The Secret Guide to Scandinavia’s Nightlife By Jennifer Chan
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Explore Curated Wonders Lounge at Upscale Hotels Meet Authentic Locals Sample Salted Licorice EXCLUSIVE TOURS Story Hotel Studio Malmö Lindner Hotel Am Ku’Damm Berlin Clarion Hotel Stavanger Radisson Collection Royal Hotel Copenhagen Aurum Hotel Skellefteå
B3IG3 presents Rasmus Östebro (SE), “Femme Desires”, 12/1/2018 Story Hotel Studio Malmö, Hosted by TECH2000.
B3IG3 x Rogaland Kunstsenter presents Hanni Kamaly (NO) & Nils Ekman (SE), “Ebb and Flow”, 29/9/2018, Clarion Hotel Stavanger, Hosted by MOIST
Somewhere up north,
The budget travels that came
Scandinavia, a satellite art
many a wonder. For the first
in the clean, quiet streets of show introduces well-adjusted travellers to contempo-
rary art. Its host(ess) is an
artist-turned-flight-attendant with a penchant for make-
up and luxury. Tall, thin and lightly bearded, Andreas
Knag-Danielsen was raised working class, in suburban Norway.
For some years he directed
-and sometimes showed-at a small gallery in Malmo while juggling freelance design
gigs. Easing into his mid-thir-
ties, he grew tired of working hand-to-mouth, and set his sights on becoming a flight
attendant: something practical to earn a livable wage,
varied enough to indulge his vacation fantasies, flexible enough to keep his art practice going.
with his new position ignited time, Andreas experienced fine white sand beneath
his toes, high thread count bed sheets, and waterco-
lour sunsets while sitting on rocky cliffs. Nevermind the
fatigue of jetlag and waiting
for cheap seats; he could be
in Geneva one day, Barcelona the next!
Travelling is a window to a different climate and culture, but the finesse of four and five-star hotel
rooms always impressed him. Andreas realized this was his
thing: self-discovery through travel, dressing up, and art.
He assembled an entourage to help him with check-ins, applied for some grants,
dressed up as drag hostesses giving guided tours to local artworks in hotel rooms.
Attendants dressed in
business casual greet me in front of a tradeshow style
vinyl wall. The foyer is decked out in B3IG3 swag. It’s starting to feel like a fashion
show, except there are no
models, and a super tall drag hostess is parading around
silently. A bowl full of nonde-
“My name is Clickbait. I will fill you with shame, self-loathing, judgment and the feeling that you’ve been robbed of the 10 last minutes of your life.” –Clickbait
script black badges that say
mance, and it’s harkening
shift reception desk. They
between real dolls and early
“Click here” idles on a makeoffer me a handful of papers. There’s some artist statements and a review form. Europeans sure love their paperwork!
“Welcome. To. Beige.”, says
Moist. The utterance is steely and monotonous, like Siri.
A vocoder hangs from her
neck. Her altered voice reverberates through the space despite the lobby’s lush
carpeting. This is a stone cold
hostess. Knag-Danielsen gives a uniformly robotic perfor-
more to the uncanny valley stage robots than Ru Paul’s Drag Race competitors.
She circles the room, extending her long, perfectly mani-
cured fingers to beige faces.
“You… You... You. You.” Travellers, hotel workers and art
world personalities wait obediently in the lobby as Moist chorales groups of four to
six into the elevator–but not until they take press photos
with her in front of the B3IG3 branded photo wall. “This is optional.”, she bleets.
We share a moment of
or interpretive dance in the
swift ride up. She gives an
patiently outside like a secu-
pregnant silence during the autotune monologue about
minimalism, selfies, likes, ev-
erything that could be if you were successful. Everyone
follows her out in single file. She taps her wrist against
a key sensor and flings the
door open. Onlookers enter
silently; it’s not clear whether it’s European consensus or
they don’t know what they’re doing there.
I feel like drinking. Inside, Knag-Danielsen show-
cases imported artistic talent from neighboring countries. Something smells sweet,
pungent...saccharine. Like
Victoria’s Secret perfume. And it is! The artists are
usually white...well, beige.
There’s art on the bed, art
on the ledges, and oh yeah,
art in the bathroom. It could
be a performance in the tub,
bedroom. Our hostess sits
rity guard. People whip their phones out and start taking photos of the space. Tinted
lights give the room an eerie
ambiance. Visitors mutter and
look around as if they entered a cave. Scandinavian guests
are so polite. That time I did a hotel art show, people sat on the bed.
As I’m leaving, our hostess
starts reciting social media
affirmations, again. It appears this avatar acts like a broken record.
“People, always ask me. People always ask me, ‘How do I become B3IG3?’ I say: Embrace technology. Aim for 10K followers but have only 1 real friend. Aspire to be average. Wear polyester. Drink lots of vitamin infused water.”
YOUR HOSTS TECH2000 is a real life embodiment of a weaboo’s fantasy. In another life she could have been a Twitch-streaming sensation. Instead, she’s taking up gigs as an event model. TECH2000 is a retired persona; in hindsight she was kind of basic. She made her first and last appearance at the Story Hotel Studio in Malmö.
PROTEINA is your hostess
at Lindner Hotel Am Ku’Damm in Berlin. Silver bob and nude lip. She wears shoes that appear to be made of bubbling silicon, as if she stepped into a molten lava pit. Her girlish winks remind us of Baby Spice crossed with Natalie Portman in Closer, except in droid form. She may act cute, but underneath there’s a full grown gay man!
MOIST entertains the crowd at
the Clarion Hotel in Stavanger. Like black holes, her eyes command an intrusive stare. She is literally absorbed with herself. MOIST has a twenty minute skin routine to preserve her Elizabethan complexion. Hoho! Other than her good looks, her life’s work is reflected in her neo-camouflage cape bodysuit, crafted from scanned traces of her fingerprints.
YOUR HOSTS
CLICKBAIT is an unfortunate
name for an unlikely, eccentric service character. Ze runs around in a polyester blazer covered with “Click me” silk tags. Aims to look executive, but drones on like a secretary. Ze hides long, gangly tentacular fingers under skintight, PVC gloves. CLICKBAIT debuted at the Radisson Collection in Copenhagen, but it’s not clear whether ze will resurface again.
HIGH DEFINITION is
high-maintenance. They may look like they have a botox regime but their skin is ALL REAL! Their persona is a highly unoriginal blend of their hot friend Pastelae’s “wet look” animation with their own skin-tight dress code. In real life, they’re just a walking green screen bodysuit. Guests have to tune into their livestream to watch them flaunt their animated liquid suit, in high def!
B3IG3 x Sofia Wickman x Gallery Extra presents Johan Lundin (SE) & Christopher Füllemann (CH), “Drag and Drop”, 8/6/2019, Radisson Collection Royal Hotel Copenhagen, Hosted by CLICKBAIT.
“Perfect for the cultured traveller, B3IG3 is one of the most exclusive events to storm the art world.” –JENNIFER CHAN
Escape into Scandinavian luxury with artist-decorated hotel suites in B3IG3, a city-hopping series of one-night installations by artist-turnedflight attendant, Andreas Knag-Danielsen.
Offering private walkthroughs as a drag hostess, Knag-Danielsen presents up-and-coming European talent in hotel rooms. The suite is his gallery; the lobby is his runway, and the elevator his limousine. Ding! Welcome madames: TECH2000, PROTEINA, MOIST, CLICKBAIT, HIGH DEFINITION! B3IG3 is where the party begins, where anybody gets to feel like they’re somebody. It’s pronounced “beige”, by the way.
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