Artist to film couples having sex at Norwegian music festiva

OSLO (AFP) - Couples are expected to line up Saturday evening at an annual international music festival in Oslo to have sex inside a tent while being filmed by a Korean artist, organizers said.

The artist, Shu Lea Cheang, installed the tent at the Quart music festival, which got underway on Monday, and intends to start filming couples having sex inside it on Tuesday in a fictive search for people to star in a imaginary pornographic movie called "Fluid", Staale Stenslie, the program chief of Norway's National Touring Exhibitions told AFP.

Cheang's film of the search will later be shown at the Soerlandet Kunstmuseum, an art museum in the southern Norwegian town of Kristiansand.

"This is a society-critical exhibit. It's commentary on how we have handled the AIDS epidemic, and it's a bridge between popular culture and art," Stenslie said.

"It's far from pornography. It's about humanity, nakedness and intimacy. Shu Lea is a very serious and respected artist," he insisted.

The "audition" will be open to anyone over 18 who is sober and willing to participate in the film, according to Norwegian news reports.

Cheang is also planning on including a special category for love-making couples over 50. Since most festival participants are younger than that, event organizers have agreed to let couples over 50 willing to participate in the sex project onto the festival grounds for free, Stenslie said.