas and objects become the source for audio work."
Growing up in rural Iceland as a teenager in the 80s and 90s, music formed an integral part of Ringsted's daily life and identity. With sound and style borrowed from American East coast trash metal and Tampa bay death metal, he and his friends formed their own fusion of DIY punk within the Icelandic climate.
"Working as a visual artist, I am interested in the concept of auditory memory; how people recall sounds and how this can spark ideas and images and vice versa. This both applies to personal experience and historic events/pop culture. I usually set up the concept or the "script" to a new piece much like a composer would write out a score before handing it out to be performed. In that sense my practice rarely relies solely on chance or improvisation."
In previous works exploring the human/performative element within composition Ringsted has worked with transposing the voice into music and visual representation. In Martin Luther Kings "I have a dream" speech for solo cello, he translated the landmark speech for the cello, the piece was performed live in New York, Berlin, Glasgow and Akureyri. In each performance the audience responded in a manner distinct to their own culture and shared histories; with an understandably strong reception in the U.S.