The Office for… 1 September

The publication is accompanied by a video interview with Bringsværd, recorded on 20 February 2025, discussing the story and its strange afterlife:

About the project

The publication was inspired by the Norwegian author Tor Åge Bringsværd’s short story The Man Who Collected the 1st of September, 1973 (Mannen som samlet på 1. september, 1972).

The story, which was first published in 1973, is a fable in which an ordinary man in Oslo becomes obsessed with discovering everything that took place on Earth on one random day, an impossible quest which takes over his life. The story has taken on new resonances in the decades since, as a reflection both on increasing globalisation and the ‘information overload’ engendered by the internet.

Bringsværd’s text also took on an eccentric life of its own, with subsequent translations into English, French and other languages which ‘updated’ the story, changing the date and the events depicted to make them current. The English translation – which altered the date to ‘first of September 1973’ – was also included in a legendary anthology, The Book of Fantasy, edited by Jorge Luis Borges, Adolfo Bioy Casares, and Silvina Ocampo, which popularised it more widely.

OCA’s publication reproduces the original English translation of Bringsværd’s story, alongside newly commissioned responses by Mi You Lesia Vasylchenko and an essay by OCA’s former Head of Programme Mike Sperlinger.

‘The Office for…’ is a new series of OCA events exploring what might be possible if the criteria of ‘contemporary art’ are displaced, temporarily, by alternative frameworks. 

Contributors

Tor Åge Bringsværd (1939–2025, Skien, Norway) was a Norwegian author and playwright. He was a full-time author from his debut in 1967 with the religious history textbook Det står skrevet (Pax). Over the course of his career, he wrote novels, short story collections, essays, non-fiction books, children’s books, picture books, comics and plays, as well as many acclaimed science-fiction books in collaboration with his long-term writing partner Jon Bing (1944–2014). His works were translated into 23 languages, and his plays were performed in 14 countries. Bringsværd served on numerous public boards and committees, including the artistic council at the National Theatre (1980–95) and as ‘Pate’ (godfather) at Die Bonner Biennale (The European Theatre Festival in Bonn, Germany, 1990–94). He received several awards as an author and playwright, including the Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature, the Ibsen Prize, and the Arts Council Norway Honorary Award.

Lesia Vasylchenko (b.1990, Ukraine) lives and works in Berger, outside of Oslo. Her research-based practice spans video, photography and installation, focusing on the intersections of visual culture, media technologies and chronopolitics. She develops speculative terminology such as ‘Tachyon Data’ (Onassis Publications) and ‘Chronosphere’ (Institute of Network Cultures) to critically explore temporality, more-than-human time and technologies of vision. Vasylchenko is the founder of STRUKTURA.Time, an interdis-ciplinary initiative bridging visual art, media archaeology, literature and philosophy. Vasylchenko holds a degree in Journalism from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and a degree in Fine Art from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. Her work has been shown, among others, at the MUNCH Trien-nial, Pochen Biennale and New Visions Triennial (Henie Onstad Kunstsenter). She received the Sandefjord Kunstforening Art Award (2023) and is a PinchukArtCentre Prize nominee (2025). Her works are part of the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art KIASMA / Finnish National Gallery in Helsinki, Finland.

Mi You is a curator and professor of Art and Economies at the Univer-sity of Kassel / documenta Institut, where she leads research on the social, economic and political con-ditions of art. She’s the author of the book Art in a Multipolar World(Hatje Cantz, 2024). As a curator, she works between ancient and futur-istic imaginaries of societies and technologies, and the history, political theory and philosophy of Eurasia. Her most recent exhibitions include the 13th Shanghai Biennale (2020–21), Lonely Vectors at the Singapore Art Museum (2022), Clouds, Power and Ornament at the Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile (2023), and Really? Art and Knowledge in Time of Crisisat Framer Framed (2024). She serves as chair of the committee on Media Arts and Technology for the transnational NGO Common Action Forum and is a Berggruen Institute Europe fellow.

Mike Sperlinger was Head of Programme at OCA, 2024–25. He is currently Professor of Writing and Theory at Oslo National Academy of the Arts. He is the author of Occasional Criticism (2018), a chapbook about site specific film writing, as well as the editor of several publications including Afterthought: New Writing on Conceptual Art (2005) and Here Is Information. Mobilise—Selected writings by Ian White (2016).

Marte Aas is a photographer and film maker based in Oslo. Aas` main area of interest is the intersection between image culture, technology, historiography, and the politics of the landscape. She is educated at The School of Photography, University of Gothenburg and her work has been presented and exhibited internationally including Färgfabriken Konsthall, Kunsthall Trondheim, Center of Photography, Copenhagen, nGbK, Berlin, Henie Onstad Art Center, European Media Art Festival, Anthology Film Archive, NYC, National Museum of Art, Oslo and Kiasma, Helsinki. Aas has published several books and catalogues including Ducks in a Row, 2023, On the Subject of Body and Space, 2013, Cinéma, 2012, Torshovtoppen, 2008 and she is also one of the founding members of the publishing house Multipress. Her works are part of the collection of The National Museum of Art, Oslo, Preus Museum, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary art, Helsinki, Stavanger Art Museum and The Norwegian Parliament among others.