Jónsi’s VOX at Kunstsilo: Where Voice Becomes Light, Sound, and Spirit
Kunstsilo, the striking contemporary art museum on Norway’s southern coast, plays host to a European premiere that is as visceral as it is visionary. VOX — a powerful, multi-sensory installation by Icelandic artist and Sigur Rós frontman Jónsi — transforms the human voice into a transcendent experience of light, vibration, and scent.
From Sonic Atmospheres to Spatial Immersion
Opening on 30 April, VOX marks Jónsi’s first solo exhibition in Europe outside of Iceland. The project builds on the artist’s longstanding exploration of sensory perception and the metaphysical properties of sound. Known globally for his haunting, falsetto-rich vocals with Sigur Rós, Jónsi has spent the past decade expanding his practice beyond music, into the realms of sculpture, olfactory composition, and digital art.
VOX, originally unveiled at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in Los Angeles, now envelops Kunstsilo’s brutalist interior in a hypnotic choreography of LED light and sonic depth. Four monumental screens pulse with sound frequencies translated from Jónsi’s voice—its raw, acoustic form distorted, enhanced, and at times regenerated through artificial intelligence. The result is a work that is both deeply personal and fundamentally unrecognisable: a disembodied voice rendered as elemental energy.
Sensory Overload and Subtle Grace
“This is not just an exhibition — it’s a complete expansion of the senses,” says curator Karl Olav Segrov Mortensen. “Jónsi invites us into a boundary-defying universe where we are enveloped by vibrations and the earthy scent of roots and botanical essences in an auditory experience. He opens a space where technology, intuition, and nature are interwoven in a way that feels both ancient and futuristic.”
The installation explores liminality on multiple levels. At once spiritual and synthetic, ancient and post-human, VOX challenges traditional definitions of what a voice is — or can be. Within the museum’s silo-like chambers, visitors don’t simply observe the work; they inhabit it. The exhibition foregrounds not only sound but smell, tactility, and space as instruments of communication.
Jonsi Portrait by Paul Salveson
Echoes of Nordic Tradition
While futuristic in execution, VOX is firmly rooted in Nordic traditions. “Through this installation, we witness how Nordic cultural heritage continues to find new forms in contemporary art,” says Kunstsilo Director Maria Mediaas Jørstad. “Jónsi reflects the region’s long-standing engagement with nature, mythology, and existentialism, while pushing the boundaries of how we relate to the sensory world.”
Kunstsilo has quickly established itself as a cultural hub for immersive art. With VOX, it offers an experience that resonates far beyond the visual: a meditative, deeply embodied encounter that speaks to the evolving role of the artist as both storyteller and system-hacker — translating the human condition into signal, scent, and spatial memory.
As Jónsi’s voice becomes vibration, and vibration becomes light, VOX becomes not only a work of art, but a moment of transformation.
Jónsi - Vox, 2023
8 - channel sound installation, speakers, LED screens, fog, scent (Vetiver root, galbanum, angelica root, iris root/ orris, cis-3-hexenol) | Dimensions variable | Duration: 25 minutes | Edition of 3, 1AP | Photo by Jeff McLane | Video by Walker Sayan (Tin Dragon Media) (TBG 25045)
